New interim minister
at Brockport's First Presbyterian Church

The Reverend Dr. Jimmy Reader has been appointed interim minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Brockport at 35 State Street. His first sermon at the church was June 16. Church leaders say that the term of service could be one to two years as the church examines its mission and then searches for a permanent minister. The Reverend Jim Long left the church in December 2001 for a ministerial appointment at a church in Missouri.

Reader is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches. The Presbytery of the Genesee Valley has appointed him as an intentional interim minister available to its churches in the transition period between permanent ministers. His immediate past interim ministry was at the East Rochester Presbyterian Church where he served over two years.

Reader and his wife Joy, live in Brighton. The Reverend Joy Bergfalk is also a minister in the American Baptist Churches. Their home is the center for their business called Life Listening Resources. Together and separately the couple conducts workshops on leadership development, communication skills, conflict resolution and other areas of spiritual development and human relationships. This fall they will be leading the retreat for clergy in the Presbytery of the Genesee Valley.

Jimmy Reader has three children from a former marriage. A fourth child was killed in an auto accident in 1993. Joy Bergfalk has three children adopted from Guatemala and took in two of their older siblings. All are adults, and in the blended family there are ten grandchildren.