Reflections on being a “Real Life Pastor”

Some delayed reflections (because work and life has been busy lately) …

The pastor was out of the office on vacation from Thursday, October 19th through Monday, October 30th. During this time, there was also no administrative assistant in the office. I was in the office alone and functioning as pastor, secretary, and intern for 12 days.

There wasn’t one particular event that caused a pastoral dilemma; it was deciding how to spend my time when there were so many different things that needed to be done. It was a busy time in terms of building management and contractors. Phone calls, opening doors and gates, finding out about the projects, and being in the office during specific times each day ate up a lot of my time – much more than I would have predicted. It was an unusually busy week in terms of these things, but they were things with which I had to deal and manage and some weeks will be like that.

I was often surprised at how much of my day was already gone after I had only met with or talked to the contractor, answered the messages on the answering machine, and gone through the mail and email. Other normal weekly tasks continued to fill my days: volunteering at the outreach center on Tuesday morning, preparing for Bible Study and leading it on Wednesday evening, working with the Elementary Youth Group on Fridays, tutoring. Plus there were additional meetings those weeks. Add to that planning for worship and putting the bulletin together and I was left with little time for much else. Yet, I also wanted to make some pastoral visits and needed to write a sermon for worship on October 29th. To do both those things, I really needed to get out of the office. However, I felt stuck at the church and unable to get away to do such things. Therefore, I only made one pastoral care visit and wrote much of my sermon on Saturday.

This experience was invaluable and overall I loved it. It was definitely a taste of being a “real life pastor.” I really like being in a church and working as a pastor and this experience provided additional confirmation of my call to congregational ministry. It also made me reflect on how a pastor must continually assess and prioritize the things that need to be done each week. In such a profession, there will always be more to do and more that could be done than will fit in a work week. Time management skills are essential. I believe good boundaries are also a necessity. I could have come in on Thursday (my day off) and gotten some things done and visited some people, but I didn’t. It was tempting, but I had two friends in town who made sure I took the whole day off. I did what I could in 50 hours and the things that remained on my to do list would be addressed the next week.

So, at the end of the 12 days, I still wanted to be a pastor and I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life.