I woke up Sunday morning and stumbled into my usual morning routine, heading for the exercise bike for an hour of exercise, Bible reading and worship preparation. As shuffled towards the basement, I was thinking about a family funeral I had attended and idly thinking about how long ago that had been. I woke up a bit more when I realized that the funeral had only been 5 days ago—it seemed like it had been weeks ago.
To say it had been a busy week somehow misses the reality of that week. Vacation had been over for a week and so this should have been a normal, get back into routine week. But there was a family funeral, a niece whose death while somewhat expected was still sad. This is the second death in the immediate family, a bit of an unusually low number given the number of us, our advancing age and the number of health issues we all face. Attending the funeral involved an eight hour round trip for me, which did allow a lot of time for thinking. Part of that time was spend thinking about the fact that our family will probably be doing a lot more of this as the years progress.
The next day, I tried to make up for the work I didn’t get to because of the funeral. There was some pressure because it was the only real study day I had that week. The rest of the work week and then some was taken up with our regular Bible study and the annual meeting of our denomination. I have a definite and strong aversion to meetings but I have always felt that attendance at denominational meetings is something of a duty—I am part of the organization, I receive some benefits from the organization, I want certain things from the organization and so I need to be there. There is the added benefit of getting to see some of the people I only get to see when we meet as a body.
So, for three days, I attended meetings, talked to people, attended meetings, looked at promotional displays (some organizations have really neat give-aways), read reports, attended meetings, took many unscheduled breaks, attended meetings—well, you get the idea. Almost the last thing on the program was a brief panel discussion that I was part of, which meant that there was no chance that I might get away early.
So, after that week, there I was, sitting on the exercise bike, opening my Bible and trying to make the exercise bike go and my mind work to read the Bible, while all the time, I was thinking and feeling that I should have stayed in bed and maybe even called the church deacons to tell them that I was sick. When the previous week feels like it had been two months long, there must be some ethical loop hole that allows for something like that.
There are of course some who would suggest that every week in ministry is like that. But the truth is that for me and most people I know, ministry is fairly predictable and we can establish comfortable and effective week to week routines. I happen to like routine and predictability. I like knowing that at 7:30am on Tuesday, I will begin working on one of the two sermons I need to write. I like knowing that when I finish that, I can move on to item two and so on. The predictability helps me keep on track and keep organized and allows me to know that I can get things done.
Interestingly enough, that predictability and organization also come in really handy when I have unpredictable and disorganized weeks like the week that this post focuses on. This was not a normal week—but I could and did cope with it because there is some structure to my work, a structure that is flexible enough to allow for funerals, meetings and other assorted emergencies by allowing me to see just where the stuff I missed from the structure can be fitted in and accomplished at some point.
I like my weeks to be comfortably predictable—but because I know that ministry is rarely that predictable, I have learned to develop schedules and structures that allow for both the predictable and the unpredictable, although more and more, I am preferring the predictable.
May the peace of God be with you.