Rev. Dr. Karen Bailey-Francois

Rev. Dr. Karen Bailey-Francois

Minister

Pastor Karen submitted her resignation on February 1, 2024.  

For six years Pastor Karen has provided meaningful spiritual guidance, cared professionally and deeply for the needs of our parishioners and their families, provided significant service to the wider community, and led us through challenges and triumphs.  Upon arrival, she recognized immediately that our Christian Education program needed her focus.  Working collaboratively with a strong CE committee, she found a new curriculum and designed a new delivery model.  Her actions quickly revived the Sunday School and Confirmation programs that went on to benefit many church families.  She kept the programs running through COVID and her efforts culminated last year with a unique and creative confirmation program that enabled four of our young people to make well-informed and conscious decisions to join our church.  During the throes of the Covid pandemic, her skills, resourcefulness, and creativity, again working with Church leadership, reinforced our congregation’s resilience and helped enable us to stay strong and be together in worship each Sunday.  In 2021 our Board of Trustees approached her with a long “to-do” list well beyond our means.  She immediately proposed a fundraising program.  She led the effort to secure a grant from Cohasset’s Community Preservation Committee and then went on to design and manage the highly successful Capital Campaign.  Originally intended to raise $200,000, the campaign more than doubled that amount, resulting in a beautifully restored building and sanctuary in which to celebrate our 200th year.  There is much for which we are proud and grateful.  Thank you, Pastor Karen.

Cindy Courtney

Cindy Courtney

Church Administrator

Cindy Courtney was born in Scituate Mass and has dedicated her entire adult life to helping those in need. After many years as a volunteer for the Girl Scouting program, she went to work professionally for Patriot’s Trail Girl Scout Council in Boston.  She functioned as both a Girl Scout Membership Executive, and a Program Manager. During her tenure at Scouts, she was responsible for supporting and recruiting youth and leaders in multiple communities, providing adult training and creating council-wide events and programs.

Cindy left Scouts to work at Camp Fire of Eastern Massachusetts, providing co-educational youth programming in the Greater Boston Area. She soon became the Co-CEO and spent 12 years overseeing out of school time programming and summer day/residential camps that served over 24,000 youth during her tenure. Cindy is a consummate professional and brings a wealth of knowledge and compassion to her work here at the Second Congregational Church.

Cindy lives with her family in Weymouth. She continues to be passionate about opportunities for youth including her children and grandchildren. Cindy is very creative in both her personal and professional endeavors – for example by adding her flair to church publications. Her other hobbies include kayaking with her family, weaving, stained glass, walking the beach and spending time with her large extended family.

Jin Kim

Jin Kim

Music Director

Born in Korea, Jin Kim studied piano and conducting at St. Olaf College and the Eastman School of Music. As a professional singer, he was a member of the Robert Shaw Institute Singers, the Dale Warland Singers, and Minnesota Opera chorus. Kim was the First Prize winner of the 1997 American Choral Directors’ National Conducting Competition and a recipient of the prestigious Robert Shaw Conducting Fellowship. Currently, he is in his 21st season as Music Director of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.

Konstantino Papadakis

Konstantino Papadakis

Pianist

Born in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, Konstantinos Papadakis has performed in recitals and has collaborated with chamber ensembles and orchestras in the world’s major concert halls and famous artistic centers, such as Wigmore Hall, Jordan Hall, the Athens Megaron Concert Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and St. Petersburg’s Grand Concert Hall, where he performed the world premieres of works by Greek and Russian contemporary composers. The Boston Globe says of his playing: “Papadakis gave a stunning performance displaying great variety of attack, poetic lyricism, and wrists of carbon steel.”
A versatile performer, Papadakis has recorded several works especially written for him by contemporary composers, many of which have been broadcast on radio and television. His distinctions include the prestigious Yannis Vardinoyannis Award, the Esther & Albert Kahn Award, as well as awards at international piano competitions. Equally at home performing Bach’s English Suites or Ligeti’s Etudes for Piano, Papadakis possesses an unusually broad repertory, including some 70 concertos and over 300 works for solo piano, in addition to numerous chamber works.