Easter Thursday

  • Processed a bunch of emails, including some responses that had been long overdue. 
  • Took care of a several relatively trivial--but, again, long overdue--administrative chores. (When the same task has been in play for weeks, even if it's of less than critical importance, I eventually move it up in the queue just to get rid of it!)
  • Met with Fr Dick Swan, Canon for Mission in the Hale Deanery cluster, and extensively discussed the five small congregations that oversees. There are copious challenges and copious opportunities in that rural and spread-out part of the diocese. I am eager to be a good steward of our mission there. Then I took Dick to lunch.
  • Phoned the New Jersey office of Wippel's to complain about several shirts I recently ordered from them; the sleeves are too long. I was completely pleased by this particular customer service experience.
  • Worked a bit on my homily for Easter III (May 8), to be delivered at St James', McLeansboro.
  • Met with a representative of Illinois National Bank to sign new loan documents refinancing the debt on the physical plant at St Michael's, O'Fallon.
  • Spent the rest of the afternoon drafting a customary for parish visitations. Hopefully this effort will pay dividends in making Sundays go more smoothly both for me and for the congregations I visit.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.
  • Chatted for a while with the Archdeacon over some deployment matters.
  • Drove out to Decatur to meet with the vestry of St John's. Sadly, we have had to negotiate a dissolution in their pastoral relationship with Fr Chuck Resichman, and Easter was his final Sunday there. Despite the best efforts and intentions of everyone involved, sometimes a search process still results in a mismatch between a priest's gifts and a parish's needs. I want to see both Fr Chuck and St John's thrive in their ministries, and it became apparent that this was not going to happen together. So my time with the vestry tonight was spent helping them unpack the effect of the announcement, disseminated by mail a week ago, among the parishioners, and disucssing what the near future holds. We will soon be announcing the appointment of a priest-in-charge for St John's.

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