If it's Tuesday, I must be a Methodist...

I'm living my life in two different worlds. For those who follow this blog (all three of you ... ok, maybe four ... maybe!), you know I'm now the Interim Rector at St. Luke's Episcopal in Franklin Square. It's only a 10 hour per week position where I'm in the office on Wednesdays from about 10am to 4pm and Sundays from 8:30am to 12:30pm ... and additional hours of work from home which puts me over 10 hours per week regularly. Here's the truth, there really are no part-time calls, just part-time pay! But that's what they could afford and I do my best to keep my hours near the 10 hour mark. Things are going pretty well there. When I started, the attendance was around 18 on Sundays ... last week it was up to 25 and yesterday it was 26. In percentages, that's a pretty big leap. I'm seeing new faces too and that gives me hope.

BUT, a 10 hour/week call is not enough to pay the bills. Yes, Beloved Husband works, but working at our diocesan retreat/conference center was a huge cut in pay from where he was in the corporate world. So I need a full-time call, but being restricted geographically means I must wait for the right call to open up and hope the congregation will call me to the position. That's a lot of hopes!

So, in the midst of all this, I also was approached by the senior pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church in Frederick to be their half-time minister of visitation. Fortunately, my bishop was gracious enough to let me take this call, with the understanding that I would be open to a full-time call when one becomes available. I began working with Calvary on All Saints Day (11/1).

As Minister of Visitation, I get to visit with our shut-ins and nursing home residents. It's great. I bring Holy Communion to those who want it and get to visit with a whole bunch of wonderful people. I hear stories from them about Frederick county from long ago, when our diocesan retreat center was the Buckingham School for Boys, when most people still used horses and buggies to get out to the farm because the roads were still largely dirt.

I figure that going to a Lutheran seminary and serving both an Episcopal Church and a Methodist Church makes me an Episco-Luthra-Dist. The thing that's really hard is keeping things straight. I'm at Calvary on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays ... and at St. Luke's on Wednesdays and Sundays. I have to keep situations, stories and names straight between the two places and I'm struggling with that. It's complicated, but I do know that if it's Tuesday, I must be a Methodist. ;-)