Senior Minister

Lee Chiaramonte was born in Salina, Kansas, and grew up in the Kansas City area, Paola and Topeka.  She received her Bachelor’s Degree in English from the City University of New York, a Masters of Divinity from Drew Theological School, and a Masters of Philosophy from Drew University.  She is presently completing her PhD in Theology, which centers on a historical analysis and feminist theoethical reconstruction of the virtue of courage.

Rev. Chiaramonte is a United Church of Christ minister whose pastoral specializations are constructing urban-suburban partnerships, inner city ministry and Christian character formation.  She teaches Ethics at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and Theology and New Testament at Avila University.  Rev. Chiaramonte is the chaplain for NewHouse, a shelter for battered women and their children located close to the church.

In September of 2005, the Missouri Bar Association conferred their “Liberty Bell” award upon Rev. Chiaramonte for significant public service contributions by a non-lawyer made to the wider community.  In 2003, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office and COMBAT named her a “Community Mother” of the year.  Rev. Chiaramonte serves on the board of the Northeast Ministerial Alliance, is the field supervisor for seminarians from two local seminaries and is regionally active in both denominations she serves.

She has served congregations in New York, New Jersey, Washington and Missouri.

Her son, York, and his family live outside New York City, along with Pastor Lee’s two grandchildren, Rory and Andrew.  Pastor Lee and her young daughter, Thai, share their home with a posse of miniature schnauzers they love.

Naomi Boyle

Naomi started playing the organ at age fourteen after seven years of piano studies.  Her first organist position was in her senior year of high school.  After attending two years at the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam, she completed her Bachelors degree in Music Education with a choral emphasis at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.  She taught elementary general music classes for four years in Moultrie, Georgia.  She has served churches as an organist, choir director, and handbell director in New York, Georgia, and Florida.

Ms. Boyle hails from Florida.  She and her daughter, Susan, moved to the Kansas City area in May of 2005.  They live in Olathe.  During the week, she is an insurance adjustor in the Overland Park Complex Claims Division for AIG Insurance Company.  She has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Miami, Florida, and was a practicing insurance defense attorney in Florida.  She is still a member of the Florida Bar.