[Magdalen] State of the parish

[Jon Egger]

Old Trinity was established in 1834.  A tornado blew away the original
structure in ~1880.  The baptismal font, which we still used (and requires
four strong men to lift) was found over a mile from the original church
site.  Yikes!

+++
Grace & peace,
jon


On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> From: ME Michaud
>
>  My great grandmother was born in 1842.
>>
>
> And I'm sure the church she attended is still there and well maintained at
> about the same percentage of budget as to when she was a worshipper.
>
> But those slate roofs were installed by everyday workmen where today, even
> repair of same is an expensive specialty. The Cathedral of St John took to
> training stone masons of their own because stone masons who do quality work
> are in short supply and charge accordingly. As the trainees acquired
> skills, they;d leave for high paying jobs working on buildings all over the
> United States. That turnover helped kill the program (though a whole bunch
> of local young men from Harlem and nearby ended up with very lucrative
> professions as a result.
>
> The fact is, we are wedded to buildings we cannot afford. And we have
> clergy who think :selling" the parish to those great unwashed is beneath
> their dignity, (and anyway, they  get paid he same whether they work at it
> or not) and likewise we have congregations who really don’t want newcomers
> unless they fall in lockstep to the tradition du jure of the parish.
>
> That's not a formula
>
>  When was your church bullt?
>>
>
> Mine? generally irrelevant these days. We survive on a $10-Million
> endowment for the ASA of about 40. I hasten to add that few churches have
> that kind of money sitting around. But the coal barons having their workers
> slave in the mines in jobs that killed a half dozen workers a week sought
> to atone by putting money into their churches.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>