Susan Scott was called to be the Interim Pastor of Raleigh Mennonite in August 2025. She began attending RMC in November 2021 when she retired to North Carolina to be near family, after having served as pastor of three churches in New England.
Susan first sought out RMC on the recommendation of a friend in Boston who knew the then-serving pastor. Despite being an ordained United Church of Christ pastor, she decided to take her friend’s suggestion and showed up at RMC and never left. She has enjoyed drinking from a different stream of Christianity and being enriched and deepened by that. In addition to her training as a pastor, Susan is also qualified as a spiritual director.
Susan was raised in upstate New York, went to Boston to study (Boston University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) and stayed for fifty years. She misses being in a walkable community but delights in not shoveling snow. And, best of all, she now lives ten minutes from her new granddaughter.
In her down time she devours books and enjoys experimenting in the kitchen.
Melissa Rogati stepped into the role of Children and Youth Ministry Coordinator in the fall of 2023. Prior to that she spent nearly two decades working for Young Life in the Caribbean and also served as Sunday School Coordinator for St Thomas Reformed Church in the US Virgin Islands. While living in Asia for her spouse’s job, Melissa and her family planned a month-long backpacking trip for the 2020 Lunar New Year break, but the pandemic sparked a shift in plans two weeks into the trip. What they thought would be a a few unplanned weeks “vacationing” with friends in California turned into an unexpectedly permanent move to the US, which is how they found their way to Durham, NC.
Melissa was raised outside of Atlanta, Georgia and studied child/human development at the University of Georgia. (Go Dawgs!) Although she grew up in the United Methodist tradition, her faith life outside of the US also brought her into the congregations of Anglican, Reformed, and Congregational churches. She found her way to Anabaptist traditions, and specifically Raleigh Mennonite, in a search for traditions that emphasized non-violent atonement theologies, which are directly linked to her approach toward children and youth within the Christian faith.
In her spare time, Melissa continues to de-lawn their home in Durham, claiming as much of it for garden space as her landlord will allow. She’s an avid reader and enjoys painting and writing, with the hopes of one day publishing middle grade novels. And despite a complete lack of childhood athleticism on her own part, she has become an accidental sports mom to two daughters, spending weeknights and Saturdays watching soccer, gymnastics, horseback riding, and swimming.
