Music Director
Chris Rakauskas started her first job as a church organist and choir director when she was about 15 years old, at her family's Catholic church in rural Pennsylvania. She has since provided music for a variety of denominations, particularly after moving to Florida in 1989, but has spent the majority of her years as a church musician within the United Church of Christ.
She has led both adult and children's choirs, a contemporary praise band, and helped stage (and acted in) several holiday musicals, as well as cantatas and other musical productions, including an annual performance of Handel's Messiah. Chris plays piano/keyboard, organ, guitar, various percussion instruments, is a vocalist, and is learning the fiddle. She and her husband, Rick, play at area assisted living facilities as the performing duo “Up the Creek,” and she teaches private, online piano lessons.
Chris previously taught English composition classes at Brevard Community College (now Eastern Florida State College), wrote for the Orlando Sentinel, and has been a photographer and a radio newswriter and announcer. She's a native plant enthusiast, loves being out in nature, and is an active member of a dog training club. Her two Carolina Dogs have earned titles in various types of competitions, and one of them is a therapy dog that she takes on visits to assisted living facilities where they entertain the residents with tricks.
Chris started at Hope UCC as a substitute musician in March 2022, but was soon drawn in by the church's welcoming atmosphere, creative spirit, and progressive theology, and became music director the following month.
