It's not quite 7 p.m. and I'm struggling to stay awake. My goal is to stay awake until Pam gets home from work about 7:45. If this post gets all weird please attribute it to sleepiness, not senility or stupidity. Those may explain other posts, but not this one.
First, a couple of fun videos.
This guy plays an unusual instrument very well. Look closely and you'll see the rest of the plumbing underneath. And I enjoyed watching the two guys sitting on the floor over against the wall. They start out trying very hard to look bored but get sucked in by this guys talent and skill. And judging from the sound in the background this is the way to get chicks. (The cello is not.)
Awesome Talent
As long as we're on a musical theme, I saw this guy on The Today Show a week or two ago. Again, amazing talent.
Taio Cruz
Busy day, but an interesting day. Lots of brain stimulation.
I got the third of four courses of blocks laid. When I went out to look at things early this morning I was concerned about how loose and wobbly the first two courses seemed. But my plan all along was to fill them with ground, and doing so firmed everything up nicely. Normally you fill cinder block walls with cement, but this ground is at least as hard as cement, it's free AND I have plenty of it.
Today I mixed the mortar with more water and that helped setting the third course go much better. Yesterday's mix was clearly too stiff.
If there's time tomorrow I'll fill the third course with ground (I tamp it down with my sledge), and set the fourth course. I've actually got this down to a system, so that should only take me an hour or so. The next step will be to put a layer of stucco over the inside surface of the blocks and the portion of the outside surface that's above grade. After that....you'll just have to wait and see.
I had b'fast this morning with Pastor Josh W. - one of my former students - and his intern. This is the fourth of our b'fasts with the intern present. I quiz him on all aspects of ministry as prep for his oral exams in late March.
I took a little different tack for a part of our discussion. Instead of asking him questions directly I asked Josh questions about what he'd learned after 12 years in the ministry. "What was your biggest surprise re. being a pastor?" "What part of the job do you enjoy the most?" "What's the hardest part of your job?" My goal was to give the intern a look ahead to what he might expect, and then - through follow-up questions to him - see if he had realistic expectations about ministry.
I had lunch with one of the elders at Pathway. We included in our church constitution an annual peer review system for each of the elders. (I have a more classic job performance review.) After each elder fills out the review form on his colleague, and the particular elder in question does a self-eval, I meet with that elder to go over the results.
Note: I am blessed to have VERY good elders.
Interestingly, in both settings, b'fast and lunch, the topic of career goals came up. I asked Pastor Josh what he thought his career arc would look like when he graduated 12 years ago, and where he sees it going from here. A similar conversation at lunch, although he's already well into his very successful career.
Blogs tend, by nature, to be exercises in navel gazing, and what follows may be particularly so. But I've been thinking about my own career arc, looking back 36 years to what I wanted to happen when I graduated, and what has turned out to be the reality.
At the risk of appearing proud, when I graduated I was told by my profs and others that I was good. I was an effective communicator and had at least an adequate grasp of the relevant content. I'd had some leadership experience as class and student body pres. (granted, a VERY small college) and that had gone well. I was something of a fair-haired boy in our circles.
I understood I had to put my time in at small churches, and boy, did I! At our first church, on Easter Sunday we had 23 people. The rest of the year it was in the teens. Our second church was bigger, but not by much. We did see some numerical growth though, and I hoped for an ever expanding ministry. See, the career arc I pictured for myself was a series of ever-larger churches until I was the senior pastor of a multi-staff ministry, probably in a major metro area. I wanted to preach to a large congregation and use my administrative skills to lead a complex organization.
I don't think there was anything sinful about that. I can honestly say I never gave any ministry less than my full and best effort. On any given day I never saw one of those churches as a stepping stone. In fact, I thought a couple of them would grow to the point where that multi-staff situation would happen right there, without a move to a place where it already existed.
The ten years I spent teaching at the college were, in many ways, the best years. I loved teaching, I loved the students (I mean that) and pictured myself spending the rest of my professional life there. God had other plans.
As small as that first church was, it was larger than Pathway at the beginning. Unless God does something very unusual Pathway will be the last church I pastor and in that time it will not be a large church.
And I'm very thankful for that.
I am glad I never realized the career arc I pictured for myself when I graduated. In a large, multi-staff ministry the senior pastor has to spend too much of his time and energy as an administrator, as a CEO. I do NOT mean to diminish that one iota, but in many ways I'm having the time of my life pastoring what, at this point, is a small flock I know intimately. I can tell you what everyone at Pathway does for a living. On a good day I can call each of the 25+ kids by their name. (I get the twins confused.)
I like being a shepherd! The people are the best part, not the organization and administration. I want Pathway to grow quantitatively and qualitatively, but I confess I don't want it to grow so fast or so big that I can't say, "Good morning, Bill" and know who Bill really is, have a personal connection with him.
If something goes wrong in Bill's life I want him to say to himself, "Pastor Craig cares about me." A good friend in another city who attends a large church told me that if something bad happened in her life she wouldn't bother calling her pastor because he doesn't know who she is. He might recognize her from Sunday mornings but that's all.
No thank you. Not interested.
See, the people are the best part. And God was good and gracious by thwarting my imagined career arc.
T'ank you, Fadder.
No comments:
Post a Comment