Busy, busy, busy

For someone with an inner child of 6, this has been a very grownup sort of weekend.

Friday was Seabury's Worship Committee retreat-- A dozen or so of the folks involved in planning and preparation of worship, combining prayer time and contemplation of the community's worship life and activity for the upcoming year. My role's rather background-- I will be compiling the weekly ordo this year. This is kind of like a parish bulletin, except it's a sheet with information (hymn numbers, page numbers of prayers in the Prayer Book, that sort of thing) for the whole week's worth of services. It's an organizational thing, so it's something I can do pretty well, I think-- hopefully make it easier for those who are responsible for leading worship to do their jobs more smoothly. At least, that's the plan. The retreat went well-- Susie is Worship Chair this year, and does a bang-up job with such things.

Then Saturday, I drove the two hours to Elkhart, for a meeting with the combined forces of my Standing Committee and Commission on Ministry. This was an "informal check-in" with members of those august bodies for the postulants in our diocese (7 of the 8 of us currently at that point in the process toward ordination were present; the other had just gotten his family moved down to his seminary home for the next three years-- Sewanee, Tennessee-- and so was not able to come back for the day). It was a full day of trotting between scheduled interviews (6 of them), wandering around a large church trying to find where the next group was waiting for me. Generally, folks were most pleasant, though some seemed to see the purpose of the day as less "informal" than others.

When I got home that afternoon (and after a short, but utterly necessary nap), we packed up the family and headed down to Monticello. There is a tiny fellowship there, where I hope to do an internship next summer. The vicar has received a grant for a summer sabbatical to England next year, and I'll be filling in for her while she's gone. The congregation is indeed tiny in numbers, but generous in spirit, both toward us (we spent the night at the Sportsman Inn, and enjoyed breakfast after church as their guests) and the community in which they live. Their building is not a traditional church, but a large old house that they are renovating for use. The chapel is on the main floor, while the upstairs rooms serve as a shelter for homeless people in the area. Good folks, and I'm looking forward to working with them.