Staff and Leadership

God Is Still Speaking

37 Main Street, Cornish, ME 04020

Kris Stanley has been the settled pastor of Cornish UCC since January of 2017. She is also a military chaplain with 16 years of current, consecutive service in both the Air and Army Guard. As a hospice chaplain, Kris considers it a pleasure and privilege to come alongside every type of person and family who has been asked to face death. Kris was not born into a religious family and realizes that everyone is on their own journey to understanding God. Inspired by this, she does her best to help bring the word of God to life in a meaningful and relatable way today for all populations she has the privilege to serve. She takes her cue from the Mary Brainard quote, “I would rather walk with God in the dark, than go alone in the light.” Kris is dedicated to ongoing education and development and is currently completing her dissertation for her EdD in Pastoral Counseling and Community Care. It is with humble joy she serves a bright, dynamic, gifted and loving church community that genuinely cares for and about one another.

Kris' 2023 Letter to the Congregation, Feb 2024

Rev. Daryl L. Lavway - Trustee and occasional Worship Leader and Preacher

Daryl was born and raised in Maine. At the age of nineteen he became a Christian and was baptized on Easter Sunday morning in 1969. Not long after that he was invited tor join a lay preachers group in his home church of Bethany Baptist Church in Presque Isle, Maine. In that same year, while still nineteen, he preached his first sermon. In the course of those events he was licensed as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by Bethany Baptist Church. He has been serving preaching and serving churches ever since. He was ordained in the Damariscotta Baptist Church, in Damariscotta, Maine, a member church of American Baptist Churches USA.

Rev. Lavway has served Churches in Canada and Maine and made several mission trips to the Dominican Republic where he served as a mission leader and helped build a hospital for Haitian sugar cane cutters. The last two parishes he served in Maine covered a span of 29 years.

He has a Magna cum Laude degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Maine and did his theological studies at Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. During that time he received awards for being the highest ranking student in the Biblical/ theological studies department. He has also studied Baptist history and polity at Oxford University in England and taken courses in small church management at Princeton Seminary.

Daryl and his wife, Tatyana, have been married for almost eighteen years now and are the proud parents of seven children and 13 grandchildren all together. They love the adventures of their faith and their partnership in faithfulness to the call of God.

His vision for ministry has always been to stand on the shoulders of those who served before him and help churches fashion a vision of ministry that enables congregations to embody the words of Paul the apostle who encouraged the followers of Jesus to take seriously, “the ministry of reconciliation” we have been given.

Rev. Daryl L. Lavway - Trustee, Preacher, Worship Leader

Daryl was born and raised in Maine. At the age of nineteen he became a Christian and was baptized on Easter Sunday morning in 1969. Not long after that he was invited to join a lay preachers group in his home church of Bethany Baptist Church in Presque Isle, Maine. In that same year, while still nineteen, he preached his first sermon. In the course of those events he was licensed as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by Bethany Baptist Church. He has been preaching and serving churches ever since. He was ordained in the Damariscotta Baptist Church, in Damariscotta, Maine, a member church of American Baptist Churches USA.

Rev. Lavway has served Churches in Canada and Maine and made several mission trips to the Dominican Republic where he served as a mission leader and helped build a hospital for Haitian sugar cane cutters. The last two parishes he served in Maine covered a span of 29 years.

He has a Magna cum Laude degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Maine and did his theological studies at Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. During that time he received awards for being the highest ranking student in the Biblical/theological studies department. He has also studied Baptist history and polity at Oxford University in England and taken courses in small church management at Princeton Seminary.

Daryl and his wife, Tatyana, have been married for almost eighteen years now and are the proud parents of seven children and 13 grandchildren all together. They love the adventures of their faith and their partnership in faithfulness to the call of God.

His vision for ministry has always been to stand on the shoulders of those who served before him and help churches fashion a vision of ministry that enables congregations to embody the words of Paul the apostle who encouraged the followers of Jesus to take seriously, “the ministry of reconciliation” we have been given.

Jan Goldsberry - Church Musician

Jan was brought up in a Presbyterian Church in Perrineville, N. J. She became the church organist there at the age of 14. Her interest in music was supported by her parents and a grandmother who sat next to her as she daily practiced the piano. Jan received a Bachelor of Music in Education at Bucknell University in 1972. She has performed and taught music throughout her life. Jan received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and worked as a pediatric nurse in Philadelphia for two years before coming to Maine and working as a community health nurse. She eventually received a master’s in Educational Leadership and served as the curriculum director for Sanford 17 years before she retired.

She and her husband, Lee, have been active in the Cornish U.C.C. since the mid-1990s. They have five children and seven grands ranging from 4 to 22 years of age who make them very happy and keep them quite busy.

Hymns have always had a special meaning to Jan. The poetry found in the lyrics combined with memorable melodies can move, comfort, and inspire. How can one sing or listen to “Go to Dark Gethsemane” without feeling God’s awesome love for us? How can one sing or listen to “There is a Balm in Gilead” without knowing that even during unimaginable times God is with us? How can one sing or listen to “Jesus Loves the Little Children” and not wish for it to be a song taught to all the children of the world?

Please, come make music with us. Come sing or play tone chimes or bring your instruments and voices. “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.” (Psalm 98:4)