As I write this post today, I am working from home. The weather here is brutally cold, and all of the nearby schools are closed. So, too, is our church office -- along with many others, I assume from several who have posted on social media that they are closed today.
This hasn't greatly affected my workday. Expecting the poor weather, I had not planned on making visits today and I had no appointments scheduled. Instead, I've been on the computer and the phone, planning for upcoming services, coordinating details with other church staff people, catching up on email, and working on Sunday's sermon.
The truth is, I can do much of my work as a pastor from anywhere, especially if I have a phone, internet connection, and computer/tablet/smartphone. And, throughout my ministry, I have often done more than half of my work outside of the church building.
Personally, given the long and unpredictable hours of ministry, including the reality that most congregational pastors are always on call, around the clock, 365 days a year, I think that versatility of the work schedule and location should be a perk of this sometimes demanding work. So far, the three congregations I have served have supported this approach to work.
I have colleagues, though, who have been heavily criticized for not working in the church office more. And, to be fair, I'm confident that I've shortened conversations with some pastoral search committees when I've said that I have no intention of being in a church office for 40 hours a week.
I've also told those committees that I think it is a pretty antiquated model of ministry, in all but very specific contexts, such as chaplaincy-type positions. There are two key reasons for this. First, one of the recent needs of congregational life has been to reclaim ministry beyond the church's walls, and the pastor should be at the forefront of such efforts. Second, technological changes -- and, just as importantly, the cultural changes and adaptations that have gone along with these technological changes -- have changed the model of office-work for many people.
The opportunities to take ministry beyond the church walls should be obvious. Pastors need to connect with people who are unlikely to just stop by the church office. Some of these are members of the church, but many are other community leaders, pastors and active church folk from other congregations, and people in need of Christian hope, compassion, and generosity. These relationships build the overall ministry of the church -- both the church universal and a congregation -- and it takes time and effort outside the walls of the church to develop these relationships. So the pastor has plenty of work to do beyond the church office.
Technology has enabled such out-of-office work, but it has also created new challenges. Working hours have expanded to virtually around-the-clock, where so many people are just a call or text away. Email messages, which themselves sped up communication that used to be shared by hand-delivered envelopes, now pop up on smart phones instantaneously, beeping or buzzing for attention. The cell phone tether has allowed people to adjust their working hours to accommodate personal appointments (doctor, dentist, financial adviser, etc.), family care (young children, aging parents), involvement in various community/school organizations, and more. However, this non-stop pace has also created a need for people to build some downtime into their daily lives, which probably requires getting away from the office.
The great challenge of working out of the office is ensuring that work still is completed and people recognize that work is getting done. (The hard truth is that there is a similar challenge even if you spend most of your hours in the church office too.) I think that some congregations have asked pastors to be in the office because their predecessors didn't seem to get as much done out of the office, and in some cases, this has been true: working elsewhere has been a cover story for not working at all.
More often, though, people are working outside of the office. So the challenge is to help people who support your ministry better understand what you are doing with that time. In some ways, it is the professional equivalent of when teachers used to ask you to "show your work" to demonstrate how you arrived at an answer. Without breaking confidentiality, ministers need to offer glimpses of their ongoing work: the ways they connect with others in the community and throughout the church, the phone conversations/messaging exchanges/social media interactions they have, the way their reading/study time impacts their ministry, and more.
Done well, such sharing can be another way of emphasizing ministry goals and demonstrating ways of living them out. As an example, I have always shared, in a variety of ways, my wider church involvement with the congregations I have served. In my current context, this ties neatly into our commitment to generously share general funds with a variety of ministry partners -- over 15% of gifts are allocated in this way. So I point to ways that between 10-15% of my ministry time is spent with our partners. This includes denominational work groups, serving in church camp settings, and more.
If people know that you're doing serious and significant work, even if they cannot describe each and every hour you spend, then few, if any, will quibble about where you work. If it is obvious that you have a healthy prayer life, your study time impacts your preaching/teaching/leadership, you have developed good relationships within and beyond the congregation, and more, most people will let you work when and how you want. If people have difficulty identifying what you're doing, they are more likely to have opinions on how and where you spend your time (and what you should be doing during that time).
Personally, I think a pastor can work from almost anywhere: in the office, at home, in a coffee shop, in the car, at the gym, in a conference room, and basically any other place you can imagine -- and even some you and I can't even imagine. If they can connect with their work, other people, God, ministry can be done.
This hasn't greatly affected my workday. Expecting the poor weather, I had not planned on making visits today and I had no appointments scheduled. Instead, I've been on the computer and the phone, planning for upcoming services, coordinating details with other church staff people, catching up on email, and working on Sunday's sermon.
The truth is, I can do much of my work as a pastor from anywhere, especially if I have a phone, internet connection, and computer/tablet/smartphone. And, throughout my ministry, I have often done more than half of my work outside of the church building.
Personally, given the long and unpredictable hours of ministry, including the reality that most congregational pastors are always on call, around the clock, 365 days a year, I think that versatility of the work schedule and location should be a perk of this sometimes demanding work. So far, the three congregations I have served have supported this approach to work.
I have colleagues, though, who have been heavily criticized for not working in the church office more. And, to be fair, I'm confident that I've shortened conversations with some pastoral search committees when I've said that I have no intention of being in a church office for 40 hours a week.
I've also told those committees that I think it is a pretty antiquated model of ministry, in all but very specific contexts, such as chaplaincy-type positions. There are two key reasons for this. First, one of the recent needs of congregational life has been to reclaim ministry beyond the church's walls, and the pastor should be at the forefront of such efforts. Second, technological changes -- and, just as importantly, the cultural changes and adaptations that have gone along with these technological changes -- have changed the model of office-work for many people.
The opportunities to take ministry beyond the church walls should be obvious. Pastors need to connect with people who are unlikely to just stop by the church office. Some of these are members of the church, but many are other community leaders, pastors and active church folk from other congregations, and people in need of Christian hope, compassion, and generosity. These relationships build the overall ministry of the church -- both the church universal and a congregation -- and it takes time and effort outside the walls of the church to develop these relationships. So the pastor has plenty of work to do beyond the church office.
Technology has enabled such out-of-office work, but it has also created new challenges. Working hours have expanded to virtually around-the-clock, where so many people are just a call or text away. Email messages, which themselves sped up communication that used to be shared by hand-delivered envelopes, now pop up on smart phones instantaneously, beeping or buzzing for attention. The cell phone tether has allowed people to adjust their working hours to accommodate personal appointments (doctor, dentist, financial adviser, etc.), family care (young children, aging parents), involvement in various community/school organizations, and more. However, this non-stop pace has also created a need for people to build some downtime into their daily lives, which probably requires getting away from the office.
The great challenge of working out of the office is ensuring that work still is completed and people recognize that work is getting done. (The hard truth is that there is a similar challenge even if you spend most of your hours in the church office too.) I think that some congregations have asked pastors to be in the office because their predecessors didn't seem to get as much done out of the office, and in some cases, this has been true: working elsewhere has been a cover story for not working at all.
More often, though, people are working outside of the office. So the challenge is to help people who support your ministry better understand what you are doing with that time. In some ways, it is the professional equivalent of when teachers used to ask you to "show your work" to demonstrate how you arrived at an answer. Without breaking confidentiality, ministers need to offer glimpses of their ongoing work: the ways they connect with others in the community and throughout the church, the phone conversations/messaging exchanges/social media interactions they have, the way their reading/study time impacts their ministry, and more.
Done well, such sharing can be another way of emphasizing ministry goals and demonstrating ways of living them out. As an example, I have always shared, in a variety of ways, my wider church involvement with the congregations I have served. In my current context, this ties neatly into our commitment to generously share general funds with a variety of ministry partners -- over 15% of gifts are allocated in this way. So I point to ways that between 10-15% of my ministry time is spent with our partners. This includes denominational work groups, serving in church camp settings, and more.
If people know that you're doing serious and significant work, even if they cannot describe each and every hour you spend, then few, if any, will quibble about where you work. If it is obvious that you have a healthy prayer life, your study time impacts your preaching/teaching/leadership, you have developed good relationships within and beyond the congregation, and more, most people will let you work when and how you want. If people have difficulty identifying what you're doing, they are more likely to have opinions on how and where you spend your time (and what you should be doing during that time).
Personally, I think a pastor can work from almost anywhere: in the office, at home, in a coffee shop, in the car, at the gym, in a conference room, and basically any other place you can imagine -- and even some you and I can't even imagine. If they can connect with their work, other people, God, ministry can be done.
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