[Magdalen] Supply job

[Grace Cangialosi]

Well, I just agreed to take services on Dec. 20th for two churches over in the valley whose rector left for another position a couple of months ago. When I got the message asking if I was available, I had to decide if I really wanted to do it, because I don't have very positive feelings about these churches. But I decided that wasn't a good enough reason to turn them down. But let me describe the situation to you.
These two churches are two of the remaining mountain mission churches in the diocese--there were 30 at one time, dating from the early years of the 20th Century. These two are about six miles apart on a main country road. They do have parish status now and share a rector's position. Each has a vestry.
The service schedule is crazy: 8:00am at one church--it's their main service--9:30 at the other church, and 11:00 back at the first church for a congregation of about 12.
The churches are about 1-1/4 hours from me.
I supplied for them early this year, but they just had one combined service that day, and there weren't more than 10 people.
The senior warden told me this evening that they leave the 11:00 service up to the supply person; if he or she doesn't want to do all three, they omit that one. Strange...

The priest who just left, who was a seminary classmate, was there for 25 years and basically let them ride roughshod over him the whole time. I can't fault them for that, since he didn't call them on it, but my sense is that they are much more social clubs than spiritual entities.
Anyway, I've committed to that one Sunday, but with considerably less enthusiasm than I'd like. 
Long-term, I'm not sure what their prospects are. They haven't been paying the rector the diocesan scale, and I think it will very difficult for them to attract a priest, unless it's someone right out of seminary with no family.

So I'm not quite sure why I felt nudged to do this, but there's probably a reason (aside from the extra income), and at some point I'll probably figure out what it is.