This month we asked our bloggers about how they view the role of pastor, how they understand their pastoral identity, or to share what a pastor really does all week. Here’s how they responded.
A few weeks ago, a friend who is a writer posted on Facebook to ask for the following for a writing project she was doing:
“I’m looking for jobs that are somewhat UNIQUE and that fit at least ONE of these attributes:
- Laid-back (flexible hours/schedule);
- Has different shifts (first, second, third);
- Has a lot of public interaction (people that pass through/by and can stop to chitchat);
- Something that would appeal to an artistic person;
- Something monotonous.
Bonus points (or a pat on the back to you) if said job fits ALL of those characteristics.”
I knew of only one job that fit the bill: pastor. (Though another snarky friend said “prostitute.” I’ll leave that Venn-diagram-overlap to your imagination.)
Previously, I’ve described my job as “brain-numbing boredom followed by an intense flurry of activity.” So it typically goes.
Even my secretary understands this. Last week I asked her if I had any messages or any work I needed to do. It was near the end of the week, the sermon was written and I was a little antsy. She responded accurately: “Nope. Everyone’s leaving us alone today.”
That really is on the nose.
Often I have days where the office is hopping with parishioners. I’m taking calls. The emails are piling up. The Word document with my sermon sits blank with that taunting, blinking cursor rhythmically ushering my soul’s S.O.S. People just won’t leave me alone.
Other days? Meh. Not so much.
I can only assume that this is how God wants it. In fact, when I read the Gospels, I’m amazed at how often Jesus’ life is boring. Don’t get me wrong. Graciously, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all cut out the boring bits. But any man who had to walk around that much also had to have some down days — days when the only teaching he gave was to Peter, who kept asking from the back of the line, “Are we there yet?”
The goal, I’ve found, is to accept what comes. When there are lulls in work, my industrious side kicks in, tries to make me feel guilty for just reading a book or working ahead on a future column for The Presbyterian Outlook (hint: I wrote this column in late August). There’s a little voice, that at times can sound like the most cantankerous congregant, saying: “You know they already think you only work that one day each week. Now you’re just proving them right.” But I’m learning to backburner that voice. Those down days are as important to ministry as the busy ones. In fact, I suspect I’d flub every busy day’s business if it weren’t for the down ones.
The reality is that so much of this work revolves around people that it is impossible to “get ahead.” I may know that someone needs to come talk to me about this, that or the other thing, but until they realize this, my trying to force the conversation would be for my own good and not theirs.
Yet for all I’ve learned in a few years of doing this work, there is still one aspect that I can’t get over: the hours.
My predecessor, so his widow tells me, often said that he worked second shift. I get that. More often than not, I have three or four evenings each week filled with meetings. I was recently relieved when the chair of the mission committee told me that the meeting was the following Monday evening. That was good. Before that email, I had been quadruple-booked. Now I was only triple-booked. That seemed far more manageable.
The reality is that I’m fortunate enough to work at a church where the vast majority of folks still have nine-to-five jobs and so they can only do their work for the church in the evenings. Since that is when they can work for the church, that’s when I must work for the church. Like I said, this work revolves around people, which means it revolves around their schedules.
But even this strikes me as coming more from the will of God than from the average work week. How often is Jesus doing ministry outside of nine-to-five? Woman at the well? Lunch break. Half of his healings? During his commute. Prayer time? Definitely either early in the morning or late at night. Even though his death occurs in the middle of the work day, the sun still turned black like it was night time. Oh, and his greatest job? The resurrection? Pre-dawn.
What if this isn’t true just for pastors? What if a life revolving around people and the real work of life happening outside the nine-to-five are just the markers of all discipleship? I recognize that those same individuals meeting at 6 p.m. on a Monday to discuss the church’s next mission project have also come from their so-called “real jobs.” Yet I’m fairly convinced that the best work they’ll do that day will be in planning and praying.
I don’t mean to imply that our jobs can’t also be places for ministry. A pastor should be the lastperson to say that! Rather, it’s just that all the energy we spend doing data entry, managing a grocery store, walking the halls of the hospital or stapling the cover sheet to our TPS reports is likely to be the boring bits that get left out.
Most Christians have occupations. All Christians have vocations.
And so I spend my days working my occupation, waiting for those moments – so often during second shift – when I can exercise my vocation. So do my people. So did my Savior. I can live with that. I hope I can live like that.
JEFFREY A. SCHOOLEY is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Marysville, Ohio. If you write to him at thinklikechristians@gmail.com, you’re likely to receive a response after 11 p.m. Such is the nature of his vocation.
