What does the typical day look like for a youth pastor? Well, I am not sure I can answer that fully. I have tried very hard to have a system in place. Monday-Thursday I typically start the days exactly the same...Get the office, make or drink coffee (based on if Neil has beat me to it or not), check my email, respond to emails, check in on my students through Facebook, comment on students' stuff, read something, and blog about something. On Mondays, I try to evaluate Sunday's events, twice/month there is a staff meeting, I begin looking towards Wed. nights, I answer emails that were sent on Friday-Sunday, I input attendance numbers and offering numbers to make sure we aren't having a crises. On Tuesdays, I begin to mold the Worship slides/videos into shape, study for my lesson and begin putting it into a powerpoint presentation, this is also when I typically print out worship music for the CYM worship band. On Wednesdays, I wrap up everything from lessons to music to videos, I typically create the small group study and questions on Wednesdays after I've had a day to think about the lesson, I typically try to watch/listen to something inspiring, then I go pick up students starting around 4:45, get back to the church around 5:45, hang out with students until we start SURGE around 6:30, take students home after SURGE and get home around 9. On Thursdays, I reflect on the Wed., input attendance numbers making sure that we aren't having a crises, before digging into the Sunday AM Voltage lesson. This is also when I try to get a sneak peak at what the next Wed. night will entail.
From Friday, August 30th, 1974 Nouwen writes:
"This was one of those days that pass with many distractions and few real events. I washed raisins for more than four hours without even finishing the whole job, received a lot of mail that needed immediate attention, talked for a few hours with one of the guests who asked for some help in his life. Finally, I read that depressing weekly, U.S. News and World Report, which is obviously written for businessmen and not monks.
In fact, this was a "typical" day when I think about my life before I came here. Busy, active, talkative, but very superficial and without much concentration on anything. It seems good to avoid more of such 'typical days'."
I have been struggling of late because my work days are seldom typical. The listing above along with students' games, plays, concerts, contests, and matches are the ideal days for me. However as Easter approaches along with my Sabbatical and General Assembly, my days are being led into other distractions. My weeks have not looked like the above week for about a month and we will wrap this month up with much of the non-typicallness pace that I've been on. But when it is all said and done...I do ponder how most of my days pass without any "real events" but seem to have plenty of distractions.
Yep, so it goes. I'm currently trying to decide if my attempts at routine cause more stress than they relieve. Seems that this job seldom lends itself to being lived out in the form of a regular schedule.
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