More settling in today. I'm getting my official keys to the kingdom of COTM. The Parish Administator has also promised to give me a tour of the building--I've never actually been taken around and shown all the nooks and crannies!
I'm still looking forward to climbing up the bell tower, though Peter (the Property Manager) tells me that I'll probably need a ladder to climb the flag pole and re-thread the lanyard if we want to actually use the flag pole again. I actually heard a story a few weeks back about a CEO who insisted on doing such a job himself of his company's new HQ--there is something wonderfully symbolic about putting the flag up yourself the first time--I never want to ask anyone else to do something I myself am unwilling to attempt.
It's worth noting, btw, that while I think some of the liturgical changes will happen rather slowly, there is a whole level of administrative organization that needs some TLC. I've discovered today, for instance, that the book keeper is not very happy with the software currently used for the financial management but that they didn't want to replace it until the new incumbent came. Now I've come and it's time to fix little things like that. The catchword in all this administrative stuff is "capacity for ministry." We want to create the conditions in which ministry thrives. That goes WAY beyond having fancy databases for tracking giving and doing mailing lists. I need to have things running smoothly enough that I'm not spending all day on Administrative tasks. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.
The best definition for the spiritual concept of "Leisure" is this: "Having enough time in the day for everything we put in it." Imagine: going to bed with the feeling that we've done everything we needed to do that day! Applied to incumbency, that means having things set up so that I'm able to do what needs to be done to keep the lights on and be able to do my visiting and planning and personal spiritual development. Matter of fact, that last item is probably the most important of all.
Wow, these are heady times!
-t
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