The deacon who acts—and who is, in fact, an actor

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When Deacon Glenn Netemeyer was preaching for just the third time at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Albers, the piece of paper he had written everything on blew off the lectern.

“It just flew away in the fan breeze,” he recalled with a chuckle. “I looked at the crowd and they looked at me.”

He ad-libbed. No problem.

“To be in the theater and on stage, you have to memorize lines. … Now, I do have a script (in church), but I know it. Not verbatim, but I know it.”

His stage experience also helps with the fluster factor.

“I go down among the people and people make remarks while I’m talking,” he said. “It’s not a good thing to freeze. That’s why I can fill. I can turn a remark toward what’s needed. That’s something you hone on stage. You practice.”

Since 2008, Glenn, 54, has been a deacon serving the combined parishes of St. Bernard and St. Damian in Damiansville. He is in his second year in a full-time job as the catechetical minister, as well as the director of religious education at the two schools there.

When he was 28, he hit the stage for the first time in “Fiddler on the Roof,” at the Clinton County Showcase in Breese.

Last Thursday, he opened in “The Addams Family” at the Looking Glass Playhouse in Lebanon. In between, there have been probably 50 musicals he has either performed in or directed.

On Thursday morning, Glenn was at St. Bernard, doing his twice-weekly, before-school church service with the Rev. Jack Joyce. As a deacon, Glenn can perform all the duties of a priest except say Mass and forgive sins. Plus, he’s a mean soupmaker at the annual Catholic Youth Soup Supper in Albers.

“I won two years out of five. The last time it was my Twice-Baked Potato Soup.”

Standing among the pews, Glenn was eyeball- to-eyeball with dozens of students. In the back rows, a scattering of parishioners filled the seats. He doesn’t need a microphone to be heard. Blame it on projecting his voice on stage, plus his time as a biology/earth science teacher at Cahokia and East St. Louis high schools.

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