(Author's Note: This post is the first of a two-part series as an answer to that jokingly cliched question, "So, what exactly does your pastor do the other six days of the week?" This is a "day in the life" post, the second part will be a "week in the life" post. It will not, however, be the length of six "day in the life" posts, I promise. -E.A.)
Most Monday mornings, I am up at 7:30 am, 7:45 if I indulge my snooze button a couple of times. The morning is fairly typical--I brew coffee (occasionally forgetting crucial ingredients like, say, a filter), make breakfast, and read the news (on my computer). I always try to reserve 10-15 minutes in the morning for Scripture and prayer, but I'd be lying if I said I managed to do that every day. This would be one of those days.
On Mondays, I keep office hours between 9:30 am - 5:30 pm, so I'm usually in the car by 9:00.
Arriving at work, I see on my desk a few letters and pieces of mail for me from the previous Friday. 90% of these are solicitations, invites to events, and otherwise junk mail, but just enough personal letters arrive to keep the mail interesting. Sitting down to read my mail, I log in to my church email as well as our various social networking outlets--Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and, of course, here.
Around 10:00 am is my weekly sit-down meeting with our extremely dedicated secretary, Charlotte. This week's agenda, from my end, is a lengthy one--we just had a board meeting and approved a couple of significant expenses, plus we are in the midst of a major administrative overhaul as far as our policies on personnel, facilities, and the like are concerned. We both take extensive notes, and we work on assignment triage--determining which of these items needs to be dealt with first, second, third, and so on.
After this meeting, I have to switch gears entirely, because at 11:00 am, I hold a chapel service for the morning students of the KidsWorld preschool that my church hosts in our education building. While KidsWorld is non-denominational and not formally affiliated with my church, I do work with them very closely on a number of things, and this is one of them, and for good reason: the morning chapel usually brings in over 40 four-year-old kids! After a few songs, one of the teachers recites a Bible verse with the children (this year, it is Matthew 7:12, aka the Golden Rule--do unto others). My role in the chapel service is to give a little talk or storytime at the end for the kids. Because I have a free hand to choose to do whatever I want during this time, I'll do this through a variety of ways--I've brought in comic strips, I've used my ipad (which the kids always get a kick out of), I've prayed with them. This week, I'm using a children's Bible to tell them the story of the Good Samaritan, as an example of a person living by the Golden Rule. It ain't no ipad, but it goes over well.
I hold another chapel for the afternoon kids at 2:30 pm, so the 11:30-2:30 time is the next window of time to attend to office matters. This usually gets broken up by a lunch run--today to Big Town Hero for a tuna sandwich--but I am otherwise at my desk returning emails and phone calls, posting on Facebook or Twitter, and otherwise interacting with the legions of my church's adoring fans, who I KNOW are out there. =) If there are visitors who leave contact information from yesterday's worship, this is usually when I follow up with them.
The afternoon preschool chapel is always over by 3:00, and around 3:30 or 4:00, Don, our church moderator, often stops by for our weekly sit-down meeting. Like my meeting with Charlotte, much of what Don and I talk about is administrative, but he is also one of my most important sounding boards for ideas and ministries that I want to try. In a small church, I think it is difficult to overstate the relationship the pastor must have with the lay leader of the church (moderator, president, etc). He and I are looking ahead towards the annual general meeting of the church, where we have to get our budget and proposed slate of officers approved, so I also go over the material I have for my "State of the Church" discussion with him.
After my meeting with Don, I usually have an hour or so to tie up any loose ends from the day, and I'll leave the office between 5:30 and 5:45, but that isn't the end of the workday--tonight, I drive from the office to a local bar and grill to meet at 6:00 with one of the couples who I am marrying this year at the church. Because of the architectural beauty of our sanctuary, we host a lot of weddings, and I usually sit down with couples several times before their wedding for some planning and counseling, and I actually enjoy these sessions a great deal. At this meeting, over a couple of beers, they and I discuss themes for the wedding, family histories, and homework to do before our next meeting. Usually, these meetings are an hour long, but since this is an initial session, it goes for about 90 minutes because of how much ground there is to cover.
Afterwards, I have to make it home by 8:00 for a Skype conference with Marvin, a retired Disciples pastor who has been mentoring me through the beginning stages of my pastorate here. Our conversation over that hour encompasses a wide variety of topics, and since it is incredibly easy for pastors to let themselves live in a bubble, not hearing and seeing what other pastors and other churches are doing, these conversations are invaluable to me in doing my job well.
At 9:00, Marvin and I both sign off, and I can finally kick up my feet and pour myself a glass of wine. Even though I have to be back at the office in 12 hours to study and prepare for the Tuesday morning adult Bible study, I feel good, and I play some Maynard Ferguson on the iTunes as I crack open a new book that has nothing to do with ministry. It has been a good day's work.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
(Okay, so I didn't actually have a case of the Mondays here. I just wanted to include a line from Office Space.)
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