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Leadership
Rev. Travis Winckler
Pastor
Travis joined Second Presbyterian Church in January of 2018. He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and serves on the faculty of the United Church of Christ’s Next Generation Leadership Initiative that equips, energizes, and empowers younger local church pastors to build vibrant congregations. Travis comes to Second Church after serving congregations in Indiana, New Jersey, and New York City, including Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. He has served as a chaplain in a psychiatric hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, participated in the Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford program (Oxford, UK), and studied ethics, theology, and public policy while working on Capitol Hill through the National Capital Semester for Seminarians program in Washington DC.
Rev. Travis is an Engle Fellow with Princeton Seminary’s Joe R. Engle Institute of Preaching and currently serves as the moderator of the Dismantling Racism and White Privilege team of the presbytery of Giddings Lovejoy. He is a certified Pastoral Care Associate through the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) and holds certification as a Working Genius facilitator with the Table Group. Committed to fostering relationships and building community across the lines that usually divide us, Rev. Travis co-directs the Guns to Gardens initiative in St. Louis and has received training in broad-based community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation.
A noted speaker, teacher, and leadership coach, Rev. Travis has served as a panelist at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. He has taught as a guest lecturer on theology and pastoral ministry at Saint Louis University, and serves as a staff consultant for Ministry Architects. Travis, his wife Emily, and their two sons live in the Tower Grove East neighborhood. He can be contacted at: 314-367-0366 and travis.winckler@secondchurch.net.
Staff
Members of the Session
The governing body of a Presbyterian Church is called the Session. It is made up of the Pastor plus the elders in active service. Second Presbyterian has twelve active elders divided into three classes. New elders are elected each year, by the congregation, to replace those whose term has expired. Once ordained, one is always an elder – either active or inactive. The Session has authority over all organizations within the local church. The Clerk of Session is nominated and elected by the session annually.
