Reverend Ref +

SINNERS WELCOME

Okay, not a Styx song, but this library link thing is really damaging my creativity == not to mention the time limit thing doesn't allow for much playing.  Anyway . . .

So I was getting caught up on some of the goings on with my blogger friends and came across Jane's post about starting a new church.  Check out the link, it's a good read.  Well, I'm not exactly starting a new church, but when the two parishes I'm serving haven't had a regular priest in 12 years I might as well be.  They've been doing what they've needed to to survive, and along come I asking all kinds of silly practical questions.  Most of the time, the answer is something like, "Whatever you want to do or however you want to handle it, Father, is fine with us."  Wow. 

The main gist of the linked post is that you need to be radical == radical hospitality, radical this, radical that.  Well, believe it or not, I'm exhibiting many forms of radicalness in this new job (vocation, call, whatever).  I'm finding it very easy to implement ideas, and I'm taking that and running with it.  You all saw my sermon for the centennial celebration; not what you would call a safe sermon, considering it was the second one I preached at St. Paul's.

So, here is St. Paul's, the staid Episcopal church in Virginia City, the one with the 100 year old building, the only church in town, built by all the proper people and attended by the . . . loyalists.  And here I come.  They have a reader board out front.  After the first Sunday, which read, "Come welcome the Rev. Todd Young," and after the second Sunday, which read, "Centennial Service 5:00 pm, Bishop Brookhart Presiding," I was forced to put up something normal.  So, I listed my name == The Rev. Todd Young (bizarre seeing that on a reader board), Office Hrs: T & Th, and our phone number.  That left me with a big gap on the board.  So, in the biggest letters I could find, I put

                                                                               SINNERS WELCOME

I'm thinking that that should stir up some talk around VC.  Who knows, I might even get some people coming to check us out on a Sunday.