Anyone up for a chat thread?

[Paidiske]

If you find that the worship there really doesn't fulfil your needs, don't be afraid to ask to occasionally have liberty to worship somewhere else. I had to do that for a while - I used to go off to an evening service somewhere else in the style I was used to - and I know that many clergy or clergy-in-training do. It can help to stop you from drying out.

Did you say how many hours a week your placement would be? Here, a student placement would typically be about a day and a half a week, and I always found that I wanted to be doing more (but didn't have the time!)

 

[CanadianAnglican]

A day and a half. Sunday and either Holy Communion on Wednesdays at the parish or Thursdays at the nursing home in town, plus outreach to the residents, and then a meeting with the rector on either Wednesday or Thursday after the the service.

I'm trying not to judge too much since I've only been there for one service so far, so we'll see how it goes moving forward.

 

[Paidiske]

I didn't enjoy all my placements equally (I did five) but I can honestly say I didn't have one that I didn't learn from. Which is, after all, the point!

Will you be doing much preaching, do you think?

 

[CanadianAnglican]

We're going to see what my courseload is like. I preached a farewell sermon at my home parish, which the bishop happened to be present for (he lives in the parish and had a rare Sunday where he wasn't scheduled to be anywhere so he decided to come), but have no plans to preach again until the summer... Late May onward, though once I find out what the services are like at the Bethany Society Centre (the nursing home there) I may do more there, as they probably have 5 minute homilies which wouldn't require as much time to prepare.

It will be interesting as the new parish is very much a different style from what I am used to. My home parish is relatively low for the majority of the congregation at the second service of the day, whereas I attended the smaller BCP service earlier in the morning which might be described as high as you can be without really being called high church. My new parish has a higher churchmanship but is also less traditional.

As I believe I mentioned, I have a meeting tomorrow to have lunch with the rector for another meet and greet, but I am also hoping to get some more background on the parish, the congregation, etc.

Also pray that the post office comes through... My surplice has been stuck in customs for a month now or something and I'm becoming a bit worried that it wont arrive in time. Those funny little details that seem to go off...

 

[Paidiske]

A surplice stuck in customs! What do they think, that you're smuggling liturgical contraband? (I mean, I could see their point if it were incense, but a surplice?!) That'd be funny if it weren't so annoying.

 

[Shane R]

I order from PSG Vestments, which is based in India. They have a N. American office/warehouse in Houston, but everything I have ordered has come from India. It's only taken 10-12 days each time and they ship via DHL.

My rector has told me I need to order an alb in time for Advent. I need to get a zucchetto too.

 

[Paidiske]

I bought my alb locally (there's a Roman Catholic order of nuns who specialise in making liturgical vestments, with a house in my city) but I get my clerical shirts from England, because it's hard to get shirts that are properly made to fit ladies (the nuns won't make them for me!) That does seem to have a very long shipping time.

 

[CanadianAnglican]

I did something similar to you, Shane. I ordered from Almy (big mistake, the surplice did not fit at all!) and then decided to try a place from Malaysia. The prices are similar to PSG, though I hadn't found them at the time. My cassock had come from these guys at took about 3 weeks (2 weeks to tailor, 1 week shipping), but my surplice tracking hasn't updated in a month since being sent to Canada. Very frustrating because there is no Anglican supply store nearby and the Roman Catholic one just orders everything from abroad.

 

[CanadianAnglican]

Perhaps to add a happier note, a retired priest has been letting me pick through his library. I found copies of several out of print books (including a first Canadian edition of the Screwtape Letters from the 40s) and perhaps most interestingly "Readinerss and Decency" the manual of instruction on the Canadian 1918 Book of Common Prayer, revised in 1961 for what would become the 1962 Canadian BCP. It is wonderfully illustrated and beyond just providing the notes and instructions, it features full theological notes on why things are to be done in a particular way. I'm quite pleased with it so far as it is a real treasure. There were a number of other neat and one-off items from the late 19th century and early to mid 20th century.

 

[Paidiske]

Oh, lovely about the books!

There's a bit of a custom in my diocese that retired/retiring priests bring books they don't want to one of the theological colleges and these get put out for the students to take whatever they want. I've picked up some real treasures that way.

 

[Arcangl86]

Oh, lovely about the books!

There's a bit of a custom in my diocese that retired/retiring priests bring books they don't want to one of the theological colleges and these get put out for the students to take whatever they want. I've picked up some real treasures that way.

We had a pastor donate her personal library of something like 300 theology books and I remember turning to a friend "How do you get a library that large." She then looked at me and said "You see what we are doing? this is how." Me with 8 books in my arms. "Good point."

 

[Shane R]

I knew of a nearby EO parish that determined to purge their library of Protestant volumes. So, I went over there and poked around their collection of discards and found a fairly good concise church history written from an Anglican perspective. I might have taken one or two other books, but that was the standout. I would list the title, but it's still in a box due to our recent move.

 

[CanadianAnglican]

Oh, lovely about the books!

There's a bit of a custom in my diocese that retired/retiring priests bring books they don't want to one of the theological colleges and these get put out for the students to take whatever they want. I've picked up some real treasures that way.

One of the problems is that there is no seminary in my diocese. So rather than having the libraries distributed directly, you need to know the priests. I managed to snag some from another recently retired priest earlier this year. These ones were more memorable because the other priest was mainly giving away more recent books, and mainly sermon guides for the new revised lectionary and the like. Nothing like the treasures I managed to grab from this priest this time. It makes sense, though, because the other priest only moved to Canada from Fiji in the 1980s, so most of his Canadian books are quite recent. Some of his Fijian books would be fine, as the entire church over there is quite high from what I understand, but he didn't offer me any of those, sadly.

I must confess I had a wonderful time meeting with my rector today. I dropped off my cassock in the Sacristy and he let out a dramatic gasp and asked me what I was doing with all the Romish buttons. He made other barbs related to my failure to conform to the Sarum tradition as expounded by Percy Dearmer. I countered with some pointed comments on his lack of Prayer Book use and we both had a good chuckle. We went through and I gave him my tentative schedule and we managed to work out some basics of how I'll be serving in the parish on Sunday to be used for this Sunday, and had a nice time viewing the whole parish and getting some parish background, promises to introduce me to various key members of the parish and the decision to ease me into things. The nursing home ministry wont be starting for another two weeks so again it's a bit of time to settle in and also as necessary make adjustments to fit me in to their existing server schedule and the like.

So overall things seem to be continuing to go well with the placement. Thanks be to God.

 

[Paidiske]

Percy Dearmer... we had a few folks at college with me who seemed to think he was the last word on anything useful. I never could understand that particular fetish.

Sounds like you've made a good beginning. Will you have something like a field committee as well?

 

[Shane R]

Don't feel bad, I've got the single-breasted button down cassock as well, though mine has a flap that hides the buttons. My rector wears the wrap style more associated with Anglicans. He's rather broad church and I'm rather high but we have a mutual respect, though he nearly lost it when we were doing some liturgical training the other day and I referred to the 'priest's host' (his term) as the Lamb.

 

[Paidiske]

As long as you're not calling it "jumbo Jesus"...

 

[Arcangl86]

Does anybody but the East use Lamb?

 

[Paidiske]

I've never heard it referred to as the "lamb."

 

[CanadianAnglican]

My rector doesn't even wear a cassock, so he's one to talk! He also admitted he hasn't actually read the Parson's Handbook. I'm thinking of getting him a copy as a parting gift when my placement is up. I actually love Dearmer. He's my kind of snob. I just happen to disagree with him that Sarum is the best and only possible option for all Anglicans. Though I did take his advice on a surplice, if it ever does arrive... I did manage to secure a loaner in the interim at least.

I've never heard of the priest host being referred to as the Lamb. Care to elaborate?

 

[Shane R]

Well, I have bounced around and been LCMS Lutheran, an EO catechumen, enrolled in RCIA, an actual OO, and a member of ACNA (as well as a fundamentalist restorationist - by raising), before settling on Anglicanism as the 'disciplined center' where my wife and I - and our burgeoning family - could equally and comfortably engage in common prayer. Somewhere along the line, I came to think that the large host is properly called the Lamb. I think that is acceptable terminology in any tradition that elevates the host prior to distribution, but I'm not going to claim to be an expert in this field.