In Memory or Honor of loved ones. Help us add color and beauty to the church chancel during the Advent season as well as recognize some special in your life. The plants will also decorate our Christmas Eve parking lot service. Loading…

Covid-19 has required the clients at Pittsford Food Cupboard (PFC) to wait outside instead of entering the facility while food is gathered for them. In order to make things easier the PFC Board erected a roof over the outdoors deck where clients wait. To assist PFC, First Baptist – Rochester donated some of the leftover marine-grade vinyl which was purchased in a bulk roll at a significant savings over the per yard rate. This vinyl was used to build the section leader and piano COVID barriers as protection for our musicians in the sanctuary through a generous donation from the […]

To recap: The stuffies have invited everyone at First Baptist to join together in celebrating advent, which begins on Sunday, November 29, by putting together an Advent wreath or set of candles to light at the same time during Zoom worship. Here are some photos of samples and links to creative ways to put a wreath/candles together: A wreath made by Anna Bowden for FBCR’s 2016 Christmas Art Gallery A video demonstrating how to make a beautiful wreath without the use of tools. A demonstration video for a slightly more involved wreath. An image of a very simple wreath made […]

For nearly 150 years, Rochesterians of different religious traditions have joined together for an Interfaith Thanksgiving Day Service. This year, we’ll continue this tradition of coming together and promoting the wellbeing of our broader community by holding our service online on Zoom and Facebook Live. Rev. Myra Brown of Spiritus Christi will preach.Worship begins at 11:00 am with time for fellowship before and after the service.This year’s online format aims to be our biggest and most inclusive yet. Feel free to invite friends and family of all faiths or no religious affiliation at all to this important community event. Our […]

Stewardship 2020: …Each time I logged on to be with my faith family at FBCR I sensed your presence with me. Whether it was a book study on “How to Be an Anti-Racist”, a phone call, a casual congregational check-in on a Wednesday evening, or digital worship on Sunday morning: finding a way to remain in community made a believer out of me. At FBCR we really are all in this together. An overly rosey picture here will only serve to diminish this point. We’re not a perfect church and we never will be, but we’re striving to learn and […]

In order to support the health and safety of the congregation and our wider community we are announcing some changes to our worship format effective Sunday, November 8. While services will continue to be broadcast from the church sanctuary we are now encouraging all worshipers to attend worship via Zoom from home. This change will allow us to manage the heightened risk of virus transmission we’re experiencing throughout our community. It will also allow us to keep the volume of in-person participants low enough to allow a small number of persons who are unable to attend digitally to continue joining […]

A Trustee Update: The Board of Trustees feel that it would be good to let the congregation know where we stand financially through the Pandemic. Even though we are having significantly reduce giving, especially from our facility users, we have also had some reduced expenses. We having been running better than anticipated through much of the year but in October that gap reduced significantly. In October, giving was down and our expenses exceed income by almost $17,000. Although we approved a 2020 budget with a deficit of $22,000, we currently expect to have a larger deficit by year end. There […]

Annual Thanksgiving Pie Sale for Habitat in Three Easy Steps:            1.) Contact Gene Tiesler at home or by November 15.  2.) Mail a check to church with “Pies” in the memo line. 3.) Pick up your pies at church on Tuesday, November 24 from 1:00 – 3:0 Choices and prices are the same as last year:            Apple Crumb            @ $17;            Apple Raspberry       @ $17;            Pumpkin                    @ $17;            Apple Crisp               @ $13;            Donation to Habitat  @ ???

Ordinarily the Rochester Genesee Region of the ABC USA, of which our congregation is part, holds a biennial business meeting and gathering. Workshops, social gatherings, meaningful worship, and other events typically abound on the weekend of the biennial. This year will be no different – except the format will be spread out over two non-contiguous weeks and will be all online. Week One (September 21-27) will feature events that will help process, consider, and build resilience during a time of pandemic. Week Two (October 5-10) will have racial justice as its theme and is full of opportunities to dialogue, learn […]

In order to continue with the on-campus portion of our hybrid worship format we’ll all need to work together to make the FBCR sanctuary a safe and comfortable place to worship. Fill Out a Health Survey In accordance with New York State guidelines we must keep a record of your presence on campus and your affirmation of health. There will be paper forms available, but you can save yourself and other worshipers a bit of time by filling it out online before you arrive. You may do this anytime within 24 hours prior to worship, so anytime after Saturday at […]