What do you do?
What do you do? I love this question. Especially when it is followed by– I see you on Sundays, but… what do you do? How do you spend your time? I really do love this question– and I love hearing about how you all spend your time. I’m always curious about what lawyers and bankers and Hill Staffers do during the week. We all seem very busy. What are we DOING? This is a good week to give you a peek into my world.
Mondays: I’m off. I sleep in. I read the Sunday Washington Post. I take my kids to school. I have lunch with Laurel. I read stuff that has nothing to do with ‘church’. I have a more leisurely workout. I pick my kids up from school. I try to not check any email. Mondays are my Sabbath. I’m trying to get better at resting…
Tuesday: I get up between 5 and 5:30, have some time with God and 30 minutes of exercise. This week I had a breakfast meeting at 6:30 with the Long Range Facility Team. These fantastic servants meet once a month. I run home to help get the kids out the door. My office is in the Southgate complex at The Falls Church (Erin and Becky also have offices here, Andrew has an office in a closet at TFC– we hope to be moving to new office space this summer.) I work on my sermon from 9:30-12:00 with a 30 minute interruption for a conference call with Anglican District of VA pastors at 10. At noon, I drive to McLean to have lunch with a new couple at our church. I get to hear their story, their passions, what makes them tick… I love these conversations. From McLean, I drive to the ‘bucks in Arlington at Spout Run (I spend a lot of time here). For about 45 minutes I answer email as fast as I can, then I meet a colleague who is considering a vocation shift. I love this guy and his heart for ministry. He leaves after an hour and Matt Hoppe walks in after a long day teaching 5th grade. Matt and I talk for an hour about worship equipment, worship music, worship space, kids, family, houses… I have one of these meetings with each of our staff once a month. This is my chance to hear and pray about what is happening below the task lists and agendas. Matt is such a gift to Restoration. I throw Matt out of ‘bucks at 4:25 so I can write a few more emails, then I sprint home for my weekly piano lesson at 5. My boys go first and I roll in for the grand finale. Fun to do this together. 5:40 I throw all 3 kids in the car and take Macrae and a friend to lacrosse practice. Home by 6:15– hand the kids to Laurel and I leave for the church to meet the caterer. 40 people show up around 7 for our new member dinner. We have tables set up in every open space downstairs. What a fun night– great conversations, great ideas and dreams for Restoration. I am so thankful for the people God keeps bringing to Restoration. The dinner wraps up at 9. I usually have an evening meeting on every Tuesday– vestry, small group leaders, etc. Andrew T, his brother, and I tear everything down and put the tables away. Home around 10, house is asleep…
Wednesday: up early again. I lead a weekly small group at 6:30am. As usual, I’m a few minutes late… Back home by 7:45– we have plumbers and pest control people arriving at 8 because our house has been infested with rats. I greet them and help them find everything they need. I say a big prayer that they finally get rid of them all… yuck. 9-11:30 is spent in sermon prep. At 11:30 I touch base with Becky about the worship guide, expense reports, paying the caterer, re-keying the doors at church, mailing thank you notes, purchasing stationary and 9volt batteries… at 12:30 I arrive in Alexandria to have lunch with David Glade, the pastor of TFC’s Alexandria church plant, Christ the King. Nothing urgent on the agenda– just talking about buildings, vestries, staff hires, vision for the future, and families. Glade is a great guy and I appreciate him as a colleague. About 2, I arrive at the Lee-Heights ‘bucks in Arlington (I spend a lot of time here, too) and furiously write email for 30 minutes. Erin Bair walks in at 2:30 and we have our monthly ‘below the surface’ check in like I had with Matt the day before. I am so thankful for Erin’s partnership and concerned as she limps around from her sprained ankle– pastoring is a dangerous job 🙂 At 3:45 all the staff gather at Louise Brooks’ house for our weekly staff meeting. We spend 10 minutes in silence, listening to God and what He is saying about us, our roles, and the church. We share for a few minutes, then we pray for a while about what God is doing in us and through us. Around 4:30 we talk through business– issues with the facility, outreach plans in May, a car wash for AFAC, middle school plans, creating better systems for connecting new comers to the church, any special needs for the Sundays in May… staff meetings are mostly a chance for us to pray together and to talk about any issues that are concerning us. God is really developing us into a team and I’m thankful for that. At 5:30 I get home, help with dinner, get the kids down, and enjoy a night at home.
Thursday: 2 writing blocks of 2 hours today. A conference call at noon with our treasurer, vestry folks, and facility folks. Thursdays are the day I write the small group leader guide and pull the sermon into a rough presentable format… ideally 🙂
Friday: I take Helen to pre-school. I have lunch with people in the church. I finish writing in the afternoon.
Thursdays and Fridays have much fewer meetings and much more time to write and pray. I like having days like Tue/wed AND having days like Thur/Fri. It is a fun, high energy week. Saturday night, after the kids are down, I’ll do one more review of stuff for Sunday. Then I’ll get up early on Sunday and look at it again. Staff and volunteers start arriving at church at 7 and we are ready to go by 8:15– usually 🙂
Bottom line, I love this job. I love how I spend my time. I love the variety of meetings and people I talk with. I love how many different kinds of things I have to think about and do each week– keeps me interested and out of trouble. What are your favorite blocks of time during the week?
May 6, 2010 @ 9:00 am
I wish I was in a place where I was spending my times in ways I loved. I do lots of things to maintain two part-time jobs. Seems like all of the extra stuff in the day is where my heart is.
I love spending my time blogging, and the connections that come from that world. I love building new friendships all over the world through twitter. I have “met” some awesome people.
I also spend my time working out in some way. Excersising has been huge for my outlet of stress, detox from the day, and a time to catch up on podcasts!
Still learning how to balance my time. Great post!
May 6, 2010 @ 9:04 am
Tracee, you are one of the more thoughtful and creative bloggers/twitter-ers I know! I really appreciate your perspectives, the way you keep it real, and the fact that you are chasing hard after a dream. Persevere!
May 6, 2010 @ 9:18 am
David, LOVED your answer to this question! So cool to be “in” on what the “normal” life of our pastor (and friend) looks like. Tracee, thanks for your answer, too. Would love to read some of your stuff! But from a very personal standpoint, I HATE this question. Being a mostly stay-at-home mom, I always feel defensive…like I have to try very hard to justify my existence to others (and worse yet, to myself). To explain what I do on a “normal” day of my life would, in my opinion, bore people to tears. Many days it bores me to tears. That said, I am endlessly grateful that I have the great privilege of being a mostly-stay-at-home mom. It is a good gig. If anybody out there REALLY wants to know what I do on a “normal” day, I am happy to tell you. Just try really hard not to yawn. :>
May 6, 2010 @ 10:29 am
David, loved hearing about what you do all week and Jennie I can absolutely identify with your response. What struck me most in reading both was how much David’s job resembles ours as stay at home moms. David is taking care of the “house and kids”. In making that connection I don’t feel nearly as inconsequential as I often feel when at the end of the day I am asked, “What did you do today?” In my heart I know that what I contribute to our life at home is of value but is hard to remember that sometimes, especially in this overachieving, success driven, “What do you DO?” environment we live in. David, I hope you don’t mind the comparison and just want to say how grateful I am for all you do on our behalf. I am also happy I don’t have to add “write and deliver sermon” to my list of responsibilities. I am suddenly very happy sticking to logistics and driving around town endlessly………
May 6, 2010 @ 10:40 am
Jennie and Kathy– what great replies! you made me laugh. I promise that I will now answer ‘what do you do?’ with ‘I take care of the house and kids…’ it’s really true. I just have 260 of ’em crammed into a small space.
You too are getting at the deeper stuff I deliberately avoided: what we DO matters. And God is alongside every task we check off– no matter how boring we think it is. I want folks from Restoration to imagine as they drive around, run errands, listen to complaints, answer email, make decisions, etc that everything they do is bringing the Kingdom. Because of the Holy Spirit in you, You are the presence of God in the places and at the tasks of this day. That’s a high calling.
May 7, 2010 @ 6:28 am
Most of the time I love how I spend my days – from cheering on little leaguers to my job working with area immigrants where I spend a lot of time building relationships. Some days I feel as if I’ve played a small part in righting the injustices our ESOL students face. Many nights I feel absolutely useless in fighting all their seemingly insurmountable challenges. And April/May 2010 is turning out to be exceedingly frenetic and I’m becoming unhinged ! So next week I plan to carve out a day and fast from technology. No iPhone, no music, no online sermons or newscasts and no time in the office. I don’t know what I’ll do. Read? Maybe wiffle ball with a bunch of 2nd graders? Please hold me accountable to this! If I don’t answer a call, text or email, that’s a good thing!