My first job in the church was as the bishop's assistant. This was in a portion of Pennsylvania notorious for its harsh weather, especially in winter. The morning after a particularly vicious storm, one that flattened farms, left flash frozen livestock in the fields, knocked out power, closed schools for the week, and turned the local hospitals into shelters, the bishop called me just before dawn.
"How soon can you get to diocesan house?"
"Ah, I'm not sure. Is the Interstate still closed?"
"There's one lane open northbound. That's plenty of room."
"Okay...maybe forty-five minutes?"
"Make it thirty."
"It'll take me that long to shovel out my car."
"Thirty minutes."
So, for the remainder of that day, from what would have been morning rush hour to almost midnight, in the remnant snow and the gathering ice, slipping and sliding in the bishop's absurd yellow Eldorado, once even winding up in a snow bank and having to be towed out by a passing farmer's tractor, we visited every single parish in the affected area. We also stopped at the rectories and homes of clergy; praying with the rectors and assisting clergy with the bishop whipping out his diocesan checkbook when needed and, basically, taking care of business. Like a boss, as the young people say. Well, like a church boss. I think I shoveled roughly a ton of snow. That's what we did in those days.
Very late last night and then later this afternoon, after what I'm sure was at least one very important meeting by those in the upper echelons, now ten days after a microburst and tornado passed through our area, flattening houses, wrecking an impressive number of trees, and leaving power lines strewn all over like my sister's notorious spaghetti disaster of 1974, we received a mass-mailed electronic message of support from the bishops.
If you ask me, as young clergy sometimes do, what's changed the most in the church over the last 36 years, that would be it.