The St. Luke staff is committed to serving members, guests and the greater community.
How can we serve you?
Staff Directory
The St. Luke staff is committed to serving members, guests and the greater community.
How can we serve you?
Rachel goodman
Parish Administrator
In the church office Rachel greets members, visitors, and callers to St. Luke, responding with grace and welcome to all. Some duties include: providing administrative support to staff, team leaders, and Grins & Giggles Preschool; preparing the worship materials for Sunday and
special services; coordinating the use of church facilities and maintains the church calendar; maintaining member records, including baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and deaths, and preparing applicable certificates in an on-line database, Parish book, and member file cabinet; compiling the annual report for St. Luke and
preparing the annual report to the Synod; providing tech support
to staff and acting as liaison with external tech support; and a
myriad of other tasks.
Rachel lives in Groton with her husband and two children. She has her bachelor's degree in communications and master's in elementary education. She is excited to be a part of the team at St. Luke.
Email Parish Admin (ParishAdmin@stlukegf.org)
Gina Williams
Director of Music and Worship Technology
Gina Marie Williams is the Director of St. Luke's extensive music program. She also oversees the Technology Team.
With Gina's music program, she leads the choir at St. Luke. She also leads multiple adult handbell choirs and children handbell choirs. She puts together concerts and musical performances for regular and special services. She also works with musicians and choirs throughout the community to collaborate for musical celebrations.
The Technology Team of St. Luke is in charge of live stream, projection, and audio for regular and special services. Gina creates the projection and live stream slides and leads the tech team in running these programs for worship.
Gina lives in Ledyard and has four grown children.
Email Gina (gina@stlukegf.org)
Diane Hansen
Bookkeeper
As the bookkeeper, Diane is responsible for the bookkeeping and accounting functions of the church. A few of her responsibilities are as follows: Process vendor payments, post revenue as recorded by Cash Receipts Clerk, post expense of automatic bank withdrawals, prepare church payroll, process monthly tax deposits, process and monitor credit card activity on a monthly basis, compile church records for annual financial audit, participate in preparation of proposed annual budget, and other financial duties as required by Financial Support Team Chairperson. And the list goes on of all that Diane can do!
Diane joined St. Luke Lutheran Church in 1983. She raised her three sons, Kristian, Karl and Kurt Balinski in this congregation. Granddaughters Emilee Balinski and Hailey Salen are baptized members of St. Luke.
Email Diane (dianeh@stlukegf.org)
Katie Kenney
Communications Coordinator
As the Communications Coordinator, Katie manages the St. Luke website, social media accounts, midweek updates, and more! If you need to be added to the St. Luke email list or have any events through the church that you need promoted on social media or in the surrounding community, updates for the website, or pictures to share, please email Katie and she can assist you!
Katie joined the St. Luke Lutheran Church team in the spring of 2023. She is currently the Marketing and PR Lead at the Mystic & Noank Library.
Email Katie (communications@stlukegf.org)
Nancy Rupert
Grins & Giggles Preschool Director
After retiring from Waterford High School, Nancy opened ‘Grins & Giggles Playschool’ at the Tower Street Community Center in Westerly, Rhode Island where she operated that program for four years.
When Nancy served on the Transition Team gathering information to write the profile for the new perspective minister, many members of the congregation expressed their wish to have more young families join our church. She saw this desire as an opportunity to offer her preschool to the St. Luke community. After a year of going through the licensing paperwork, St. Luke Grins & Giggles Preschool opened its doors in September 2014.
She is very excited to have been a part of this mission within St. Luke Lutheran Church!
Email Nancy (nqrup1926@gmail.com)