A Week in the Life - Wednesday

The best kinds of nights are the ones where you come home after a great night completely spent and fall into bed. Hence a blog post about Wednesday on Thursday...

5:00 a.m. - alarm. ouch. 

5:30 a.m. - This zombie arrives at the gym for an hour or so of exercise. My new friend, Max, is also excited. I rack up more than 10,000 steps before 7 a.m.! At the close of the day I only have around 17,500. 

7:20 a.m. - Arrive at the church. I'm waiting for a friend to arrive. We're carpooling to a funeral. In the meantime, I finish folding IHN laundry, and I do what's left of the dishes from campus ministry dinner the night before. Our custodian is the only other person in the building, and we have a quick catch up about the most recent Captain America movie.

8:00 a.m. - on the road for the home town. 

8:20 a.m. - Pitstop for coffee. Thank. God.

9:30 a.m. - Arrive at the small town Baptist church for the funeral of our friend. He was our high school prom king. It may not sound like much, but our class voted for him because he had a rough life battling multiple handicaps and maintaining the most beautiful spirit. On the drive up my friend and I talk about what we expect at the funeral. Unfortunately, we were right. We got to witness some beautiful memories shared, and a family coming together at the loss of their light. We also got, unfortunately, a call to repentance and a reminder of hell. I reflect on my own theology of care around death, and remember the many funerals at which I have had the honor of officiating. 

11:15 a.m. - Friend and I decide we'd rather not stay for the funeral dinner. We opt for meeting my dad for lunch at the local Bob Evans' instead. Hot topic is equal pay for women. He disagrees with me and my friend (both professional women), but we laugh it off. 

2:00 p.m. - Arrive back at the office. Things on my to-do list are: studying my monologue ("His compassion-could I forget? *sit; to Jesus, humbled* Is it I?"), returning a few emails, continuing (starting over) the required book I'm supposed to be reading, and outlining a presentation for tomorrow night.

3:15 p.m. - A friend calls. She serves in a church in Kansas, working in middle school youth ministry (God bless her). This is the second time this week that she's consulted on me for a disciplinary question. This time she's pondering confirmation and professions of faith. Her colleague, also a friend of mine, laughs that I am the go-to person for questions of United Methodist Discipline. We have a really great conversation about the role of the church in nurturing young people. We even talk about our theology of baptism. 

4:00 p.m. - Senior pastor has a question about Max (pedometer). We troubleshoot and have a mini computer tutorial. I also take the opportunity to remind him that I have more steps than him. 

4:30 p.m. - Head home for the evening. 

5:00 p.m. - Decide to walk up to downtown from home to get more steps. I have a night without a church commitment, so I'm going out with my "fit fam" (AKA, friends from the gym). It is nice to see everyone in "normal" clothes. I think we look quite attractive when we're not sweaty. We have drinks and play video games at a barcade, head to dinner where G and I give everyone a tutorial on poutine, and then decide afterward that we need cake. We wrap up the evening at our favorite spot in town.
(A week in the life is a blog series I'm writing to share what a normal week in the life of this pastor looks like. I serve as the Minister of Discipleship and Mission at King Avenue UMC in Columbus, Ohio.)