So this week, my pastor is gone, which is just an amazing act of trust on his part, because as holy and amazing as I am, I'm also like just terribly incompetent.

Like I double book myself, I messed up schedules, but anyway, he's gone for the week.

And so the running joke among myself and the staff is that, oh, look, you know, you're in

charge and you can make decisions and sign a check for me and blah, blah, blah.

We all joke and it's fun.

But as we were talking, I was like, guys, I know this is funny, but I have no power in this

parish. Like as a parochial vigor, I have no power, no saying anything. And like, no, you are a priest

and you're, you're in charge of stuff when the pastor's gone and I'm

like I don't think so while this is all going on there's this tech guy who is

redoing our whole camera system so we have a camera system to let people into the

office and that kind of thing and he's done fiddling with it he says oh by the way

if you want to buy a new system, because you guys are kind of

due for a new system, it's so many dollars. And I look to my staff and I say, do you trust me

to make this decision? And they immediately said, no, we're going to wait for the pastor, right?

So there it is. Parochial vicar, no power. I can't change hymns. I can't change tech systems. I am just here to

help people. That's all I can do, which is fine. It's just fine by me. As someone who was a prokial

vicar for like three years and now is a pastor, enjoy it while you can. Mm-hmm. I do. I was telling people all the time, I was like, I don't want to be a pastor.

I like the freedom of being an associate.

Oh, you got a problem?

Go talk to the pastor.

Oh, I love that line.

You know, it's like, oh, that's a great line.

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