Church of the Messiah

Today was a big day for me. It was officially announced that I have been appointed as the new incumbent (aka Rector) of the Church of the Messiah, Avenue Road. The position starts September 1st, but my first Sunday will be the 9th of September. (I'm taking a weekend of Professional Development Time to go down to Holy Cross to meditate and spiritually regroup). It's a very exciting time for me and for the Church of the Messiah. I realize that they are trusting me with a great responsibility and are taking a big risk--the risk and the trust are mutual, of course. This is my chance to put my training/experience/formation to its full application. It's going to be a blast. I can hardly wait....

Interestingly, when I first heard that Messiah was open I was keen on the appointment, and it's strange how the timing worked so that the position stayed open long enough to coincide with my search. Even at the peak of my search when I was looking at various options, I felt really drawn to Messiah.

I'll be blogging a lot more about my initial impressions and feelings as things go on. Right now I'm a bit exhausted by the whole Sunday morning thing. Services at SMM were excellent. It's the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene and we make an appropriately big to-do about that around here. Although I didn't preach at the main service, I did give an excellent extemporaneous sermon at the 8 o'clock--the sort that made me regret not recording it! Ah well.

Now it's time to go pick up Betsy at the Buffalo airport. I probably won't be able to blog again until Tuesday.

Life is good. Life is VERY good.

-t