[Magdalen] Priest in Charge.

[Jay Weigel]

In my former parish, it so happens that the senior and junior warden are
both what we fondly speak of as "dragon ladies"--those women who know how
it's done and keep things going with, without, and sometimes in spite of
the clergy. They are women in my age group who we all knew were "dragon
ladies in training" at the time I left the parish. (As a side note, the
priest who was the cause of my leaving would purely HATE to have to deal
with a vestry headed by these two--he had to publicly apologize to one of
them once, and it nearly killed him.) So things are getting done, and done
well and properly. They have an interim now who people like, and are into
their search process which I hope will yield better results than the last
one.

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com>
wrote:

> On 04/09/2015 19:20, Jay Weigel wrote:
>
>> When I visited my former parish in Tennessee, which had been left in a
>> mess
>> by its previous rector and had just been left by its interim who accepted
>> an interim post with another congregation, that was what I found--they
>> had a strong senior and junior warden, and people had stepped up.
>>
>
> They also need clergy to have given them the confidence they they can lead
> the parish.  The situation this side of the pond in that almost invariably
> when an incumbent leaves there is a lag before the next priest arrives to
> take charge of the parish.  It has been said that this period is when the
> parish finds itself.  Hopefully it won't be too long, because they can
> start drifting, but the laity who have seen the clergy, with our own
> idiosyncracies and foibles, come and go have to keep the show on the road
> witgh the help of supply clergy from wherever to take services.
>
> It is also important that the plan for the future is realistic and
> sustainable.  Now that the C/E has caught up with the real world as regards
> payment of the clergy is concerned that means (except in real mission
> situations) paying for what they get.  Last year I retired from the third
> parish I had charge of.  In each of them I have been the last full-timer
> because they were never going to be big enough (given other parishes
> around) to be able to afford a full-time priest.
>
> I sought to tncoyrage and equip the laity to be able to keep going, making
> them less priest-reliant and more confident.  What will happen in the
> longer term with my last parish I don't know but the other two are still
> open and serving the local people - something that was far from a given
> when I went to them.
>
> Roger
>