#597. Wondering what your pastor does all day.

(Nick the Geek is a guest post champ. In addition to knocking out his own blog, he occasionally jumps onto SCL to enlighten us with the kind of ideas that only a full time minister can elaborate on. Today he answers the age old question, “So what do pastors do all day?” Growing up as a pastor’s kid myself, I often had friends ask me, “What does your dad do when it’s not Sunday?” Nick has the answer. Enjoy.)

Wondering what your pastor does all day.
I want to start by thanking Jon for allowing me this opportunity. He is super frigintastical, insightful, and funny. I want to get that out of the way now so I don’t forget later.

As a minister I am always asked, “What do you do all week?” Sure people know about the church time things but it can’t take that long to make a sermon so what does the rest of the week look like? I am bound to get in trouble with the Alliance of Ministers Union (AMU) but what’s a fella to do? I’m tired of lying about my week.

I tell people about how much “time” the sermons take but no one believes it. Sure AMU gives us a scale that suggests we can claim 20+ hours a week for sermon preparation but people don’t buy it anymore with so many resources available online. Hey guys, they know we can just steal other sermons on Saturday night and be done with it, why would we spend hours praying and researching before ever writing down point one? It’s time to come clean.

I tell people about the meetings and building and event planning and relationship building and prayer and reading/studying but that doesn’t add up to the 60+ hours I claim to work each week so I have to tell people about the side projects and graphic work I do for the church as well. They keep asking me what I do all week and always seem surprised at how much work I say I’m doing. How can it take half a day to clean the Youth building after youth have been inside? They just don’t seem to believe me anymore.

So, it’s time to tell the truth.

On Monday morning we have a big party. All the ministers get together and we share stories so we can pretend “God gave us this message” because it is being shared all over the country. Then we make a big pile of money and roll in it because we are all ridiculously wealthy.

That takes up most of Monday so on Tuesday lots of ministers go play golf. I can’t because I have a knee problem so I won’t be able to tell you how that goes. I hang out with the Youth pastors and play Ultimate Frisbee instead. I have a Young Adult class that meets on Tuesday so I take a 5 minute break in the afternoon to write a few notes.

Wednesday is Youth day so I sleep in till about 4. Then I start playing video games and drinking Monster so I’m super energized for Youth service. I try to find some time to get online and download someone’s sermon so I can listen to it while playing Wii but if I run out of time that’s OK, I can always wing it.

Thursday I’m recovering from all the work I did on Wednesday. Seriously when you are used to taking it pretty chill the whole week, yelling for a few minutes can really take it out of you. Then I take my “day off” on Friday and do some house work on Saturday. If I have to do a Youth Sunday or anything then I skip the house work and download another sermon and listen to that while I play with my kids.

Well, AMU, the truth is out there. That’s what ministers are really doing during the week. It’s just like everyone suspected. People aren’t stupid enough to keep falling for the old lies. We need new ones that account for the internet. Not every church has a super successful blog but I think we can pretend to. Most church people aren’t that tech savvy. So AMU if it’s ok with you I’m going to start talking about the hours I spend on my blog reaching the lost online instead of trying to convince people that I actually go to band practice and help community groups like the Not On Tobacco class.

What do you say ministers, what do you do with your weeks? Afraid of the AMU? Leave an anonymous comment.

Everyone else, what are your suspicions about how your ministers really spend their weeks?

(For more great stuff from Nick the Geek, visit his blog My Experience as Youth Pastor)