[Magdalen] My Church

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Charles Wohlers
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 5:41 PM

>This is sad to hear, as my dear wife was ordained at St. Luke's, lo these many 
>years ago.

There were still many more when we first went there around 1992. And the place 
was packed for Fr. Stringfellow's installation -- which we went to while on a 
camping trip at Lackawanna State Park. That was shortly after we returned from 
California and we were looking around Scranton for jobs and for a place to live 
(it only took retirement and 22 more years to do that, and downtown Scranton has 
deteriorated a lot even in that period of time).

St Luke's did have a fine choir back then, as well. The current quartet sings 
hymns and calls the anthems at the offertory and at the communion. They have 
attempted other simple 4-part sacred pieces from time to time. Two of the four 
members of the "professional choir" as David called them are members of the 
Vestry as well.

The overall selection of hymns seems to take the Top-40 approach -- some hymns 
have been scheduled 3-4 times since the beginning of the year; I don’t think 
they’ve ever heard of LEVAS II or WL&P, either, though I know the previous PIC 
wanted to introduce the latter.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie