Life in the church office
28/08/14 05:04
Life at the church is always busy and full. We always have lots of projects going at the same time and the end of summer is a time intense with planning and gearing up for fall programs. We don’t really take a break in the summer, but we do cut back on meetings a little bit and some of our programs take summer breaks. But school has resumed, labor day is just around the corner, and there are a lot of things going on at the church. This fall, we will begin our choir season with an interim choir director as we look for someone to assume the permanent position. Transitions of staff are always filled with a bit of getting to know one another and coordination of efforts, but I have seen several such transitions. I think this is transition six or seven of choir directors since I have been pastor in this congregation. In 2011, we transitioned all of the church staff except for Susan’s and mine. The church is a bit like a river. It keeps flowing with new streams being added from time to time.
Yesterday was a day of focusing on people. I met with a family whose teenager was seeking directions following high school, a couple planning a wedding, and a suicide survivor. There were phone conversations about a different wedding and a funeral. Some of the phone conversations were setting up additional meetings for today and tomorrow. It is what we do. And the face-to-face meeting with people is some of what we do best in a congregation like ours.
Around the edges there is plenty of paperwork that needs attention. There are e-mails to answer, notices to send out, worship bulletins and the monthly newsletter that need our attention, and plans for the fall to put in motion. We work ahead season by season in our worship planning, so even though it seems a long ways off, it is time to buckle down with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany plans so that musicians and others in the church can see the flow of the season.
In other words, it is business as usual, which means that there is no “usual” to our work. It is always filled with interruptions and surprises. I used to have a little card with the saying, “The interruption IS my work.” I don’t need a placard to remind me of that simple truth.
On the one hand, the lack of routine keeps the work so far away from boring that such a thought never comes around. On the other hand, the lack of routine means that we invest considerable energy reinventing our schedules every day. And, to be truthful, there are times with fewer interruptions when our work does flow into routines. If it weren’t the case, we’d never get some of our tasks completed.
It is interesting to me how the roles continue to shift in a church office. When I began working as a pastor, I didn’t have an administrative colleague or a secretary. I did the typing and ran the copy machine and handled my own correspondence. A few years later I had a secretary whose primary responsibilities involved typing and copying. Correspondence, worship bulletins and the newsletter were the primary responsibilities. These days, with office computers, we are back to managing our own correspondence. The administrative colleague still works on publications such as bulletins and the newsletter, but I manage the web site and my own electronic communications. The administrative colleagues do much more general administration, handling calendaring and scheduling and keeping track of minor building and office machine maintenance. Everyone in the church office has to be aware of the flow of church life and the needs of members to stay in touch. We all find ourselves investing time in listening, offering comfort, praying and woking with our members. We all spend a little time providing assistance and referral to people who come to the church with needs and sometimes expect the church to be a full-blown social service agency. Our church is tucked away in neighborhood, so we get far fewer requests for assistance with day-to-day needs than downtown congregations.
With all of the activity, it shouldn’t surprise me that things like lunch breaks are often passed up and that we get to the end of the day feeling tired. Some days stretch into the evenings and there are many days that even though there are only two of us, we don’t manage to have any of our meals together in our home. In a way we probably arranged for more meals as a family when our children were at home and later when we were caring for parents in our home. At this empty nest phase of our lives, we have a tendency to just keep working. That makes the days when we do get to share a meal a special treat and sometimes we get ourselves into each other’s calendars just to get time for a simple family meal together.
Much of the intensity of our schedule is not unique to the church. However, I do often run into other people with equally busy schedules who seem surprised at how busy the church is. For most of our members, their church experience involves only part of the church’s life. They attend worship and perhaps one or two meetings a month and think of the church as only having those specific activities. When they stop by during the day or even on a Saturday they are often surprised at all of the activity. Because we have lots of small group events and activities, people tend to see only part of the life of the church. They imagine that the pace is slower and the activities fewer when they aren’t around. It doesn’t really work that way.
So a new day starts. My first meeting begins at 8 a.m. There is another at 10 a.m. and a third in the afternoon. Around the edges I need to put the finishing touches on Sunday’s worship bulletin, prepare worship notes for our Interim Choir Director and write a funeral service.
It won’t be boring. I never have to worry about boring.
Yesterday was a day of focusing on people. I met with a family whose teenager was seeking directions following high school, a couple planning a wedding, and a suicide survivor. There were phone conversations about a different wedding and a funeral. Some of the phone conversations were setting up additional meetings for today and tomorrow. It is what we do. And the face-to-face meeting with people is some of what we do best in a congregation like ours.
Around the edges there is plenty of paperwork that needs attention. There are e-mails to answer, notices to send out, worship bulletins and the monthly newsletter that need our attention, and plans for the fall to put in motion. We work ahead season by season in our worship planning, so even though it seems a long ways off, it is time to buckle down with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany plans so that musicians and others in the church can see the flow of the season.
In other words, it is business as usual, which means that there is no “usual” to our work. It is always filled with interruptions and surprises. I used to have a little card with the saying, “The interruption IS my work.” I don’t need a placard to remind me of that simple truth.
On the one hand, the lack of routine keeps the work so far away from boring that such a thought never comes around. On the other hand, the lack of routine means that we invest considerable energy reinventing our schedules every day. And, to be truthful, there are times with fewer interruptions when our work does flow into routines. If it weren’t the case, we’d never get some of our tasks completed.
It is interesting to me how the roles continue to shift in a church office. When I began working as a pastor, I didn’t have an administrative colleague or a secretary. I did the typing and ran the copy machine and handled my own correspondence. A few years later I had a secretary whose primary responsibilities involved typing and copying. Correspondence, worship bulletins and the newsletter were the primary responsibilities. These days, with office computers, we are back to managing our own correspondence. The administrative colleague still works on publications such as bulletins and the newsletter, but I manage the web site and my own electronic communications. The administrative colleagues do much more general administration, handling calendaring and scheduling and keeping track of minor building and office machine maintenance. Everyone in the church office has to be aware of the flow of church life and the needs of members to stay in touch. We all find ourselves investing time in listening, offering comfort, praying and woking with our members. We all spend a little time providing assistance and referral to people who come to the church with needs and sometimes expect the church to be a full-blown social service agency. Our church is tucked away in neighborhood, so we get far fewer requests for assistance with day-to-day needs than downtown congregations.
With all of the activity, it shouldn’t surprise me that things like lunch breaks are often passed up and that we get to the end of the day feeling tired. Some days stretch into the evenings and there are many days that even though there are only two of us, we don’t manage to have any of our meals together in our home. In a way we probably arranged for more meals as a family when our children were at home and later when we were caring for parents in our home. At this empty nest phase of our lives, we have a tendency to just keep working. That makes the days when we do get to share a meal a special treat and sometimes we get ourselves into each other’s calendars just to get time for a simple family meal together.
Much of the intensity of our schedule is not unique to the church. However, I do often run into other people with equally busy schedules who seem surprised at how busy the church is. For most of our members, their church experience involves only part of the church’s life. They attend worship and perhaps one or two meetings a month and think of the church as only having those specific activities. When they stop by during the day or even on a Saturday they are often surprised at all of the activity. Because we have lots of small group events and activities, people tend to see only part of the life of the church. They imagine that the pace is slower and the activities fewer when they aren’t around. It doesn’t really work that way.
So a new day starts. My first meeting begins at 8 a.m. There is another at 10 a.m. and a third in the afternoon. Around the edges I need to put the finishing touches on Sunday’s worship bulletin, prepare worship notes for our Interim Choir Director and write a funeral service.
It won’t be boring. I never have to worry about boring.