[Magdalen] Supply job

[anthony clavier]

Archdeacon Neve's missions.

Tony

On Monday, November 23, 2015, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.



-- 
The Rev. Tony Clavier
Vicar: St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, Glen Carbon IL
and St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Granite City IL