Clergy Family Confidential

The crew came in to demo the rectory kitchen today. And it’s a marked improvement to what was in its place. Plus there’s nothing like adding a kitchen renovation to your sabbatical. I highly recommend this to any clergy out there seeking to have a renewing, peaceful, and prayerful sabbatical experience.

While the timing’s not great, it was long overdue. Like most rectory kitchens (and a lot of churches in general), ours was pieced together on the cheap. It’s understandable as we’re all on shoe string budgets. Church “improvements” are often done by well-meaning but unskilled parishioners. The problem, of course, is that this sort of short-sighted planning always comes back to haunt future budgets.

Our current kitchen was evidently put in about 14 years ago by the husband of a former rector. And it showed. Though I admit the time I opened a drawer and the entire facing came off in my hand made me feel quite manly. I flexed and grunted while Bryna just rolled her eyes.

In the meantime we’re all holed up in the dining room along with a slew of boxes, the kitchen table, a microwave, hotpot, and the refrigerator. Oh, and obviously the coffee maker. The only sink is in the upstairs bathroom and the washer and dryer have been disconnected. The boys like the adventure – it feels like camping. The dog’s merely confused. We’ll see how everyone feels after six weeks of this.