CONFESSIONS OF A BORED PASTOR
Sometimes ministry can feel like a long night on the assembly line.
Steven L. McKinley
July 1, 1989
Monday morning. Time to review the appointments for the week. They jumped at me from the pages of my desk calendar: stewardship committee, premarital counseling, confirmation class, baptismal counseling, prospective member visit, newsletter article to write, bulletin to prepare, wedding rehearsal, wedding, church council. All of a sudden, visions of low-voltage switchgears popped into my head. To this day I am not sure what a "low-voltage switchgear" does. I know it has something to do with electricity. I spent one summer during seminary working nights in a factory that manufactured them. I was one of four men on the paint line. Jim stood at the beginning of the line, hanging unpainted parts on hooks extended from an overhead belt. The parts would be washed and dried automatically and then move past Gary and Vern, the two actual painters, who would assault them with spray guns. The belt then moved up close to the ceiling, and the freshly painted parts traveled a leisurely course through the factory to allow time for drying. Then they dropped down to me. It was my job to remove the painted parts from their hooks and stack them neatly to be moved to assembly. My first impression was that the line moved with amazing speed. I couldn't believe how busy I was. The first few nights I felt like Charlie Chaplin (or Lucy Ricardo) putting cakes in boxes. But I got the routine down, and soon I was bored. One part seemed pretty much like the other, each night pretty much like the one before it, and after a while all I was getting out of the job was a decent paycheck at the end of the week. I was glad when summer ended. The Paint Line and the Parish
When I was a freshly minted pastor, I couldn't imagine ever being bored in the ministry. Everything ...
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