[Magdalen] Interesting Sunday

[Lynn Ronkainen]

Sounds like a healthy parish - one well poised to call a new pastor. What wonderful news that so many changes are dancing together in harmony!  Lynn

Sent from my iPhone

On May 30, 2016, at 10:02 AM, cady soukup <cadyasoukup at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear ones,

Our small church, Trinity Episcopal Church in Washington, VA, is
nearing the end of an interim rector's year (Bill Queen) after the
retirement of our long-term (42 years!) rector Jennings Wise Hobson
III (whose father and grandfather were both Episcopal priests). It's
been a year of all those "fun" interim activities: tightening our
budget belts, learning who we are and who we want to be, stretching to
meet goals, examining our "business practices" to bring them into line
with more modern church expectations, renovating the Rectory and the
Parish Hall, keeping up with the expected schedules, creating a Parish
Profile and starting the search process. The vestries (last year's,
this year's, next year's) have been, are, and will be working harder
and longer than what has been the norm, and have done very well.

One tiny outcome of all this has been a re-examination of lay
leadership roles. There have been meetings and will be training for
various positions (Litanist, Lay Eucharistic Minister, Lay Eucharistic
Visitor, others). We have 3 regular Sunday services: 8am Rite I spoken
Holy Eucharist; 9:15 am Rite II family service with folk music,
alternating between HE and MP; 11am Rite II "formal" service
alternating between HE and MP. The service bulletins are now uniform
(Grace Cangialosi can attest to the previous complexity of the
bulletins!) and the service elements are more uniform.

And we have moved from requesting Supply clergy at a fee, to having
Lay Led MP services when our rector is gone. He was gone previously,
and Mike Mahoney was one of the Lay Leaders. He was gone yesterday for
his youngest son's college graduation (yes, scheduled on the Sunday of
Memorial Day weekend!). I was the Lay Leader for the 11am (summer
10:30am) MP service. First time through.

We had an unexpectedly full service with a few new people (one of whom
I know as he graduated high school with our youngest son) and some
"visitors" from other services. I am grateful for: the deep training
of our congregants as I forgot to announce several of the service
moves from one element to another; our 4-member choir including our
substitute pianist/organist Danny Wilson who stepped up to the
challenges of a fully sung MP service, our Altar guild members who are
coping with great grace and forbearance as they cope with only a box
for their supplies during the enormous Parish Hall renovation. We even
had a lovely coffee hour that I forgot to announce. <sigh>

For the homily, the Rev. Bill Queen provided a poem "The Creation - A
Sermon in Verse" from "God's Trombones" by James Weldon Johnson
(partially because the previous lay-led Sunday's homily was a reading
from one of the Church fathers that was not well received by the
family service). I hadn't printed it out, so read it from my iPhone.
The congregation had the grace to pay attention, including a few
unexpected younglings.

I am so very grateful for the honor of being able to perform this
function, even if this is the only time it happens. Praise God!

virtual hugs & virtual beverages for all !

Cady