Tuesday (Ss Timothy & Titus)

  • Weekly task planning at home; Morning Prayer in the cathedral.
  • Sent some emails and left some voicemails all in an effort to do what I can to see that as many of our communities as possible have a proper liturgy on Ash Wednesday. We currently have seven parishes without a permanent assigned priest, and two more whose priest is laid up. As a result, two that might have gone without are now covered, one of them by YFNB.
  • Spoke by phone with a representative of a company that contracts with church management software vendors to help potential customers search the rather large field of options. We remain in the market for a reasonably-priced database system that can also handle online event registration and payment. 
  • Produced rough drafts of the leaflets for the two evensongs that will be offered at the clergy retreat next week.
  • Went to work on the draft of my homily for this Sunday (St Christopher's,Rantoul), eventually yielding a hard copy printout of my working script. As always, the text itself will magically show up somewhere in this cyber-vicinity around 9:30 Sunday morning.
  • Lunch from KFC, eaten at home.
  • With interruptions to handle a mini-flurry of emails, I privately brainstormed ways to up our game in the area of communication. The need to do that was one of the major takeaways from a special meeting a couple of weeks ago with some key lay and ordained leaders in the diocese. We met to talk about the budget process, but everything ended up pointing to communication as our weakest link. So we need to do better. Stuff is now in the pipeline.
  • After keeping afloat in the task queue for a matter of months now, I finally tackled a technical issue that was keeping some of the items in the section of the website the offers alternatives to the Prayer Book forms for the Prayers of the People (something completely licit) from appearing properly. They now appear properly.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral. It's nice not to do it in complete darkness anymore. The days are getting longer, and light still glows from the clerestory windows at 5:30.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spring 2018 House of Bishops, Day 3

Image
We have new stricter social media rules now in the HOB--no photos taken during a session without the permission of those in it. So ... I'm having to be more creative about finding pics for the blog, because I'm not going to take a panoramic group shot and then contact everyone whose balding head shows in the photo! Once again, the day began with Eucharist. This time, though, I took a pass, and opted for a vigorous walk on a brisk morning. Having looked at the liturgy sheet in advance, there were enough triggers that I knew the net spiritual effect for me would be negative. #selfcare  I will say, however, that HOB worship has gotten incrementally less problematic during the tenure of the current Presiding Bishop, and I give props for that. When we convened at 10:15, there were the usual announcements, then a whirlwind set of summary reports from bishop members of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) and the Task Force on the Study of Marriage. The full report
Read more

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Image
Ten years ago, minus about six weeks, I served as the supply priest for Trinity, Lincoln six days before my consecration as Bishop of Springfield. Today I was there for the final regular scheduled canonical parish visitation of my episcopate. (I have a few more gigs on my calendar: March 7 in Mattoon, the Chrism Mass, the Triduum at the cathedral, May 30 in Cairo, and June 27 back at the cathedral--May 2 is available and not yet spoken for--but the every Sunday routine of my life for the past decade (in a larger sense, for the last 32 years) is at a major flex point.) As much as it could have been in the midst of a pandemic, this morning at Trinity was luminous. We confirmed eight adults, six of them qualifying as "young." My homily had to compete with the sounds of active young children. (I would much rather do that than have no kids in church.) Trinity is one of the exciting points of light in my ministry in the diocese. I took my time getting out of Lincoln because I wante
Read more

Saturday (St Charles, King & Martyr)

Substantive phone conversations with the rector of Lincoln, the President of the Standing Committee, and the Canon-to-the-Ordinary. Attended the live-streamed memorial service for a former clergy colleague, and continuing friend, with whom I was in serious conversation about coming to the diocese less than a year ago, who died quickly of COVID at age 66. Then, earlier than I actually needed to, but wanting to get out of town ahead of the snowstorm, I packed up and headed south to Lincoln, where I had time to do some significant reading before hitting the sack.
Read more