Faith Works 8-25-18

Faith Works 8-25-18

Jeff Gill

 

On-call vs. on-task and other puzzles

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It's a problem without a clear solution, because people are used to what they're used to.

 

Like most such puzzles, it had a standard joke associated with it, a one-liner: must be nice to work one hour a week!

 

What hours do ministers work? Even those who make the "one hour" crack know the complicating part of the program is the on-call nature of pastoral care. Which is why the move in the last century in this country was to make ministerial positions a salaried job.

 

Normally, a salaried person knows they may work 40 hours, they may work more, they may put in less some weeks, but the point of a salaried job is that you don't keep track of hours in the same way most of the rest of the economy works. And yes, you are likely to go over 40 as often as not.

 

But that's what most people who are in churches expect: salary, or hourly positions. And if you are being paid for ten hours, then you work ten hours. If you are hourly, and you work over 40, you get overtime. So the salaried viewpoint has been a rational perspective for ministry positions.

 

Except more and more ministry work is "part time." Yes, I put that in quotes. Not necessarily because most or all part time ministry positions work 40 hours or more a week, but because it's almost impossible to come to a good understanding of what those hours are, and how to construct or model a part time pastoral position, and be fair to the person working. If you call it "half time" then folks think about twenty hours as the benchmark of fair expectations, and . . .

 

So I'll use my own last Sunday as an example. Got up later than I usually do, since I'd been at the hospital the night before. Prayed for fifteen minutes instead of my preferred twenty or thirty, ran my sermon silently on the sofa for forty minutes, responded to emails and messages about our regional church needs for another thirty, left for the church building.

 

I arrived about 8 am; we had two morning worship services, conversations with parishioners and church leaders before, in between, and after, left the property about 1 pm. The student minister and I went to grab lunch, then arrived at a care facility which is one of our two monthly services at such locations about 1:45. Set up, gathered people, held services from 2 to 2:30. We went our two ways; I ran home to pick up supplies and talk about a church issue with my wife on scheduling and planning, then went to the store for perishable supplies, and arrived at our church's outdoor lodge at 4 pm, set up for a 4:30 event, and we were there for about three hours, then another thirty minutes cleaning up and closing down. Got home, spent from 8:30 to 9 pm replying to messages from through the day and for the week ahead about events and plans.

 

How many hours do you call that? Any Christian would pray, right? Many hands helped with all the part of it, from the three services to the evening event. Some would say "well, sounds like you were on the clock from 6 am to 9 pm to me!" Others would point out you don't count meal times or travel time in work hours. Lots of ways you could sort this out.

 

And my point being for many, most "part time" ministers, that's a description of the one core element of their position: Sunday. And if your post is defined around a twenty hour week, then whether or not that was fifteen of it, or just six or seven, is a key element of understanding . . . or of confusion.

 

Which is where I think we have to learn a third language in the church, beyond salaried and hourly: the entrepreneurial model. If you own or run a business, you work the hours you work, and decide for yourself if it's worth it, based on outcomes. And not all outcomes are tangible measurables.

 

An entrepreneurial model of church work breaks open some assumptions, but the hazard is when the congregation sees itself as the boss. And if the minister "works for the boss" in that way, conflict is likely. But as churches all over our area are having to rethink their assumptions around ministerial work, it's conflict we'll have to work through.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been in a variety of ministry positions across forty years. Tell him how you see the work of ministry at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.