THE MASTER AND THE DOOR

I found this article about the refinishing of the church doors at Trinity Anglican, Barrie. I was really shocked at how well  different it looked and how well It came out. I have added my own photos of the door for my re-posting of  this article. To see the original photos that ran with this or to read the article at its' source please click the link below and scroll down to the second page of the paper. I hope you enjoy. -SA  

http://www.trinitybarrie.ca/happenings/30oct11.pdf

THE MASTER AND THE DOOR

What began as a generous bequest from the will of Verdi Wallwin, a much-loved, beautiful and gracious member of Trinity, culminated in a welcoming new entrance to the church at the top of the hill.

Door just after it was painted in 2000

Jack Wallwin, with the help of Jim Laking and Millet Salter, undertook a replacement of the steps and the handrail leading up to the front door.  Then it was time to address the refinishing of the door itself. Jack contacted the very best man for the job, Ben Poernbacher, a master painter and refinisher, who at the age of 14 began a 3 year apprenticeship in Austria, his homeland, and started to work at his trade when only 17!

Ben was used to working on ladders, at 19 he found a job high in the mountain villages of Switzerland where he would paint on rising scaffolds, church steeples as high as 130 feet!  Ben came to Canada by himself in 1957 when he was 24 years old and settled in Toronto. Because skiing was a passion he eventually found his way to Snow Valley and owner, Hans Eder, also Austrian. Soon Barrie became his home.

Door once all paint was removed

Over the years Trinity’s main entrance door had accumulated more than 20 layers of paint.  All of these layers were removed by Ben in painstaking fashion using a propane torch.  To avoid burning the wood, the final two layers were cleaned with paint remover and then scraped by hand.  Once cleaned, scraped and sanded Ben realized that the main part of the door was mahogany with pine mouldings which he stained to match the mahogany and bleached once for uniformity of colour. Then came three coats of clear varnish to complete the natural finishing of the door.

Door as it appears today

The final touch to the completion of the church entrance was the installation of a new threshold. Jack Wallwin provided the wood that had been recently cut from a red oak tree on the Wallwin family farm. Two coats of stain and three of varnish were applied by Ben to protect this very handsome piece of wood. Removal of all the old paint from the door hardware and from the wonderful original light fixture above provided for a fresh new coat of black paint to complete the masterpiece!

It is the hope of all parishioners that the new entrance signals a new vision for Trinity

Cross Part 1: Old Cross

I my duties at church as sub-deacon I train a lead the alter servers. As part of that I have trained some of the younger ones to be cross bearers or  Crucifer. Do to the young age of these new servers we began using the lighter of the two processional crosses at the church. The wooden one pictured below.  

It was when we started using it more that I realized that it was really showing its' age. As you can clearly see above the dowel that attached the cross to the handle has broken out, and pieces of the border have broken off. I used stain pens to cover up the large colour difference, but that is far from a real fix.


Because of  all of these facts and problems, I have got the permission of the leaders of the church to make a replacement cross. I am very excited about this. It is something I have thought about doing for some time.  

Selecting a new head priest

Recently I had the honor of being selected to me a member of a 8 person team that will be selecting a new head minster for our church. To be honest I never thought that I would get the votes. Someone asked me if it was alright if they put my name forward, and I said sure. I maybe should have given it more thought.

The reason that I was desired to me on the committee was the fact that I am a rarity in my church, and most churches in North America. I am am both young and involved in the church. Most people once they hit the age of about 18 drift away, and maybe come back when they have kids of their own. I on the other hand have not followed that path. Now at the age of 25, I am still in school, unmarried, and more involved in the church then most people twice my age.

I do not want people to misunderstand. I feel that my being on the selection team is a very good thing. I have a point of view that few others will have, and with that hope to be able to help steer the church, by way of it's new leader, down a road that will make it great again. It is just I wish that it did not need to be me. That is something I am sure that many people who find themselves in roles like I am in now. They know that they work they do is of the greatest importance, but wish there was someone else who could do it. To be honest it is the people who really really want to have this kind of job placed on them that worry me. Those are the kind of folks that do things for their own motives and not for the good of the whole.        

Church work

Along with many of the other things that I do I volunteer as a sub-deacon at my church. This time of year, the Easter season, has been very bust for me in terms of that. There is Maundy Thursday service when all reminders of Jesus are removed. The Good Friday service the next day that shows him going to the cross. Then tomorrow is Easter Sunday where we celebrate the rebirth of Jesus. All that combined leads to me getting a little worn out. The on top of it all this year I had exams.

I do not want to say I dislike the task I have taken on as being a sub-deacon. Most of the time I find it enjoyable because it gets me involved and I am able to see how it helps people. But sometimes I wish someone else would be willing to take some of it on. I took on the task because the person who did it before me left. So I was simply filling the void. If I had my choice of what I would rather be doing to help my church it would be fixing the many small broken pieces of woodwork that is has. As it is with school, the church, and the other tasks I need to do in a week, I often do not get to doing the thinks that I would prefer to be doing. A great deal of the things that started out as being joyful have grown to be tasks that stress me some what. This blog for example. It began as a fun relaxing thing, but the skills I gained here were discovered and now I am looking after another blog written by a leader in the church, and posting content to other places online. Again most of the time a do not really mind, but other times it does begin to wear me down.