A week in the life of the Parson

My friend and colleague, Clint Schnekloth, recently challenged his Lutheran pastor friends to share a summary of our experiences during the week. A chance for us to learn from one another, and for our non-clergy friends to get a peek into what a pastor's life looks like.

As a caveat: there is no such thing as a normal week in the life of a pastor. Every week has something unusual - a funeral, a wedding, a pastoral emergency, etc. So I this just happens to be the week immediately after Pastor Schnekloth invited us to share our experiences. (Ok, it wound up being an octave, not a week. But you get the idea).

Saturday, January 12

Wedding, and pre-Sunday. If there is a wedding, it pretty much takes all day (although the service itself is not terribly long). Over to church around noon to unlock and set the heat or air conditioning for the day. Into my office to fine tune my wedding sermon and service. Greet family and friends and make sure that everything is ready. Weddings can be frustrating for a pastor, but it is also a great joy and privilege to spend time with families as the celebrate.

Off to the reception, which I usually leave fairly early. By about 8:00pm on any given Saturday night, my mind turns to Sunday morning. There is something to the Jewish practice of beginning a day at sunset the night prior. I am thinking about my sermon, thinking about the liturgy, thinking about Sunday School. Not exactly the party guy. So I try to be home by 9:00pm on Saturdays -- it really is better for everyone.

Sunday, January 13
"Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!" The big show. Yes, the things I do all week long are important. But what happens on Sunday goes a long way toward shaping who we are on a community. I am usually at church between 5:30-6:00am. A practice I learned from my Dad. Tweak the sermon. Practice the sermon and the liturgy. Make sure that everything is where it needs to be. Spend some extra time in prayer, asking for God to speak to our community -- knowing that without God, all of my preparation is meaningless.

This particular Sunday, there is also our afternoon confirmation class with two other community churches. So after the service it is a quick bite to eat, and then time to go over my lesson. And then the confirmation students arrive, and we are off to the races.

By the time I am home at 6:30pm, I am done. For this introvert, that is a lot of time spent with large groups. Sundays are joyful and exciting, and also exhausting.

Monday, January 14
After an especially busy Sunday, a slow start to Monday. Responding to emails and phone calls (Did you ever notice that emails and phone calls seem to come like a tidal wave on Monday mornings?). After hearing at church that a friend and neighbor was sick, word came this morning that he died last night. I went to the family's house, and sat with his widow and family for a little while, offering prayer and my sympathies. Then back to the office, post a podcast from Christmas (catching up!) and to finish reports and paperwork for our first council meeting of the new year. I love our council meetings. I have the privilege of working with a great group of leaders, and this year is no exception. A great time at our first meeting.

Tuesday, January 15
A Presbyterian teaching elder, an Episcopal priest, a UCC pastor, and two Lutheran pastors walk into the room. No, really. Every Tuesday morning, we have a time to sit down and study the Scriptures for Sunday ahead. It is a wonderful time of study, support, and prayer. From there, I went off to the hospital to visit a member who had surgery. I spent some time visiting with him and his family. And then, a young women noticed my collar and asked me to come visit with her family. Her dad was being removed from life support today. So, with this family I had just met, we prayed together. We talked about God and about faith and about suffering. We cried together. It was a holy afternoon.

Back at the office, I finished up my written annual report so that the annual meeting materials could get mailed out to the congregation on Wednesday. On Tuesday evenings, I meet on twitter for a conversation about using technology and social media in ministry, which a community of which I am a part called Church Social Media (#chsocm). The hour spent in that conversation every week helps me to develop new skills and think about ministry in new ways.

Then it was family game night time!

Wednesday, January 16
Odds and ends. A little bit of this and a little bit of that.
A couple of pop-in visits at the nursing home to see how everyone was doing. A couple of phone calls to follow up on things. A chuck of time on ye olde sermon. Giving the final once over to the bulletin. Our monthly fellowship lunch with the men of the congregation.

And then evening meetings. Met with the volunteers who put together the powerpoint presentations for Sunday morning. It served as an orientation for new volunteers, as well as an introduction to our new laptop (Windows 8, yuck) for people who have served there for a while. From there, straight to another meeting about our building use with a group who is working up a proposal for a new activity center for the congregation. It is exciting to work on this sort of project, which is driven not by the pastor but by creative and forward thinking members.

Thursday, January 17
Funeral for the friend who died earlier in the week. A beautiful memorial for this well-known member of our community.

Then, getting ready for our annual Council retreat on Saturday. Every year, the Council devotes a day to a) learning about their responsibilities as council members and b) dreaming about the future of St. John. Most of Thursday was spent preparing my materials for that conversation, as well as picking up supplies and making handouts and all those other preparations.

Friday, January 18

Sabbath. A day of rest. Mostly. Yes, some time spent reading, and some time spent doing chores. But also some goofing off and some plain old enjoyment of this life that God has given us. Lots of time with my daughter and wife.

At some point in the last few years, I the listing of this day in our monthly calendar. It used to say "Pastor's Day Off" and now says "Pastor's Sabbath." As in, "Six days you shall work, but the seventh day shall be a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On that day, you shall do no work." Not God's suggestion to get a little rest. God's command. You shall rest.

Friday doesn't always work for my Sabbath. Other things come up that must be dealt with. But I try to be faithful to my responsibility to take a day of rest.

Saturday, January 19
Men's breakfast first thing in the morning, and then: Council retreat.
As I said, I have a great time with the leadership of St. John. I really think that church leadership should be joyful - and we live that out in our life together at St. John. So, we had a great day getting to know one another, laughing together, dreaming together, praying together, and doing business of the church together.

And then it starts all over again.

Get Rid of Your Crappy Pastor!

(This post has attracted a lot of attention since first published. Thank you. Please check out my follow up post as well.)

I simply cannot count the number of complaints that I get to hear about other pastors. I've responded to such complaints many ways over the years. The simply smile and nod, without actually agreeing -- or conversely, the serious head shake. I've advised the individuals to go and talk to their pastor about their complaint. I've even tried to convince the complainer that their pastor really is pretty good.

But enough of that. I know what most of these complainers want ... They want to get rid of their crappy pastor. The sooner the better. And so, without further ado, six steps to get rid of your crappy pastor and get a better pastor in your congregation.

1) Pray for your crappy pastor. I know, you really don't want to pray for your pastor right now, but give it a try. Pray for your pastor's preaching, for your pastor's life, even for the pastor's family. Prayer was one of those things that Jesus was kind of big on, so go ahead and give it a try.

2) Make sure your crappy pastor takes a day off. Really, you don't want your pastor doing all those things that annoy you any more than absolutely necessary. Make sure everyone knows when the pastor's day off is, and that doesn't call on that day. If there is a congregational event, or an emergency, or a wedding, or a funeral on the normal day off, let it be known that your pastor will be taking another day off to make up the time off.

3) Insist that your crappy pastor take every week of vacation in the contract. Many pastors leave unclaimed vacation days every year. Let's face it - you don't really want your pastor around anyway, so encourage him or her to take all of the allowed vacation. And make it easy decision for your crappy pastor to leave town! Line up volunteers to take care of all the work around the congregation so the pastor doesn't have to work extra hard before leaving and when coming home. Offer up your vacation home, or a gift card for a plane ticket out of town. Make sure everyone comes to worship, so the pastor doesn't feel guilty about leaving for a Sunday.

4) Continuing Education Events. Speaking of getting your crappy pastor out of town, by contract your pastor probably has continuing education time. Make sure that your pastor is attending lots of events with exciting speakers, great preachers, and innovative thinkers (you know, just so your pastor can see the ways in which he or she doesn't measure up). While you're at it, go ahead and increase the continuing education budget - make sure there is no barrier to your pastor getting away from your congregation and to these events.

5) Take over the tasks with which your pastor struggles. We all know that pastors should be good at everything in the parish - from administration to preaching, from visitation with the elderly to youth events. Chances are, your crappy pastor has some places where there are struggles. Hire an administrative assistant. Get the parents and other volunteers to coordinate and host the youth events. Get a group of volunteers together to visit with homebound members. There are all sorts of ways to make sure that your crappy pastor doesn't mess up these tasks that he or she is already struggling with.

6) Encourage your pastor to spend more time in prayer and reading. Now that you have freed up your pastor from all those tasks that were the worst trouble points, there is all sorts of extra time. You don't want him or her to jump right back into those tasks and mess them up, do you? Encourage them to go and read, or spend time with other local pastors, or spend more time intentionally in prayer.

There you go! It's foolproof!

If you do these six simple things, I guarantee you will get rid of your crappy pastor. Get your congregational leaders on board with this plan. Recruit the key people in the congregation to help you with it.

Pray for your pastor, make sure your crappy pastor takes all of the allotted vacation and days off, send your pastor to amazing continuing education events, recruit volunteers (or hire other staff) to fill in your pastor's weaknesses, and make sure your pastor is spending time praying, reading, and dreaming.

Yup, that's it. Do those things, and I guarantee you will stop complaining about your crappy pastor. You will hear better sermons. People will feel more ministered to. Exciting ideas will start to come from your council meetings.

And all these things without having to go through the search process and hire a new pastor!

Take these six steps, and watch your crappy pastor become the sort of pastor you have always wanted.