Another week in the life of a pastor

Although there is never really a "typical" week, I'd say this past week was "par."

Tuesday--Morning staff meeting and visit to Love Bears group, then out for a long Tuesday walk of the community (about six hours); full description of that walk here.

Wednesday--Coffee shop meeting with Professor of Horticulture Curt Rom writing our grant for the Scientists in Congregations Templeton Foundation Grant. Remainder of morning devoted to worship preparations and office tasks. Evening three hour book discussion of Kenda Creasy Dean's important and transformative Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. 20 folks in attendance, spectacular discussion making use of the discussion questions Dean provides on her web site, http://kendadean.com/. Six mile afternoon run with the Vibram five-fingers.

Thursday--I had intended to devote this entire day to some writing projects, especially work on my doctor of ministry dissertation proposal, but had a call from a family whose 93 year old mother had gone into the hospital, so visited there a good portion of the morning. Variety of tasks related to getting ready for Pentecost Sunday, phone calls to a variety of people on my tickler "to call" list, then actually did give some time to writing in the afternoon.

Friday--Full day with the family, morning all dad all the time while A worked on an index for a while. Evening trip up to the Bentonville Arts Festival... very late evening stop at the hospital to visit a parishioner.

Saturday--Full day with the family. Yay! Garden projects, lots of imaginative play, third run of the week, this time with the kids to the park, and the only real "work" was pulling together themes for the sermon and finishing two books I had been reading, Political Theology: An Introduction and Alan Jacob's The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, both of which, in oblique ways, fed into preaching and teaching plans for the summer and fall.

Sunday--Pentecost worship with reader's theater, birthday hats with pipecleaner flames of fire emerging, Pentecost sermon that, from a biblical perspective, we do not meet God primarily in our experiences internally, or in the cosmos, but rather in our neighbor. Audio here: http://www.gslc-arkansas.org/weeklysermon/Sermons.htm CW practice between 2nd and 3rd service, then a lunch and learning event with Stephen's Ministry team at 1 p.m. Evening supper with our Shepherding Group at a family's house, Frogmore stew. Since we live so close to the church, our family walked to the supper, and we met some parishioners who live very close to us that we didn't know were so close.

Monday--Marathon day! 8 a.m. Stephen's Ministry planning meeting; 9 a.m. 3rd grade bibles planning meeting;10 a.m. LWF Youth Together planning meeting; 11 a.m. Pre-baptismal class, noon-3 Almost Christian book discussion, day time group; 3 p.m. Funeral planning with a family; 5:30 p.m. Custodian interviews, concluding at 7:30 p.m.