On Bittner Street, just off the inner loop at the St. Paul exit in Rochester, New York, a twin-towered brick church has been gathering German immigrants, downtown families, theater lovers, and people in need of a hot lunch for more than 150 years. Salem United Church of Christ, founded in 1873, still rings its church bell each Sunday morning to mark the start of worship and still pours soup in its parlor during Lent. The congregation calls this long stretch of ministry "Serving Christ in the City," and the phrase shows up on letterhead and on the gym wall where pancake breakfasts and Rochester City School District basketball games have shared the same floor.
From a German Sanctuary to the United Church of Christ
Salem was born in a Rochester that was brimming with new life and possibility. Its founding members came out of Trinity Evangelical Church and wanted a larger sanctuary on the east side of the Genesee River, where large numbers of German immigrants were arriving. In 1873 they organized the German United Evangelical Salem Church. By 1921 the language of worship had shifted and the name became Salem Evangelical Church. In 1934, when the German Evangelical and Reformed churches merged across the country to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church, Salem took the name Salem Evangelical and Reformed Church. The final name change came in 1957, when the Evangelical and Reformed, the Congregational Christian, and the Christian churches united to form the United Church of Christ. Salem has carried the name Salem United Church of Christ ever since, and today sits within the New York Conference of the United Church of Christ and the Genesee Valley Association.
A Romanesque Revival Sanctuary with Twin Towers
The sanctuary building was designed by architect Charles Coats and erected in 1873, the same year the congregation organized. An education wing followed in the early 1920s, and a 1929 renovation stripped the tall interior spines and wrapped the present brick facade around the sanctuary wing. The result is the Romanesque Revival-style building that still defines the block: twin towers, arched windows, wooden pews, a long central aisle, and a high ceiling celebrated as one of the most beautiful ceremony spaces in the city.
Salem's interior is known for its seventeen stained glass windows lining both sides of the sanctuary. The windows depict scenes from the Gospels - Christ in Gethsemane, Christ Blessing the Children, Christ with the Crown of Thorns - and carry their accompanying scripture directly onto the wall plates. The whole building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Worship at Ten, with a Bell-Ringing Start
Sunday worship begins at 10:00 a.m. The service is traditional with some contemporary aspects. Each week the pastor preaches a sermon that is biblically based, sensitive to the original context of the scripture lesson, and related to contemporary living. The congregation worships in the mainline Protestant tradition it inherited from the German Evangelical and Reformed merger, and Holy Communion is celebrated regularly, with the elements brought forward by the Junior Deacons on the first Sunday of each month.
Children are not just tolerated in the sanctuary but actively included. Each Sunday morning they ring the church bell to signal the start of worship. About ten minutes in, a "Time with Our Young People" led by the pastor or another youth leader gathers them at the front, after which they may leave for Sunday School or stay with their families for the rest of the service.
From Ash Wednesday to Christmas Eve
The rhythm of the Christian year shapes a lot of what happens at Salem. Ash Wednesday is marked with a 7:00 p.m. service that includes the imposition of ashes, and from there the congregation settles into the Salem tradition of a Lenten Supper every Wednesday evening in Lent. A church member hosts, usually in the parlor, providing a big pot of soup, with others bringing salad, bread, and dessert. On Palm Sunday the children process through the sanctuary waving palm branches and hand out a palm to each worshiper, traditionally accompanied by the Bell Choir. Maundy Thursday brings a Tenebrae service built around Holy Communion and twelve scripture readings; with each reading a candle is extinguished and another set of sanctuary lights goes down, until only the Christ candle remains and a voice rises from the darkness singing "Were You There?" On Good Friday the sanctuary is held open from noon to 3:00 p.m. for personal reflection, with meditative materials provided.
Easter Sunday opens with a churchwide breakfast at 9:00 a.m., followed by the 10:00 a.m. service with music from the Resurrection Band and the Volunteer Choir and the serving of Holy Communion. In May the congregation marks Salem's birthday with a potluck following worship, balloons and streamers, cake, and stories told by the eldest members about how the church has changed. Summer brings an outdoor service on the lawn in July - chairs, Bibles, hymnals, and organ moved outside - preceded by a pancake breakfast. A few summers ago the annual picnic moved to Ontario Beach Park, where the congregation rents a shelter, packs up handbells, choir music, and a keyboard, and worships by Lake Ontario before grilling burgers and hot dogs and finishing with Abbott's custard. Rally Day in September kicks off the Sunday School year with another outdoor service and picnic. Advent is launched with an Advent Workshop on the first Sunday of December - cookies, crafts, and laughter for families - and the season closes with an 11:00 p.m. Candlelight Christmas Eve service.
An Austin Organ, a Volunteer Choir, and the Tinkerbells
Salem's music program is one of its quiet claims to fame. The pipe organ is an Austin Opus 1160 with 42 ranks of pipes, built in 1923 and rebuilt by Austin in 1962 and by Berkshire in 1977. The organ has long drawn students from the nearby Eastman School of Music, and the current organist, Nicholas Halbert, is part of that lineage. Salem's choir is made up entirely of dedicated volunteer voices; they sing at least twice a month and always for special services, and new members are always welcome.
The handbell program is just as distinctive. Salem owns a three-octave Schulmerich handbell set and currently runs two choirs. The main bell choir spans ages five to veteran ringers and plays several services a year. The younger group calls themselves "The Tinkerbells," and every one of them started playing at age four. Both choirs can be heard from the sanctuary loft most Sundays.
Sunday's Cool and the Junior Deacons
Sunday School at Salem is called Sunday's Cool and is for children from pre-K through sixth grade. The children begin in worship with their families, share in a Children's Chat, and then head to class for Bible stories taught through crafts, dramas, music, and videos, with time built in for play, museum trips, and the occasional friendly round of "Chopped." Each year the class picks a service project to support. Past selections include buying a cow through Heifer International, playing Santa for a family at the YWCA, and sponsoring a child in the Philippines.
The Junior Deacons take Salem's youth ministry a step further. On the first Sunday of every month they collect the offering and bring the elements forward for Holy Communion. They also run a year-round refundable bottle and can drive, summer car washes, and a "Spare Change for CarlJon" fundraiser supporting a child in the Philippines. Past Junior Deacon projects have included purchasing chicks through Heifer International, sponsoring Christmas for a family at the YWCA next door, and helping buy Christmas gifts for the Montgomery Neighborhood Children's Center.
Women's Fellowship and the Strawberry Social
Originally known as the Schwesterverein, Salem's Women's Fellowship is one of the congregation's longest-running traditions. The group pledges faithfully to the church and raises additional funds through bi-monthly dinners that are also open to the wider neighborhood. Their calendar includes a Red & White dinner in February, a Spring Dinner in April, a Strawberry Social in June, an Oktoberfest dinner in September or October, and a Cookie Stroll in December. The Strawberry Social Picnic Dinner - burgers or hot dogs with mac salad, potato salad, German potato salad, broccoli salad, baked beans, and strawberry shortcake made from berries picked that morning - has become a fixture of early summer. The fellowship has also sponsored Salem youth to attend Dunkirk Camp & Conference Center and Salem women to attend the annual Church Women United event.
The Salem Nutrition Center
Few ministries define Salem as clearly as the Salem Nutrition Center. Founded in 1984 by Roger and Louise Abrey, the center has been serving a free lunch to the Rochester community for over forty years. Lunch is served on Mondays and Tuesdays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and during the pandemic the program shifted to boxed to-go meals while continuing to work closely with the Monroe County Health Department to keep guests and volunteers safe.
The Nutrition Center does more than feed bodies; it aims to feed souls as well. More than fifty volunteers from a range of faith communities and organizations prepare and serve the meals each week, and the program served a record 12,691 meals in 2023. The center partners with Mountain Rise UCC and other local organizations to add clothing giveaways and Bible study classes to its programming. Joanne Piccirilli directs the program.
Theater, Scouts, and a Building that Belongs to the City
Salem's commitment to "Serving Christ in the City" reaches well beyond its own congregation. In 1898 Salem helped found St. John's Home. It later created one of Rochester's earliest public assistance programs and launched the Nutrition Center in 1984. The building itself has been a hub for community life: concerts, Boy Scout troops, movie nights on the lawn, basketball leagues, RCSD basketball games, remote-control airplane clubs that liked to fly in the gymnasium, Eastern Service Workers Association projects, and since the spring of 1994, the Off-Monroe Players, Rochester's Gilbert & Sullivan company, who rehearse and perform in Salem's theater space.
The Off-Monroe Players are a particularly close fit. They do not charge admission so that any and all can attend, they help care for Salem's building, and they support the Women's Fellowship dinners. Salem welcomes other groups to inquire about renting space; both short- and long-term options are available, and inquiries go through the Board of Trustees.
Weddings, Beliefs, and a Pastor Named Kurt
Salem has hosted more weddings than it can count, and for about ten years now the sanctuary and parlor have been open to non-members as well as members. Couples may bring their own pastor if they wish. There are separate spaces for bride and groom before the ceremony, and the long central aisle with its high ceilings is a setting described without apology.
The congregation's own statement of faith is short and practical. "Our ministry includes worship, education, pastoral care and service. We know that God is still at work in the world. Our own congregation is just one example of God's ongoing presence. We believe that our relationship to Christ is experienced most fully in church, and realized in our community. Christ is working among us. We believe that our congregation exists as a community for others. We do not live for ourselves alone, but in service to Jesus Christ in this city." Pastor Kurt Traugott, who writes a Pastor's Corner, has shared in print the way that conviction shows up at Easter: the resurrection, he has written, is not a doctrine to prove but the life and action of Christ at work in us through the Holy Spirit, calling the congregation into a common future called the Kingdom of God.
Salem United Church of Christ sits at 60 Bittner Street, just off the St. Paul exit of the inner loop, with Sunday worship at 10:00 a.m., a free lunch at the Salem Nutrition Center on Mondays and Tuesdays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and a 150-year-old promise to keep serving Christ in the city.