New Doors

New door nearest elevator lobby
(click on image for larger view)

I was excited to read in the weekly electronic newsletter from St. Paul’s that new doors had been installed to the parking lot. I had to stop by on the way home to see how they look.

There are three new doors, each of which is perforated by and flanked by large glass panels. The doors are sturdy and seem to seal particularly well. The expanse of clear glass is a bit disconcerting, but the new doors, qua doors, are quite attractive.

I’m sure parishioners (and certainly our sextons) will appreciate the latest building improvement. I do have three concerns about them, however.

First, there is the color. The doors are brick red, not the scarlet typical of Episcopal churches and the color used on the doors at the front of the church.

Second, I was disappointed that the door nearest the elevator lobby does not sport an electric door opener, a feature I expected and one that would be very helpful to the handicapped or to visitors carrying bulky loads into the church. I don’t know if a door opener is in the works. I hope it is.

Finally, however attractive the new doors may be in the abstract, they appear to be a Bauhausian addition to an English Gothic church. No doubt, we will get used to them. For me, now, however, the doors seem shockingly out of place.

Bye-bye Coke Machine

I was surprised to see Sunday that the Coke machine was gone from the cloakroom off the undercroft. The vending machine had lots of customers several years ago, when St. Paul’s offered after-school snacks and (occasionally) conversation. Apparently, the machine was getting little use of late, however.

 I am not going to lament the loss of the Coke machine, as I used it only once in a blue moon myself, and I don’t recall seeing others using it either.

Of course, the departure of the Coke machine frees up a bit of space in the cloakroom, though it isn’t an area with an obvious use. On Sunday, it was already occupied by a ladder and dolly. Alas, the cloakroom still seems to be thought of more as extra storage space than a welcoming place for members and visitors. (See “Cloakroom.”)

Air Conditioning Side Effects?

My seat in the choir puts me behind the organ console. This limits what I can see of the church. What I can see well are the lamps on or hanging from the ceiling, as well as lamps on the roof trusses.

Yesterday, I noticed something I had never seen before, namely significant swinging of the nave lanterns. Three of the lanterns on the font side of the church exhibited very conspicuous swinging, and two others swung almost imperceptibly. The movement was not constant, however; it came and went. I cannot say that the swinging was synchronized with the cycling of the air conditioning, but I suspect that it might be. Curiously, I saw no such motion on the pulpit side of the church, even though the church (and the air conditioning vents) are symmetrical.

The motion does not seem dangerous, though it is a bit distracting, at least if you’re trapped behind the organ console. Do you suppose the new air conditioning is responsible?

Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church

I don’t usually use a blog post simply to call attention to a story or essay elsewhere, but I’m making an exception here.

Although I can enumerate the things I like to see in a church, I don’t trust my instincts about what others are looking for, particularly what young adults are seeking. A CNN blog post by Rachel Held Evans seems pretty credible, however, and I recommend reading it for whatever lessons it might hold for St. Paul’s.

You can find “Why millennials are leaving the church” here.

Mission Trips

Youth mission trips have become quite popular at St. Paul’s. Many events help fund these trips. No doubt, much good work is done on these trips, and they seems to be much appreciated by the kids who participate.

I have long asked myself, however, if it would not be better to have our youth doing work in the Pittsburgh area. Not only would this help build our own community. It would also be an eye-opener for St. Paul’s youth, who might find that, say, Wilkinsburg is rather different from Mt. Lebanon. Additionally, although a mission trip in Greater Pittsburgh would lack the glamor of a trip out of town, the funds expended on such an enterprise would go a lot further with fewer travel-related expenses to fund.

A Facebook friend posted an article about mission trips that echoes my concerns. it also suggests another advantage of mission projects close to home—such a project can continue beyond a single week in the summer. Here is a sample paragraph from “Rethinking the $3,000 Missions Trip”:

I believe in missions. I also believe in short-term mission trips. Yet the longer I work in the resource-poor inner city, the more frustrated I become with the amount of money God’s people spend on these brief trips. We seem so eager to spend thousands of dollars sending our people overseas for one week without stopping to ask, “Would some of this money be better invested in my own community?”

You can read the whole article here.

Air Conditioning Operational

Tomorrow promises to be hot. It may be an ideal time to test the new air conditioning in the church. The new air handler, which will service the undercroft nearest Washington Road and the nave nearest Washington Road, is in the storage area at the back of the undercroft. The new air conditioner has a greater capacity that the one it is replacing. Below are pictures of the new installation.

The new compressor outside is hardly larger than the old one and sits on the same concrete pad.

The installation in the storage area is impressively neat. The insert
shows the electronic controls not visible in the main photo.

This switch controls what area is air conditioned. Of course the “Parish Hall” label should read
“Undercroft” and the “Sanctuary” label should read “Church” or “Nave.”

Servo-controlled dampers have been installed on undercroft registers, so that air flow can be decreased to the
undercroft and increased to the nave. Cosmetic additions will make this look more attractive eventually.

Finished installation at the back of the nave. A new electronic thermostat can be seen at the right above the
literature rack. There is also a new thermostat on the landing at the bottom of the circular stairs.

For tomorrow at least, all three portable air conditioning units will be used. It is not clear whether the one at the back of the nave will be needed. The last few pews in the church may be very cold (or not).
   

“Earth and All Stars” Revisited

Last Sunday, we sang “Earth and All Stars” (Hymn #412) at the 10:45 service. Some love this self-conscientiously “modern” hymn that was written for St. Olaf’s College. Others loathe it. I am in the second category. The tune, however, isn’t at all bad. Frustrated that we sing “Earth and All Stars” much too often—at all, in fact—I decided to offer a different text for the tune, keeping at least some of the ideas behind the existing hymn.

I have added my hymn, which I call “Heavens and Earth, All of Creation” to my Web site here. On that page, you can all listen to a rendition of “Earth and All Stars” and find links to my blog posts about that hymn and mine.

Comments on my latest effort at hymn-writing effort would be greatly appreciated.