A little history

On October 14th, 2012 I was installed as Verger of St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham NC. I am privileged to be the fifth Verger in the history of St. Philip's. A cradle Anglican, I'm an import from Norfolk, England where I was a pre-press manager of a well-known book printing company. In 2001 with Gail my Yorkshire-born wife moved to Andalusia, Spain where we lived in semi-retirement for five years before moving to North Carolina in 2006. 

I first became interested in the ministry of verger while a member of a small downtown church, St. Joseph's. I had  from early childhood always been interested in the liturgy and the rubrics of worship.  I was a junior chorister at my local C of E church and soon became an altar boy (aka acolyte, no altar girls in those days). 

As I became more involved at St. Joe's I found I needed to learn more so joined the Vergers' Guild of the Episcopal Church and enrolled in their training course. Meanwhile we had transferred to St. Philip's and I was soon active in the verger ministry there under the guidance of the patient and very knowledegable Head Verger, Bruce Olive (now Verger Emeritus).  His encouragement and leadership saw me involved and helping plan services throughout the church year and by late summer I had completed the Guild course to become a Fellow (FVGEC). 

My intention  is to post verger-related and personal reflections which hopefully will be of interest to readers and who knows, perhaps encourage others to take up this very worthwhile ministry.