Dundela Ordination

Tonight we had a parish outing on the bus to St Mark's Church, Dundela, for the ordination of two priests/presbyters, Christopher Woods, and Trevor McKeown (our Curate). It was an interesting service, with parts of the liturgy sung by the choir, including the Litany, part of the Prayer of Consecration, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, and stuff during the Communion.

I hadn't realised, but St Mark's is rather 'high' in terms of it's churchmanship, with candles in the procession, a crucifer, and the parading of the Gospel Book. There were also the references to the 'altar' which I didn't understand, but maybe that's because I'm a low-church fella who knows that Calvary was our altar, where the once for all sacrifice was made for our sins, and that the wooden thing at the front is the Lord's Table, the Communion Table or the Holy Table.

But it was interesting to see a different style of doing church - even if it was just to confirm that I'm more comfortable in a lower way of doing things.

Another bonus of tonight was that I saw a few people I haven't seen in ages - for one, Rev Gary Galway and his wife Heather, and Alison and Rosie - both of whom were at a Diocesan Confirmation weekend I facilitated at several years ago. So it was good catching up with them... even though Rosie insisted I was a country hacker... then she modified it to being a 'posh country hacker' - which I don't get!

The scary thing was that some of our parishoners were going on about how that will be me in a few years, getting ordained... again, time seems to be going so quickly!

Please pray for Trevor, as he begins this new phase of ministry, and looks forward to celebrating his first Communion next Sunday morning.