Meet our Lay Team!
Sharon Anderson:
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Order by alphabet last name:
Sharon Anderson
Lowell Battcher
Laureen Hill
Emily Rustad
Sharon has been a member of St. Philip's since 2006. Her family joined St. Philip's because it is welcoming and committed to carrying out the Gospel call to help those in need. In addition, the sermons were based on the Bible, with applications for life today. She is currently a science faculty, administrator, and advisor at Cal State Monterey Bay (1998-present) and previously was working at Michigan State University (1989-1997). She is currently enrolled at Luther Seminary online MDiv program starting the fall of 2026.
Sharon felt the call to preach because she enjoys both the spiritual and academic aspects of preparing of sermon, and she feels a call to share her faith with others. As she prepares each sermon, she prays that God will giver her words that will help others find a stronger and deeper relationship with and trust in the Lord. She enjoys preparing the sermon and digging deeply into all aspects of all of the readings and their context, reading related commentaries, and discussing with others.
Emily Rustad:
Emily started coming to St. Philip's regularly in 2019, not long after she moved to the Central Coast after graduating with her PhD from UC David. However, the first time she would have come to St. Philip's would have been when she would come and visit her grandparents and her uncle's family in the early 2000s as a teenage. At the time, her and her family lived in Michigan and they lived across the street from St. Philip's and were members. When she moved to the area more than 15 years later, she was excited to be able to be a part of St. Philip's as well. Emily is currently a professor at Hartnell College in Salinas, where she has taught agriculture since 2018. She started teaching at Hartnell shortly after receiving her PhD in Plant Pathology.
Emily was helping out with preaching even before we moved to having primarily lay leaders and has always enjoyed being able to give sermons. She loved being able to share her interpretation of scriptures with others and to hear their takes on scripture as well. She thinks that her experience as a profess has helped in terms of making her more comfortable with public speaking (and vice versa, her preaching has perhaps made her a better teacher). She likes being able to think more deeply about scripture and to share her thoughts with others. Even stories that we have heard many times before can be seen in a new light each time we read them and getting to share her perspective with others is truly a privilege. She feels connected with God and the community when she is developing and delivering a sermon, and is always grateful to have the opportunity to do so.
When did you come to St. Philip’s?
Lowell Battcher:
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Laureen Hill
Laureen and her husband, Mica, started attending St. Philips in early 2024 after they moved back to the area and started looking for a church home. They officially joined as members in 2025. Laureen is currently working for California Lutheran University as the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer and started her work there in late 2024 after serving over three decades in academic medical practice and healthcare leadership.
When she was asked to become a lay preacher, she said yes because she had spent her life teaching medical students, residents and fellows and she felt that was a good basis from which to share the message with our congregation. Laureen is enjoying her service in this capacity because it requires much more time in the Word than she had previously spent and she learns a lot about the history, culture, geography and people of Biblical times in her preparation. She is not a Biblical scholar but she hopes her love for learning and how to apply the lessons comes through in what she is able to share on Sunday mornings!