From the Rector
Dear Friends,
Today marks our 216th Annual Meeting, and I give thanks to God for the ministry we share. To serve as your 17th rector remains a deep joy and a profound honor. Three years ago, the Vestry and I committed to a clear and ambitious set of benchmarks—a plan to bring the finances of this parish toward sustainable operating efficiency, even as we continued to grow in mission and in number, to the glory of God.
By God’s grace, and not a small amount of human effort, those benchmarks have been met. We arrive at this Annual Meeting, not without any number of challenges left to navigate (it’s the nature of being human!), but we are in a real sense on the other side of a season of transition. And we have done it—together.
At the Treasurer’s Forum earlier this year, a parishioner spoke for many when he expressed gratitude for the discipline of these last three years, and then asked the question that has undoubtedly formed in many hearts: what comes next?
Before I turn to that important question, I want to pause and give thanks for how this work has been accomplished. It has been the fruit of mutual ministry—a Vestry, staff, and lay leadership who took the goals before us seriously, who worked diligently, and who never lost sight of the One whom we serve.
To the Vestry: thank you for your wisdom, your stewardship, and your willingness to shoulder hard decisions. To our staff and lay leaders: thank you for the daily, often unseen work that has carried this parish through a season of transition.
Today we give thanks for the service of Aaron Simpson as he completes his term on the Vestry. Aaron is, first and finally, a disciple of Jesus Christ. He has brought his gifts and his vocations as an attorney, as a father, as a friend of Jesus into the service of the mission of the Gospel. His thoughtfulness, clarity, and deep care for this parish have been a gift, and we are the better for his ministry among us.
I also want to say a particular word of thanks for Missy Condo. If I were to even begin to scratch the surface of what she means to this place, and to me, we would miss the entirety of the 11:15 service! The stabilization of our finances and the flourishing of this parish through a season of transition simply could not have happened without her. As I shared with the Vestry over a recent dinner at the rectory: Missy can move mountains. She makes things happen. She has an uncanny sense of what is happening on the ground level of this parish (and as our Bishop likes to remind us: the Holy Spirit moves at ground level!) — and all of it, every bit of it, is rooted in love. Love for this place and her people. Love for the Lord whom we serve. I count myself the luckiest rector in the church to have had Missy by my side these last three years.
And now, to that question: what comes next? This past Saturday, your Vestry gathered at the House of the Redeemer to think through the work ahead. We have agreed that this coming year will be a year of listening, discernment, and prayerful planning. Our intention is that at next year’s Annual Meeting, we will bring before you a long-term (approximately 7-year) strategic plan to guide our common life. The framework we have discerned has four quadrants: culture, programming, facilities, and finance. At the center—holding it all together, giving it all its meaning—is Jesus Christ and the mission of the Gospel.
In the months ahead, we will launch an outreach campaign to listen carefully to the needs and aspirations of the St. James’ community. This will be holy work. Together we will pray, we will listen, and we will begin writing the next chapter of this parish that we so dearly love.
We already have a remarkable 216 year story, and it is exciting to build on our legacy and write the next chapter, with the humility to know that the Holy Spirit is our author.
I’d like to share a final word about Children and Family Ministries. Last week we celebrated the astonishing, twenty-nine-year ministry of Miss Vicki. It was St. James’ at our best — joyful, grateful, gathered around the gift of a faithful servant. Thanks to parishioner Frank Murray, we have a slideshow of photographs that gives us a small window into the ministry of Vicki. Vicki, we love you, and we thank God for you.
Children and Family Ministries is, and will remain, essential to the health and vitality of this parish. I am deeply grateful to our Vestry member, Catherine Workman, who has chaired our excellent search committee with skill and devotion. (Committee members: Elizabeth Littlejohn, Ann Roberts, Caroline Ingalls, Charlotte Kingham, Ellie Larkin, Jessica de Kertanguy; John Cecil, Ross Mellow, and Tim Haney) And, I have an important update to share. In the next week or so, we will be in a position to announce a gifted leader who will become our next Director of Children and Family Ministries. Please pray for her and her family. Friends, we are heirs of an extraordinary legacy. By the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, our future is bright.
From the Wardens
Good morning,
As Nina Huffman reported to the parish at the Treasurer’s Forum in mid-February, the Vestry approved a budget for 2026 of Total Revenue and Support of $4,937,503 and Total Expenses of $4,974,049 which projects an endowment draw for the year of 5.19%. There is not much data to assess to date, as we have numbers for March 31st only at this point. Revenue as of that date had a positive variance of $200K thanks in part to the increased Stewardship numbers from the generosity of this parish that Missy just announced. Expenses had a small favorable variance of $11K. Included in the 2026 budget are funds for two capital projects currently underway: the Local Law 11 work on our parish house and the replacement of our Building Management System. The total of these two projects is estimated and budgeted in 2026 at $456K. The Local Law 11 work should be finished this summer and we hope the Building Management System will be finished by early June.
The Vestry recognizes the financial accomplishment from the last three years Zack mentioned in his report is a fragile one to sustain. However, it is not fragile from an operating perspective; thanks to the hard decisions the Vestry made in 2023 in significantly reducing expenses, our operating budget today is where we think it should be, especially as we want to give our Rector the tools and vital support he needs to continue to grow our parish as he capably demonstrates he can do.
Our operating budget has also benefited from many hours of hard work that was put into addressing and reducing our diocesan assessment which had been approximately $1M in 2022 and this year is down to $277K. St. James’ leadership worked closely with the adjustment board of the diocese to achieve immediate relief in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and the adjustment board lauded and rewarded our efforts to significantly reduce expenses and move to a sustainable model. Zack, on behalf of St. James’, was also given an important seat on the task force the Bishop established to study and create a sustainable and fair common mission share formula for all the parishes in the diocese. Last November at the Diocesan Convention, the new common mission share formula, the benefit of which is reflected in our 2026 budget, was overwhelmingly approved.
In 2023, when Zack became Rector, the endowment was approximately $16M and as of Friday is now $23,238M. That growth is a combination of favorable market performance, but also bequests and gifts, and our not overdrawing it as we had been. The Vestry wants to thank our Investment Committee led by Martin Dessoffy, and the team of dedicated and caring parishioners who serve on the investment committee, for their attention to oversight of the endowment.
Looking ahead, the primary challenges we see to our budget are capital expenditures related to maintaining our beloved and historic physical property. Last month, we learned from Ken that our Chancel organ, which is now about 17 years old, is in need of emergency repairs. For those who do not know, if you leave Coburn Hall and head up the stairs to the 71st Street entrance, about midway up is a louvered door on the left and behind that door is a complex mechanical blower room that generates the force of wind that enables the organ to produce its sound. The blower gussets inside the room are leather lined and the leather through aging and use has substantially deteriorated creating air leakage which could potentially cause the organ to cease functioning.
Acting quickly on this matter once known, we have secured a slot for repair this summer as there are a limited number of craftsmen capable of performing the repair. What that means visibly to the parish is that from Memorial Day weekend to hopefully no later than Labor Day weekend, the chancel organ will be out of commission. Ken and the smaller summer choir will provide all music to the Sunday 10:00 a.m. service from the balcony using the gallery organ. The repair costs of about $59K will be funded partially by a generous parishioner gift designated for liturgical purposes made to Zack in 2023 in honor of his new rectorship which will help minimize the impact on the 2026 budget and the balance from repairs and maintenance.
We also want to thank Bob Stinson, as head of our property committee, and to the capable and dedicated parishioners on this committee for their meaningful work. The Vestry will be discussing at its upcoming May meeting, two projects that need to be addressed related to new air conditioning for Coburn Hall and also possible additional work on the Parish House windows that we could take advantage of since the scaffolding is already in place. And lastly, the Vestry will be considering whether to conduct and fund a building audit that could help the Vestry better plan for and anticipate property needs. As these projects are not in the 2026 budget, please keep the Vestry as always in your prayers!
In closing, Missy and I want to thank Waddell Stillman, as our Vestry Officer for Strategic Advancement, for his keen and thoughtful support to us, and to Nina Huffman, as Vestry Treasurer for the diligence and attentiveness she has masterfully given to our finances.
And on a personal note, I want to say something about the last four years of working in tandem with Missy; one year as treasurer and three years as warden. I am going to keep most of my words private to her as emotions will take over, and Zack has already spoken eloquently about the gift she has been to helping us accomplish what has been achieved to date. There is simply no one comparable to Melissa Schorr Condo. She has been an influential and parish-altering for the better warden in the history of this church. Those are not words of exaggeration. I am grateful beyond all measure to have had the privilege of a lifetime to work side by side with her in support of our phenomenal Rector and on behalf of this incredible and vibrant parish. Her “spidey instincts” are both a wonder and can be downright scary! But in all seriousness, one of the unexpected joys of our time together will be that I have deepened an extraordinarily wonderful friendship and gained a trusted confidant that will fortunately never be hindered by warden term limits!
Thank you.
Richard Brown, Warden
