I want to take a brief post to introduce myself a little bit more to you, the reader. Hopefully, you’ll get a better picture of who I am and where I am coming from… and, hopefully, you won’t hold it against me.
I’ll just go ahead and get this out there. I’m an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. My journey to ordination was a long road, but I really feel like I am doing what I have been called to do. (For those who aren’t familiar with that kind of Christian lingo, that basically means I feel like I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose.)
I grew up in a United Methodist Church, and through a series of events that I’ll go through another time, I decided that I was going to go into ministry. At the time, I didn’t really know what that would look like, and it took a few years for me to decide that I was going to pursue ordination.
I’m currently serving as a pastor in a small to mid-sized congregation in southwest Indiana. I started at this church in the summer of 2017, after 5 years in the Indianapolis area.
Being a pastor is one of those jobs that comes with a lot of things to deal with that people just don’t know about. There’s the obvious stuff that I do — lead worship and preach on a weekly basis, visit people in the hospital, weddings, funerals, meeting with people who are going through difficult times. But then there’s the other stuff as well, the stuff that people don’t really think about or know that pastors do: the administrative work, the planning, the meeting, the visioning, the leadership development, the work for the district and conference on a denominational level.
I’ve heard people talk about how it’s easy to be a pastor — all you have to do is “give a little talk once a week” (actual words people have said to me before). I usually just laugh it off because there is no sense in detailing the other aspects of my job that people don’t know about. It’s not my goal to defend my profession to those who don’t really want to know more about it.
I have tried to get more involved in the local community, getting to know people in all walks of life. Before moving to the town I live in now, I had only really passed through the town, but never visited. I knew nothing about it when I started, and there is still a lot that I don’t know. It is a great place to live though. While it may not have all the perks of a larger city, and we do have to drive an hour to do some things, everything we really need is here in town. Besides, it’s not the smallest town I’ve lived in, and there’s a lot of great people that we have met during our time here.
Pastoral Responsibilities
Being a pastor is different from other jobs. Now, I realize that every person in every profession is going to say something similar, and for every job, there is something unique about it. The reason I say that being a pastor is different, though, is because of the subject matter that you often have to deal with.
Volunteer Management: Managing volunteers is another important job that many people have to do. Coordinating who goes where or does what. It can be crazy the amount of projects that are going on at the time.
I currently have about 40 cards on my desk from different people who have volunteered for a variety of things in the church. Thankfully, I have a wonderful administrative assistant who can coordinate people for these various tasks through the year, but do you know who is going to hear about it first if somebody doesn’t get to do something they want to do? Hint: it’s not the administrative assistant.
Financial Responsibilities: The church where I am currently serving has a budget of close to $300,000. Included in this budget is money for the building, utilities, staff salaries, programs and other odds and ends. Any guesses as to how many finance classes I took while I was in seminary preparing for pastoral ministry? Zero. As much as administration is an important part of what is going on in the church, you would think that some administrative classes would be offered. You would think that. You would be wrong.
I don’t know how to raise money. I don’t know how to talk to people about how they use their money — I’m not all that great at managing my own! And yet, who gets the first phone call when the church isn’t able to keep up on it’s denominational support? Yep. You guessed it… the pastor. Who is the first person that people look to change when finances are tight? Yep. You guessed it… the pastor (and perhaps rightfully so, after all, outside of the building, the pastor’s compensation package is normally the biggest expense that the church has to carry; you adjust either your income or your expenses when things are tight).
Pastoral Counseling: I’m not a very good counselor. Well, really, it’s not that I’m not a good counselor. I can sit and listen to people talk about their issues. I’m not a trained counselor nor do I intend to be. It’s not that I don’t care about people. I just don’t want to deal with their drama. Let’s face it. 75% of pastoral counseling is trying to deal with the drama that somebody has brought upon him/herself. You know the best resource for a pastor who has people wanted some kind of counseling? A professional counselor to whom the pastor can refer this person.
Preaching and Leading Worship: There are not a lot of jobs whose primary requirement is to basically share a TED talk every week. You know what I’m talking about. The kind of presentation that is supposed to be smooth, polished, articulate, relevant, funny, engaging, and all in just 15 minutes.
Now, imagine being a high “I” introvert. The last time I took a Myers-Briggs assessment, I believe I scored somewhere around 80 on the “I” side of the introvert/extrovert scale (is that still how they score the MBTI?). And yet, in the last 10 years that I have been leading churches, I have stood up and spoke to a room full(ish) of people over 600 times when you consider multiple services, special events, weddings, funerals, etc. I’m not less of an introvert because of my experience. I’m just getting better at doing it.
And here’s the tough thing about preaching: if you aren’t good enough, people aren’t going to come to church. If you are good… well, they still are only going to come when their schedule permits, and if they want to, but don’t expect them to invite their friends because it’s the pastor’s job to grow the church.
Visitation: They say that being a pastor is the one job where people who don’t like you will get mad at you if you don’t come to visit them. It sounds like a joke. It isn’t. That’s pastoral ministry. People expect the pastor to come visit them. Correction: the older generation expects the pastor to come visit them.
This is something that has fascinated me during my last decade of pastoral ministry. Younger people don’t really care if the pastor comes to their home or not. I’ve never had a person under the age of 60 complain to me that I didn’t come visit them. I have had several over that age complain that I haven’t… even when I didn’t know they wanted me to in the first place. In one church, I had a person who was in the hospital about every 4 months or so. Never, in three and a half years, never did they call to let me know. And then, when I did ask about this person after worship one Sunday, his spouse told me that she didn’t even think I cared… which made it pretty hard for me to after she said that. Petty? Maybe, but, hey, I was 29 at the time. That’s right, I was younger than this person’s granddaughter, and I was entrusted with her spiritual care as a pastor.
Being a pastor is hard enough, try being one before you’re 30 with an aging congregation.
I’ve moved past that stage at this point in my life, as I slowly crawl closer to 40, but I still get it from time to time.
And Other Duties As Assigned
Not too long ago, I got a message on Facebook from somebody. She and I went to elementary school together. I don’t remember talking to her after fifth grade. I know we continued through high school together, but we weren’t exactly friends, just people who knew each other. (Perhaps I should be more discerning on the friend requests I accept!)
So, this person, who I haven’t talked to in probably close to 30 years, but am friends with on Facebook for some reason sends me this message:
Ain’t you a preacher? Can you do my wedding in two months?
I kid you not. That was the message. I did not do her wedding.
Weddings and funerals are two important events in a person’s life. They are usually events where people want a pastor to preside, even if they aren’t really “church people”. It’s another one of those quirks in the job of a pastor that you don’t see in almost any other profession.
An accountant has a lot of work to do. They have to deal with people. They have administrative work that needs to be done. Tax season is brutal because there are deadlines that have to be met. But nobody calls their accountant at 4:00 AM to let them know that their spouse just passed away. Nothing against accountants, but that’s a phone call that happens down the road.
Do you know who gets those phone calls? Pastors and funeral home directors. That’s it. Both have the responsibility of meeting with the family to finalize arrangements; one has to meet with the family to guide them through what is often a difficult spiritual time.
It’s always a difficult situation to get a call from a funeral director who wants to know if I can do a funeral for a person that I have never met, but was a member of my church forty years ago. Sure, they stayed in town, and maybe, if they didn’t have anything better to do, they came to church for the Christmas Eve service.
I’ve done over 50 funerals in 10+ years of ministry, 13 this year alone. They are never easy. They are a great responsibility. Weddings — I’ve done a few. They tend to be a lot more work, especially when it comes to dealing with difficult family members.
Pastoral ministry is a lot of fun, and I truly mean that. Sure, there are the occasional frustrations. Sure, there are times when you have to deal with difficult situations, or difficult people. Christianity and the Church don’t have a very good reputation in the modern world because there are far too many who don’t live what they claim to believe.
But I get to be involved in the lives of people in a very unique way. I get to be there for their greatest joys and the deepest sorrows. I get to share the good news with them that they aren’t alone no matter what they are facing in life. I enjoy pastoral ministry.
I hope that, having been given some insight as to what it means to be a pastor, you also see a little bit of my heart and my humanity. I’m not the kind of pastor that is going to judge you for being who you are. I am the kind of pastor that is going to try to understand your point of view and show you grace even if I completely disagree with you.
I just want to walk alongside people and help them to see God in maybe a new and different way. Come with me. Let’s take this journey together.
Pastor Swish - Life, Ministry, and Other Stuff 