Altar Guild Meeting At My House

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westyslantfront

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Joined
Dec 11, 2004
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Today I hosted the monthly Altar Guild meeting from my parish.
As I wash and iron all the Communion linens and Vestments, I am a member of the Altar Guild at Christ The King Episcopal
Church, Tucson, Az.
First is a picture of the members and the Rector, Fr. Mike
taken by the Norge timeline

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Hi Bob. I am Episcopalian, which some people have called
"Catholic Light" or "Watered down Catholics". The machines pictured are in the garage in the front of the house. In the back is the laundry room where I have 3 Maytags and a dryer.
I have on occasion, used all the machines in the garage, especially when we had wash ins in Tucson.

Ross
 
Hi Bob, I forgot.....yes I lost 70 lbs. It took 1 1/2 years but I have gone from a 46 to a 36 waist. I am diabetic but thanks to the weight loss, my blood sugar and blood pressure are much lower than when I was heavy.

Ross
 
I'm in awe

You get to wash the sacred vestments. So nice to see freedom of religion. We really live free. America isn't the envy of the world for nothing. I love how you squatted down in humility because you look so damn good ;'D. God bless you and your wonderful friends, and more than that, may god keep your wonderful washing machines working. On sabbatical, I was so hoping to go to the Famous Tuscon Wash-in. So........where is God now??? ;'D;'D;'D
 
Is Christ the King the one with the super-duper music program and a choir director who composes a lot of original music. I am also Episcopalian and sing in the choir, and we do a lot of original music that comes out of some Episcopal parish in Tucson.
 
I'm president of our Guild at Trinity Lutheran here in Wausau, and we don't control the church but we can make things unpleasant if you tick us off. LOL!!! I was surprised to see that your Guild has so few members, we have about 20. I'm sure that your parish isn't as large as our though, we have roughly 2700 baptized members. The link is to our parish & school website.

http://www.trinitynet.org
 
Hi Jim. I emailed the choir director of my parish. He is very good and is going to France with the Rector next week to study music at Taize, a French monastic order. They will be gone for 10 days.

Hi Tim. We have 20 members of the Altar Guild, but not all members came to my house. The directress broke her finger the morning of the meeting and was unable to attend.
Thank you for the link to your parish. Looks like a very nice parish.
Meantime, I have 4 linen clerical collars washing in my Norgetag. Thanks to hot water, bleach, bluing, Viva detergent and Phosphates, I am not phased by ring around the clerical collar. Then I use liquid starch. Fr. Mike likes his clerical collars bullet proof.

Ross
 
Ross, how cool!

The first pic reminded me of the old Maytag ad with all the nuns. It looks like a nice group. Our Congregational church has an altar guild, but since we only occasionally have communion, all they do is change the candles and arrange the flowers!
Bobby in Boston
 
Oh Ross, you look fabulous! And its nice to see the Altar guild!

I see your new tankless hot water heater by the minsiter's head as well. Did you resolve the issue of the other one [for the main house] not starting up at a low (showering, say) water flow rate?
 
St. Phillips in the Hills

The parish with the amazing music program is St. Phillips in the Hills. They had some artist in residence who composed a lot of stuff which we have sung, and once I was in an Evensong with three other parishes here (the OC) and they flew over the composer from Tucson to lead us. At one time he was music director at the very very huge All Saints in Pasadena, and Tucson was sort of his retirement, though he's been very active in AZ, composing lots of good music. For our rector's 30 anniversary of ordination, we commissioned an anthem that he composed.

http://www.stphilipstucson.org/Music/musicnew.html
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Hi Jim. When I first arrived in Tucson, 3 1/2 years ago, I did try St. Phillips but I felt it was too big and I got lost in the shuffle.
I went to St. Michael and All Angels for 2 years but I found too many people there arrogant, opinionated, sometimes downright rude. They complained when I used fabric softener on the vestments to have a nice smell and less wrinkles. They also complained about the Mexican detergent I use. Well...now they can take care of it any way they like.
I am at Christ The King for 1 1/2 years and everyone, without exception is very warm and friendly. A wonderful parish family.
We are selling our electronic organ and purchasing an
Aeolian Skinner 1192 which I have been told is the
"Cadillac Of Organs. And no complaints on my laundry. Actually, everyone is thrilled with the job I do on the laundry at Christ The King.

Ross
 
I linked to my parish below. It's the oldest church in all of Orange County, CA still operating on its original site. Technically the mission in San Juan Capistrano is older, but because the Mexican govt confiscated church property in the 1840s, it did not resume operation as a Catholic parish until the 1920s...LONG after our parish was up and running. Windows are Tiffany, building dates to 1889.

The original organ was by Skinner and was bellows-powered. In the 1940s, a downtown theater got rid of its organ and gave the pipes to the church, which then had the instrument rebuilt and it now has about 5000 pipes. The control console however is modern and up to date.

Here is the choir in all its glory. Pretty high powered, with section leaders who sing professionally and just about everyone else has a lot of experience. Not auditioned per se, but the repertoire is difficult enough that it scares away the less musically gifted.

http://www.messiah-santaana.org/
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ps

But I still never, EVER get into an argument with altar guild. It is a no win situation. They don't like change and they do like control!

We use real votive candles at two locations in the church. They are messy and kind of expensive. In addition, there have been issues with the heat from the votive glass causing discoloration on one of the stands holding the candles.

I made a gentle suggestion of how using tea lights from IKEA would save money (100 for $6) and how the aluminum base would protect against overheating and discoloration (invert an empty aluminum cup in the glass, place a second tea light right side up). The votive glasses are dark blue so the inverted cup "platform" would not even show. The only downside is that the candle would burn for only three hours instead of six. I even bought a starter bag of 100 tea lights to get them started.

Did they get used? NOPE!! Were they even tried just once? NOPE!!! Nothing's ever gonna change with that group. :) They are allergic to change. The rest of the parish is more open minded however.
 
Why the power struggle?

I claim to be Anglican and attend Anglican services as my ancestors. I have some issues with the Church. Actually many of my family went to the Methodist Church briefly. Some to the Baptist. A definite divide there ..but..

Why the tension with the guild? I think I may ask a member of our guild to understand. We in the pews go to service and it is as it always has been in the past. Little details are never an issue.
 
Altar Guild can be, in some parishes, the power behind the throne. Even many rectors kowtow to them. I am very comfortable in the Episcopal Church and have very few issues with them. Occasionally too liberal for my taste, but no one tells me how to vote.
 
I never realized how much politics was behind the scenes in a hosue of worship, 'till my father became church council president.

He caught the chuch accountant stealing money.

He had to convince the other members of the Board of Directors that the priests' jobs were not entirely about raising money.

He had to convice the other Board Members that the sermon-- at least-- in English won't necessarily kill 2000 years of tradition. And that the sermon should be aimed at translating into modern Greek and today's English the Bible and Epistle readings that are done in Biblical Greek.

BTW we don't do the fire and brimstone and "think like us or else yo' az iz gona burn in hell, boi". The sermons tend to be about love, forgivness, doing the right thing, treating others well yada yada yada.

Now here is an interesting tid-bit. My Italian-born Roman Catholic literature professor claims that Christianity is about a Jewish man who espoused classical Greek thought and philosophy as laid out by Plato and Aristotle etc. and preached it.

I was happy when dad got out of the politics and I was better able to enjoy services without the "baggage" and background "noise".

We did however have a seamstress that would make the priests' vestments. The joke was that every time she made the priest a "get-up" he'd leave the church to be reassigned. After a few times she decided to stop making them. *LOL*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestment
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LOL!! In Orange County, CA, there are two Greek Orthodox churches. One, in Anaheim, does it all in Greek. The second one, in Irvine, offers English liturgy in recognition of the fact that no one below yah-yah age can speak Greek, and you will lose the young people if it's not in a language they can understand. In addition, they are at risk of losing members who marry "exenos" (non-Greeks) if they can't understand what the hell is going on. A Greek friend of mine has an exenos wife who has become a leader among the church women....because they attend the Irvine church which welcomes those who don't speak Greek.

In my town of San Juan Capistrano, there is now a pan-Orthodox parish (I think Syrian or something) that uses no Slavonic, just English, trying to attract anyone of Orthodox background regardless of national origin. Their argument is that the Orthodox are spread too thinly to be able to form parishes centered on national origin, and the beliefs are the same as long as everyone speaks the same language. With the rise in gas prices, they may have a point.

One time I was in a taxi from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan, and the Greek taxi driver took me on a detour through Astoria (highway was shut down by an accident). I proudly told him about my friend who married a non-Greek but whose wife was a church leader and whose kids all attended church and religion classes...in English. His response: "but then it's not a Greek Orthodox church...:"
 
LOL. Actually all of the Christian (Eastern) Orhodox churches are auto-cephalous (Literally meaing self-run or self-headed; Self-contained, self-sustaining and self-regulating)and otherwise exactly the same.

[Well the Russians' vesmments have that raise collar (as shown above) in the back are designed to shield them from drafts, but that is about it AFAIK. *LOL*]

So the 7 or 8 +/- Eastern Orthodox churches each send their leader to be a member of the joint "Board" and elect a leader amoung them. Being more Eastern, IMHO the mystery, mysticism, and "primitiveness" (i.e. lack of change) are part of the allure and charm.

One obvious difference between Roman Catholicism (which has declared itself "THE" chuch, BTW) and the E.O. Churches is the "filoque" which is ONE line in the creed that we all recite. i wont get into it here, but it makes for an interesting read.

The next obvious difference (to me anyway) is the Eastern aspect of "There is more than one road to your destination; Chose carefully." Rather than the more western thought of "Do it this way or burn, baby burn."

Listen, if I'm going to burn in hell, I want to take some fabulous swimwear with me and before that time retire in Florida, Texas or Arizona to get used to the intense heat.
 
~Churches is the "filoque" which is ONE line in the creed that we all recite.

OOOPSIE

...which is the ONE line that DIFFERS in the creeds that we all (i.e. R.C. and E.O. recite).
 
Actually, Anglicans and some mainline Prostestant churches (Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian) also recite the Nicene Creed.

Check out the Greek Orthodox mission in our town. No pretense of even TRYING to have divine liturgy in Greek. They do offer a Greek language school, so that the children can complain a la My Big Fat Greek Wedding. GOYA and AHEPA chapters, no doubt.

Many of the kids in the photo appear to have one exenos parent.


http://gomsoc.org/
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Actually Greek and Latin should probably be mandatory in that English is about 35+/- % Greek especially in the higher sciences and I'll bet a much-greater-than-that percentage of Latin.
 
All of the children being forced to wear those get-ups for Greek Independence Day are going to grow up and write sequels to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". This is how Narda Vardalos got her start.

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