Pastoral ministry is a wonderful calling. But, like the rest of life, it’s filled with a lot of stretches that are, let’s just say it, boring. The stuff that has to get done, not necessarily the stuff you want to do.
In this guest article, pastor Kurt Lammi reminds us to see God at work in the mundane, the routine, and the boring parts of ministry.
— Karl Vaters
All of us know that there are certain parts of our lives that we post online and certain parts we don’t post.
We want people to see only the highlights, the exciting moments, the Instagram-worthy pictures. So we post about vacations or new jobs or new pets. We highlight the good things going on in our lives. We don’t often post about the boring or mundane parts of our lives – because no one would be interested in those. (Plus, we don’t want people to think that we are boring or mundane people.)
Often it seems like pastors do the same thing. When we talk about the life of the congregation, we highlight the big events on the calendar.
We talk about this special service or this outreach ministry or that Christian education class. Even small church pastors try to play up the highlights of the life of the congregation. It’s what gets people excited. However, most of our time is spent doing ministry in the in-between times.
Day in the Life of a Pastor
As a pastor, you know that there are days that are crazy. There are days when you are trying to write a sermon, someone calls the office with some crisis, there’s a hospital visit you have to do, and you have to prepare for that upcoming meeting.
At the end of those days, you have quite the story to tell at home when someone asks you, “How was your day today?”
But most days are not that crazy. Instead, you probably spend most of your days alone in your office. You sit at your desk for hours on end, using your computer to look up sermon material, read blog posts like this one, write sermons, prepare lesson plans, update the church Facebook page, proofread bulletins, and more.
You do a lot of behind-the-scenes work that no one really notices. At the end of those days, you know that you got stuff done, but it’s nothing that’s Instagram-worthy.
You know when someone asks you, “How was your day today?” you don’t really have anything exciting to tell them.
Jesus’ Life
Jesus’ life was the same way.
When we look at the Gospels, they tell us a story that spans three years. (This time is determined by the fact that Gospel of John mentions three different Passovers – John 2:13, 6:4, and 11:55.)
Even so, it doesn’t take us much time at all to read the Gospels. This means that the Gospel writers give us only the highlights, the Instagram-worthy moments, the things that they wanted to make sure other people knew about.
Because these are the highlights, there is plenty of time in Jesus’ life that we don’t hear about. The most famous example of this is the “missing years” of Jesus’ youth. But even in all of those “missing times,” God was still active.
God at Work Behind the Scenes
When we focus on the highlight reel of our lives – or even of Jesus’ life – we forget all the behind-the-scenes preparation that made those highlights possible.
We forget all the little conversations that happened.
We forget all the articles that were read.
We forget all the phone calls that were made.
We forgot all of the little things that still matter.
There is so much about your life and the life of the congregation that many people don’t know about. They don’t know about your worries, fears, and excitement. They don’t know when you are bored, stressed, or fighting your own demons. They don’t know when you struggle, pray, and listen.
Most of the time, all they see is the highlight moment of Sunday morning worship – but you know that pastors don’t “work just one day a week.”
Whatever happens in your in-between times, please know that God is still at work in you and in the congregation. Even when things are quiet, when not much is going on, when you don’t have a big story to tell when you go home, God is still doing good things in and through you.
Not everything in life is a big Instagram-worthy event. Instead, the vast majority of life is filled with this in-between time – the quiet moments, the unnoticed struggles, and the daily discipline of faithfulness.
So no matter what time it is or what’s going on in your life, remember that Jesus has called you and your work is never in vain – even if others never see the majority of what you do.
(Photo by Adam & Tess | Flickr)
