The weekend is a stressful time for me. A pastor's most delicate work, at least in my case, takes place between Saturday and Sunday. So much preparation goes into the Saturday and Sunday services. Study, prayer, meditation, counseling, organization, administration, arbitration and a myriad of other responsibilities. I'm not a micro-manager, however, the weight of it all falls on me, nonetheless. Recently, I found myself very agitated and nervous on Sundays. In fact, I started dreading the whole weekend. Well, that's not good. I suppose it only required a little mental adjustment on my part.
I told myself to relax and enjoy the activities. Savor the interaction and fellowship. Slow down and take notice. Make the sleeve tuggers wait and spend a few minutes with a few people who are usually out the door in a flash. So far, it's worked. I think that most of the relationship building between a pastor and the congregation seems to take place, strangely enough, in that brief interval right after the dismissal and immediately before everyone starts for home. So, I've delegated a few of those after-service duties to other people and have tried to be more sociable, more approachable at that time.
I still refrain from making decisions, both small and great, in that brief period of time when everyone wants to discuss important things at that very moment. As a result, I'm often overhead saying, "Well, that sounds great, but let's think about it and talk it over sometime this week."
So, today was wonderful. And here I sit at 4pm, blogging and enjoying a relatively cool afternoon. There's really a lot of work to do this week, but that all starts tomorrow. Today, I'm resolved to enjoy the companionship of my colleagues, relax and do whatever I please.
Thanks for reading.