Christ Church Rochester’s Annual Meeting 2026
AGENDA
Welcome: from the Wardens- Deb VanderBilt & Val Jutsum - Deb is M.C.
Introduction of Carl Del Buono (Director of The Company Theatre), Chris Nuccitelli (director of A Meal and More), Chef Julie, and Brad Hurst (Security for a Meal and More)
Elections: from the nominating committee
For Vestry (3-year terms): Fred Scipione (1st term), Shirley Ricker, Kristy Liddell (2nd term)
For Warden (2 year term): Val Jutsum (2nd term)
Thanks to those completing their previous terms! John Fields, Shirley, Kristy, and Val.
4. For Delegates to Diocesan Convention on October 24th 2026: Emmarae Stein, Fred Scipione, Val Jutsum,
and alternate: volunteer still needed
Unless there are objections, a single slate will be voted on by the parish.
Presentation of the 2026 Budget: Norm Geil & Meg Love
Music Report: Stephen Kennedy and Andrew
Search Committee Report: Meg Love
Warden’s Report: Val Jutsum
Volunteer/participation opportunities at Christ Church: Committee leaders: Deb VanderBilt
THE WRITTEN REPORTS
Budget: Page 2
Music: Page 5
Warden's Report: Page 8
Volunteer/participation opportunities: Page 10
Preference Sheet for Lenten Group: Page 11
BUDGET
MUSIC
Christ Church Music Program Report for Annual Meeting
Submitted by Stephen Kennedy, Music Director January 25, 2026
Christ Church Rochester
A common refrain from those who attend liturgies at Christ Church is of how people experience solace, joy, and inspiration from music at Christ Church. They say how music in our liturgies is essential -- how it touches and transforms them. Clearly, our parish music program brings about positive change, harmony, and balance in people’s lives. Borne out of the weekly rhythm of practice, pedagogy, and performance, music at Christ Church feeds the mind and spirit of our parish, the Rochester community, and beyond.
An example of this is that a community member who attends Compline regularly was inspired to donate $20,000 to the parish in May 2024. She wrote that “It’s really the least I can do, given how I feel about Compline. Your “outreach” to me, in the form of Compline, now constitutes my church affiliation. It’s a purely spiritual practice that is an anchor for my weekends.”
At Christ Church, our historic building, liturgical heritage, acoustics, and partnership with a leading music school and the pipe organs they have provided us with result in this unique program.
Music being fundamental to our parish life is also our biggest outreach to the greater community and helps grow our parish. For many, Compline, Tuesday Pipes, and our Candlelight Concert Series have become an indispensable part of their lives.
New and notable accomplishments in our program from 2025
Our Schola Cantorum YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@stephenkennedy3572
has 210 subscribers from around the world with 26,194 views. If you are a parishioner, please consider subscribing as well.
Uploaded 6 more video/audio recordings to our Schola YouTube channel
Our “Mail Chimp” marketing platform for group email blasts about Christ Church music events has 397 subscribers. If you are a parishioner, please consider subscribing as well.
Our Christ Church Choir gained 2 new volunteer members (each new to the parish)
Our VanDelinder Program for training Church Organists/Music Directors (funded by Roy E. VanDelinder’s gift through the Rochester Community Foundation) is thriving with James Jeffery and Dominic Fiacco as VanDelinder Fellows
James Jeffery composed a well-crafted and inspired setting of the Sanctus that he directed several times in our Eucharists
We commissioned Choral Scholar Caleb Meyerhoff to compose a setting of Psalm 118 which will be performed in our current season
Former Schola assistant director Jon Madden composed and dedicated two new anthems to our Schola Cantorum (both recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel
Our Schola Cantorum of 43 singers and 10 instrumentalists performs the Office of Compline to a nearly full congregation each Sunday night at 9:00pm. Compline’s diverse congregation that nearly fills the church each Sunday night includes people of all ages. Many of these declare Compline to be their principal church affiliation.
The Schola Cantorum is also a credited course at the Eastman School of Music.
Candlelight Concert Series precedes Compline on first Sundays at 8:30pm and is one of our most visible musical outreach opportunities to the Rochester community. Many of these attendees contribute
generously to our Friends of Music Fund.
Needs and opportunities:
We need helpers and hosts for Compline receptions on first Sundays of the month (October through April.) These receptions grow our parish! They are the place for our Compline congregation to meet and greet and connect with CC parishioners. This is an invaluable and important outreach activity that grows our parish. Without more volunteers to host receptions, we may be forced to cancel this vital and enriching activity.
We need more ushers and candle-lighters for Compline. Please contact Vestry member Jim Ford if you are interested.
The Christ Church Choir wants you to consider joining us. Please contact Stephen Kennedy.
MUSIC PROGRAM STAFF
PARISH ORGANISTS:
James Jeffery, Assistant Organist & VanDelinder Prize Dominic Fiacco, VanDelinder Fellow
(Roy E. VanDelinder Fellowships & Prize funded through the Community Foundation)
Stephen Kennedy, music director David Higgs, associate organist William Porter, associate organist
SCHOLA CANTORUM ASSISTANTS:
Thatcher Lyman, assistant director Charles Francis, organist
PARISH CANTORS:
John Kirkpatrick, Thatcher Lyman, and Joshua Bassette
CHORAL SCHOLARS: (for the Christ Church Choir)
Caroline Barata, Amilia Harkey, Liliana Mann, Caleb Meyerhoff, Maya Watters, Daniel Perez (Eastman/Christ Church Choral Scholar) and Mary Reins
ENSEMBLE MEMBERS
CC CHOIR VOLUNTEERS:
Thea Cleaveland, Joan Hunt, John Kirkpatrick, Kristy Liddell, Kyle Liddell, Kristina Niemiec, Lloyd Peasley, Lisa Pigut, Glenn Porter, Andrew Shelton, and Sonja Shelton
SCHOLA CANTORUM SINGERS:
Caitlyn Babcock, Mark Ballard, Joshua Bassette, Kate Blaine, Kennah Brackett, Michael Brown, Remington Collins, Benjamin Coudriet, Abigail Crafton, Evan de Jong, Jack Earnhart, Dominic Fiacco, Isabel Granger, Amelia Harkey, Greg Hartline, Camden Hulsey, Jimmy Jeffery, John Kirkpatrick, Adil Koprulu, Emily Krasinski, Carson Landry, Abigail Liebegott, Thatcher Lyman, Liliana Mann, Katherine Marx, Sarah McConnell, Andrea McGaugh, Professor Honey Meconi, Caleb Meyerhoff, Hannah Richardson Miller, Jessie Miller, Amanda Renée Mole, Alana Muniz, Jasmine Ngai, Johannes Opfermann, Alexandra Palma, Hans Rinderknecht, Leah Rosenman, Andrew Schep, Amy Steinberg, Lydia Worboys, Alden Wright, and Michael Yassick
SCHOLA INSTRUMENTALISTS: sackbut players, organist, cellist and serpent player
Caleb Albrecht, Talia Berenbaum, Danny Bolaños, Benjamin Doane, Charles Francis, Charles Hibschweiler, Jacob Lytle, Ethan Pound, Talia Berenbaum, Logan Wadley,
Further information about our program
CHRIST CHURCH CHOIR (22 members: 12 volunteers, 7 Choral Scholars, 2 VanDelinder Fellows, and director) This ensemble sings parts of the 11:00 a.m. Sunday Liturgy. This auditioned choir builds upon a long tradition of musical quality through a broad variety of musical styles. Repertoire includes Gregorian Chant and motets from the Renaissance to the present day. Membership is drawn from parishioners of Christ Church, students from the Eastman School of Music, and individuals from the Rochester community. Rehearsals are on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., as well as on Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. This choir is active from September through Pentecost Sunday. We are looking for more parishioners and community members to join us in making music. Please contact Stephen Kennedy.
SCHOLA CANTORUM
“The Christ Church Schola Cantorum... sings beautifully.” Fanfare magazine. Founded in 1997 by Stephen Kennedy, the Schola performs the Office of Compline each Sunday evening from October through April at Christ Church in Rochester NY. Rochester Magazine called it “The coolest, most unusual music experience in the city...” Participation in the Schola is offered for course credit at the Eastman School of Music. Recordings by the Schola are sold internationally and you can watch and listen to us on YouTube. This acclaimed ensemble brings notoriety to our parish and provides special formation for future leaders in music. Alumni of the Schola go on to hold prominent positions in major churches, institutions of learning, orchestras, and ensembles.
COMPLINE (Performed by the Schola Cantorum) This large and faithful congregation consists mostly of people from outside the parish. However, there are always newcomers present each Sunday night. The plate offering of about $4,000 annually is given to the parish’s general operating budget. Many of Christ Church’s new members had their first experience of Christ Church from attending Compline.
COMPLINE USHERS AND CANDLELIGHTERS
We are incredibly thankful to our team of ushers and candlelighters who perform the essential duties and see to the functioning of Sunday night Compline. These people make Compline possible each Sunday night at
9:00pm (Oct. through April). Please consider joining this great team.
CANDLELIGHT CONCERT SERIES (*Concerts funded by Christ Church “Friends of Music Fund”)
Concerts precede Compline on first Sundays of the month at 8:30pm
TUESDAY PIPES: is a weekly 25- minute pipe organ concert series on Tuesdays from 12:10. Performers are ESM students, faculty, and invited guests. This is another outgrowth of our parish collaboration with the Eastman School of Music’s organ department.
WARDEN’S REPORT
David and I were invited to have dinner out with our son Ian, his wife Johanna, and her parents and her godparents and one of their sons, Jake. The conversation landed on what we were doing with our lives. These are really interesting, engaged, and accomplished people and so this conversation wasn’t a menu of their day to day activities. It was about what those activities meant. It was about the passions that defined the themes that animated their choices, and how satisfied they were with it all. When we got to Jake he talked about an enrichment program that he had started in various public elementary schools in the county. The program partnered 1st graders with adult volunteers for 1 on 1 play for an hour a week. Ultimately, he said, he saw his calling, as it were, to create community in as many ways he could. I practically jumped out of my chair. “Me, too!” I proclaimed. It is what we, here at Christ Church, are all about.
We are in the world, the society at large, Jesus said, but not of the world. The society at large is transactional. Value is all about making deals and weighing our options. Success is measured in terms of how big and how much.
What we are doing isn’t transactional. We have new people come to share holy food in our holy space, mostly every Sunday. Some come again, some occasionally, and some, every week. They become part of who we are. They make us better just by being here and being themselves. One of those people is Jackie who made the banner, at the front door, that invites people to join us. There are musical notes dancing across the image. Those are the notes of a worship song, “All are welcome”. She put it on there so that we could proclaim that truth musically.
That is one of the things we give away. We give away music that inspires. We give away space to learn, practice, and play that music. We give away space to feed people who are hungry. We give away beauty to people who hunger for spiritual satisfaction, to those who share our space and time in history, our neighbors, those who use the garden, those who come to compline and the candlelight concerts, those who come to Tuesday pipes. We give away LEGO® and a place to support families through play. We know that the way to have something is to give it away.
Two Sundays ago we had leftover cake from the 12th Night. We also had a deeply moving conversation during the coffee hour about freedom from fear in the face of evil. After everyone left, but before going up to the LEGO® club, I found myself sitting on a pew in the choir section looking up through this beautiful space, which we made beautiful, to the chancel, and taking it all in. Then I looked down at the piece of white cake in my hand. I felt overwhelmingly grateful because we live in a castle and there’s cake.
Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away, now. I can do all things through God who strengthens me. We have more than enough.
We have no idea how amazing we are, each one of us and all of us. We are right here next to that thin vail between the seen and unseen. How are we doing? Rest assured that God is here and will be and do all in all. Use your sanctified imaginations to embrace this truth. All is well, and all will be well. And all manner of things will be well.
We have done wonderful things together this year. But, it feels a little disingenuous to paint a picture that doesn’t include the sadness and horror we are feeling after finding out that another human of immeasurable worth was gunned down, literally, on the street in Minneapolis, yesterday. So we’ll sit with that a moment.
We have lived through some amazing things. Remember when you were a kid and you studied the Great Depression? How about the plague? What about the rise of Aryanism, with a y? Though Arianism with an I is also horribly wrong. Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that you would experience all these things in your life time?
I wondered, as a child, how would I react if I were living then. So, how will we react, now? As I seek guidance in my own conversations with God, I feel called to imitate Jesus. Trust our Heavenly Father. Build community. Do the good thing that my hand falls on. Bring my “A” game to everything, everyday, every moment. Be like Mary and say yes to God.
I have heard the justification for the acceptance of evil that calls itself christian, as, this is what must take place to bring about the return of Jesus and the end of this age. This kind of thinking is, imho, why expletives are useful. We are not going to force God to end history by behaving badly. But for all of us, this age will end at the moment of our death.
We have all that we need to be Christ’s Church in Rochester. God is more than enough. We live in a castle and there’s cake.
About the technology of giving
There are many ways to be generous in giving to Christ Church Rochester. You can visit our websites everyday. The result will be that when people are searching for a church we will come up first. You can use our website to make your pledge or just spontaneously give when you’ve had a good day and you feel the power of God taking care of you. You can use your tech, phone computer, iPad, to get the Sunday bulletin or watch a service that is on YouTube. This includes compline. Listening while you are paying your bills or building LEGO® will enhance the experience and refocus you. You can find out what’s happening at church this week or in the upcoming weeks.
We have 2 websites- The CCR website and the older newsletter website- The Song.
The action of people taking interest and going to your website is called traffic.
Traffic this past year (2025)
Our Website- 19K + 23% yr/yr: visits. And 33K +26% yr/yr : page views
SONG- 6.8K +28% yr/yr: visits. And 9.2K +25% yr/yr: page views
YouTube channel: views-6,135 +10% yr/yr Subscribers - 316
LET’S BUILD TOGETHER
is the name of the LEGO ® building club which meets every Sunday from 1-3:00 in the Sunday School Room. In the past year, 50 different builders of various ages have joined us, often with parents or grandparents accompanying. LEGO ® building is all about creativity, joy, imagination, and cooperation. We are grateful to have this place where we can try to bring these values into play( literally)! We are always interested in welcoming new builders. And, we also welcome donations. Thank you.
Volunteer Opportunities
Christ Church needs volunteers to make everything work well. If everyone said “yes” to ONE volunteer opportunity, it would ease the burden on others who do more than one. So please think about whether you can commit to one of these high need areas, many of which are just once a month, and some are just once a year!
HIGH NEED Volunteering opportunities:
1. Be in charge of ONE
compline reception
a year, after the 1st Sunday concert/compline service,
any month between October and April.
2. Usher for compline ONE Sunday a month
, from October to April. Ushering for compline means coming early, lighting some candles, and standing at the back to help anyone who needs directions to the bathroom, etc. No actual “ushering people to seats” required!
3. Usher for the 11:00 service once per month.
Nothing has a greater impact than greeting people new to CC. And you will have a partner so you won’t be alone on the job.
4. Be an altar server once per month.
Assist with simple jobs during the service, and you’ll have support from other acolytes. Cool clothes (cassocks & cottas!) come with this opportunity.
5. Wash altar implements (Holy Dishes) after service once per month.
This is a task that takes only 20 minutes.
6. Volunteer to be a CC Social Media "scheduled contributor."
There will be an email coming out next week explaining what this means. Short version: you will send a photo or other kind of “what’s happening at CC” item to the team who posts to the CC Facebook and Instagram. You can choose your own schedule—once a week, once a month, once a season, etc. Respond to the email if you want to be a contributor.
7. Join a new "Taskforce on Alternative Revenue Sources for CC."
This is a new committee that will be formed in February, led by Jeremy Cooney. He is looking for 4 other people who will brainstorm and research ways that CC can increase its revenue besides pledges from the congregation. There will be an email inviting participants next week.
Please talk to Val or Deb
if you are willing to do one or more of these volunteer activities, or if you need more information about them. You will find that each of these activities is super rewarding in its own way!
IN MEMORIAM
Steve Hart, Steve Remy, Virginia Rockwell, William Petersen, and Trina Mercado.
A LIST OF THINGS WE DID- THE SLIDE SHOW
We commissioned a search committee for the new rector.
Bishop Kara came for the first time and at that visit eight people were confirmed into our community.
We had a Twelfth Night service which was stunningly beautiful and we gave it freely to the community.
Sue Parmerter was baptized
We had two inauguration events, twin devotions. The first was based on Yoko Ono’s “cut piece” a performance called Do not look away. It incorporated a meditative kind of deep listening.
We also had peaceful reflections which we opened to the community for their Experience of contemplation, centering relief, and emotional safety. We did that with the help of Grace Browning and her husband Benjamin Krug. Grace plays the harp for the RPO. Ben plays cello.
We began a new year adding Jim Ford to the vestry.
The Rev. Dr Julianne Buenting became our Interim Rector.
We continued to have compline every Sunday night.
Julianne led us in exercises preparing us for our search.
We continued to have monthly candlelight concerts.
We had a Shrove Tuesday potluck which also included pancakes.
We had a Lenten soup and theology series.
The “Let’s Build Together” group went on a field trip for the leader’s birthday.
The Rev. Joel Wilber joined us as a deacon as a part of his preparation for ordination to the priesthood.
We experienced the power and solemnity of Triduum.
We made a new fire.
We had an event which was a dinner party And a planning meeting. It took two days. It was called around the next corner and we made some plans.
The children's choir sang with the grownup choir.
Eleanor Peet lent her skills to the creation of a stole for David Jutsum, whom we sponsored for ordination. (See the Holy Spirit decended upon her?)
David Jutsum was ordained to the diaconate and Joel Wilber was ordained to the priesthood.
We had a parish picnic.
Jimmy and Caleb, two of our music scholars, made original music with friends.
Over the summer, our own musicians made unique and stunning music in place of compline. The summer light was magically right.
We had another parish picnic.
We rented our theatre to The Company Theatre and now there is theatre here, too.
Jacklyn Burkhardt designed a banner for our front porch.
We got new lights for the garden.
Compline and candlelight concerts began again.
We had an All Saints Day jazzy dinner party to remind us that we are all saints of God.
We made Advent Wreaths together.
We had Lessons and Carols with Bishop Kara presiding for the second year.
We had an Advent collect and gospel lectio divina in between services for the four weeks.
We hosted the ordinations of three new priests including our own David Jutsum.
We celebrated a beautiful Christmas together. A Meal and More gave food and useful presents.
We had our bishop Kara Wagner Sherer make her second visit.
We started the upgrade to our sound system.
We had Twelfth Night, sang out the old year, rang in the new.
A BIG Thank you for the work of our search committee for their work to find us a new rector.
A BIG thank you to Julianne for leading us through the last year.
A BIG thank you to The Rev. Steven Metcalfe for faithfully being our supply priest.