[Magdalen] Supply job

[Grace Cangialosi]

Exactly, Tony! I served two of them for nine years. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was there when we had our listmeet where I met you.

> On Nov 23, 2015, at 9:56 PM, anthony clavier <anthonyfmclavier at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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