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"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men."
(Colossians 3:23)
I have an upcoming REvangelical podcast episode where I take our listeners through a day in the life of a pastor. Not every day is packed like the one I will be sharing with you, but many are. Those of you who serve the Lord full-time in vocational ministry know what I mean.
Speaking of pastoral ministry, I want to take you through a day in my life that happened one day last week. I learned many things while I was in college and graduate school, but there are some things that academia simply cannot teach you; you must learn by simply doing, giving the best you have.
My day started with about an hour of prayer and Bible reading. This is how I begin every day, and I am grateful to God for the morning time when I can spend extended time with the Lord. I next finished the manuscript for my sermon for the upcoming Sunday and then finished editing the manuscript for a video I would be taping later that morning, communicating important details regarding our church's upcoming move.
After completing those two manuscripts, I got in the car to go meet our associational missionary, David Smith, at our new church property. I call him the Bishop of Baptists in the Greater Austin Area. He does a great job, and we are grateful for him and his ministry. While driving to my meeting, I called one of the best Christian counselors that I know, who is also a member of our church. She and I were collaborating on how best to minister to a couple in our church who are struggling in their marriage.
After meeting with David and taping the video at our church's new location, I headed to the hospital to visit Walt, one of our church members who had open heart surgery just that morning. I met with his wife Pam and some of their family members who had been there all morning. The Manlys are great people. Pam said they may let me walk back and check on her husband since I am a pastor, and I said I would try, and if they were to kick me out, so be it. Just the opposite happened. The two ICU nurses were happy that I had come to visit Walt. He was intubated, and his eyes were closed. I told them I did not want to bother him or wake him up, but one of the nurses went over and told Walt in a loud voice, "Walter, your pastor is here!" She said I could hold his hand, and if he hears me, he will squeeze my hand. That is exactly what he did when I prayed for him in the ICU.
As I was walking out of the hospital, I saw a young couple walking ahead of me, and this guy was tatted up, and I mean big-time. He had a full sleeve of tattoos on his right leg and both arms. I walked up to him and said, "Man, I like your tattoos. Did that sleeve on your leg hurt?" He said yes, it did! I then asked if they were at the hospital to visit someone, and they told me that their son was born at 25 weeks gestation, and for a few months, they have been coming daily to see him. I was moved by their story, gave them my church business card, and then offered a $20 bill to buy their lunch. They graciously declined the money but took the card.
I made it back to the office in time for the ice cream farewell get-together for a lady who had worked 10 years at our church as a custodian. We had a great time and wished her well as she goes into the next season of her life.
I then had a couple of important meetings with Jeff, my Executive Pastor, and Jan, my admin, and then wrote the weekly newsletter article that goes out each Friday to all our church members.
It was a full day! There are many things a formal education simply cannot teach you. There is no class in grad school on how to sell your church campus and move to another one or how to quickly pivot between totally different types of events! Not every day was like this one, but all days are interesting when you serve as a pastor.
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