Tuesday is generally a day I devote to administrative issues. Because one of the areas of oversight I have on our team is the church’s finances, much of the time I spend revolves around making sure our records are kept up and are accurate – especially at the beginning of a new month, as I close out the previous month and prepare a detailed account of our finances to present to the congregation. So, here’s the ‘tick-tock’ of this average pastor’s average Tuesday:
3:00 a.m. Awoke to shower and dress for the day.
3:30 a.m. Devotional Time in my home study.
4:30 a.m. Began work on my sermon for Sunday. I spent time translating Romans 5:15-17 and put together a block diagram of the text and spent time observing parallel and contrasting phrases in the text. I then put together a rough exegetical outline of the text and formatted my exegetical notes to begin lexical and syntactical work tomorrow.
6:00 a.m. Our daughter, Brie, awoke. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, I take feeding duty in the morning. What a joy. I heard her making her typical ‘waking-up’ sounds and went in to check on her and she greeted me with a big smile, wide awake, ready to eat. So I prepared her bottle, fed and changed her.
6:30 am. Kelly was up by the time we finished and took Brie with her while I finished a few more thoughts in my sermon study.
7:00 a.m. Kelly and I had breakfast together and spent time reading together from John Piper’s book, God is the Gospel. We then prayed together and I prepared to leave for work.
8:00 a.m. At the office. Our pastoral team arranges that one of us serves as “Pastor of the Day” at least one day each week. Tuesday is my day. What this means is that I make myself available for anyone who may drop by or call with a need, question, etc. The first thing I normally do when I arrive at the church office is to prepare my day. I arrange my tasks in order of priority on my Franklin Covey Plan Plus overlay for Microsoft Outlook. I then pull out any paper work I have assigned to myself for that day (I use a tickler system for such paperwork). I arrange the paper work in order of priority – what I must do today (goes in a red folder next to my desk), what I should do today (yellow folder) and what I could do if time remains (blue folder). I then review the mail from the previous day and either file it (in the tickler system or long-term files), act on it (if I can do it in 2 minutes or less – Getting Things Done Principle) or trash it. Most of my mail consists of bills that I assign account numbers to from our budget and put them in the desk of the one will come later today to do data entry in our financial books. I then spend time responding to e-mail and any phone messages that have come in.
Once I’ve finished initial e-mail and return phone calls, I start in on my tasks. Yesterday’s tasks consisted of finalizing monthly bills for April, making General Journal entries in preparation for our financial report, and reviewing and preparing our monthly tax report and payment. I also spent a little time reviewing a new shepherding structure for the Sunday School class I lead. I put together a two page memo in preparation for a lunch meeting with the men I will ask to help me think through this plan. I spent about thirty minutes talking with another pastor in our church about a new modular building we have coming in this week and reviewing the financial ramifications of this project. I also fielded a few phone calls and reviewed the headlines from blogs I follow and the news of the day.
11:30 a.m. Lunch meeting with five men from my Sunday School class to discuss plans for a new ministry structure and shepherding plan. This young adult group I lead, in addition to their children, contribute about 120 people to our church. It has grown significantly and the Lord has raised up a few men from this group who feel called to pastoral ministry. It was these men I met with to discuss these future plans.
12:45 p.m. Back at the office to help the lady who does our financial data entry get started.
1:00 p.m. Phone conversation with a pastor from Illinois.
2:00 p.m. Did some reading – finished The Confessions of St. Augustine. Wrote a quick response/review of it on my blog reading list.
3:00 p.m. Wrote a blog post and reviewed headlines and talked with Kelly briefly to see how her and Brie’s day was.
3:30 p.m. Prepared my syllabus for the class I teach on Wednesday evenings. We do not have class this Wednesday, so my preparation was getting me a little further ahead. I am currently teaching a class on hermeneutics and Bible study methods. I am preparing to lead the class (about 35 people) in an inductive study through Titus, teaching hermeneutical principles as we go along.
5:00 p.m. Packed up the office, changed clothes and headed to the gym to work out.
5:50 p.m. Back home. Kelly and I spent a little time catching up on the day. I played with Brie while Kelly prepared for dinner. We had dinner together and then spent a little more time with Brie. By 7:00 p.m. she is starting to get a bit cranky and sleepy. So, mom started to get her prepared for bath and bed. We have a number of wild cats around our place that I am trying to catch, so I went out to set a trap for them (don’t worry – it’s humane). Then I came back in, wrote a few letters to send off on Wednesday.
7:45 p.m. Kelly has put Brie down and we are able to spend some time together before we both are totally exhausted from the day and are in bed by 8:30 p.m.
Another average day from the life of an average pastor.
