A week in the life of an intern pastor

I am sometimes amazed at the sheer variety of what goes into this job.  So here is a week in the life…

Monday: Weekly morning prayer and adult bible study on the Prophetic Literature.  Spent time preparing devotions for wednesday's staff meeting and evening Vespers. Afternoon was spent doing exegesis for my sermon while working at home.

Tuesday: Morning was a 45 minute drive each way to the Minnesota Valley Conference in Glencoe, MN.  This was a meeting with other ELCA pastors and Synod staff.  Afternoon was spent doing exegesis for my sermon while working at home.  Received a call that there had been a death and I needed to contact the funeral home to arrange a time to meet with the family.  A short dinner break, then back to Church for a council meeting.

Wednesday: Morning was a 1.5 hour staff meeting in which I led a discussion of what had been talked about the night before in the council meeting.  Some time spent finalizing confirmation lesson including making a burning bush prop.  Lunch in my car while heading to the funeral home. Nearly two hours spent at the funeral home. Back to the office to communicate all the necessary information to all the right people about the funeral.  Start looking for a song sheet for a hymn not in our worship book. Brief dinner break.  Evening Vespers, then teaching confirmation to 7th and 8th graders.

Thursday: Morning office hours at the local coffee shop.  Have conversations with a few parishioners there.  Bring communion to some members living in a nursing home.  Call a parishioner to pray over the phone in preparation for surgery she is having in a week. Still working on funeral stuff. Now attempting to find a sign language interpreter for this particular funeral.  Clean up and put away stuff from confirmation the night before. Afternoon text study.

Friday: Much needed sabbath because I am exhausted and woke up not feeling great.

Saturday: Time to start writing the sermon. Frustrating process.  Take a nap.  Work some more.  Clean my kitchen.  Take a walk in the frigid sunset cold to clear my head.  Finish sermon about 8:30pm.

Sunday: At church by 7:15am.  First service at 8:15am.  Second worship service at 10:30am.  Home by 12:00pm.  Blessed Sunday afternoon nap time.

And it starts all over again tomorrow morning...