“What does a typical day look like?”

A couple days ago one of my bffs asked me what our life actually looks like. She’s a nurse practitioner, going to grad school and parenting 3 kids under 5. So she was pondering what ours lives must be like as pastors and as parents, especially during a pandemic. She joked about being a super-nosey-type of person, but not in a creepy or judge-y way. She’s just super-curious and interested in learning about other people. I can relate.

I love learning about people’s real lives. In fact, I kind of snagged this idea of sharing “a day in the life” from our friends, Nikki and Thad Roller who are missionaries in Colombia. They did a similar thing in a recent newsletter and it was super fun to glimpse of their real life.

So I thought I’d share what it is Pastor Kevin and Pastor Melanie actually do and what a real day looks like for us. Here’s to curiosity!

From what I can tell, there isn’t one right way of being a pastor. Every expression of a pastor depends on the individual gifts and passions of the one who has been ordained as well as the community they live in and the denomination or church structure they work within.  

Kevin and I have a fun and weird and unique-to-us mix of responsibilities. This means we never have two of the same days. Here’s the areas we’ve been honing our priorities outside of the more obvious and visible Sunday morning worship ⬇️

random stuff we do

Kevin 

writes for the clergy column in the Monroe News. 📰 He is the Chair of Christians United (the ecumenical ministers network in Monroe which he helped found in 2015). He does freelance accounting work for small businesses. He participates actively in local and state government, attending Monroe City Council meetings and dialoging with elected officials. He just completed his training to be an election inspector. He plans community wide prayer services, is part of the Next Step Coalition for racial justice, and collaborates with IHM in social justice.

Kevin hosts a weekly Scripture Reading online, moderates theology discussion boards, and publishes blog articles regularly. He’s a part of a pastors’ Band Meeting each week, and he talks daily to a college friend for a mix of accountability and ministry processing and manly bonding.

Kevin keeps the church books and fills out all the paperwork that makes my head spin. He mows the church lawn with other volunteers. He chairs local board meetings and writes agendas. He is working on an Accounting degree at MCCC 📈 and I won’t be surprised if (when) he starts a PhD in theology. 📚 He’s constantly reading books on Wesleyan theology and social justice and history, and he listens to a long lists of educational podcasts on politics, racism, and Christian spirituality.

Melanie (that’s me! 👋)

I’m an active participant in the Great Start Collaborative in Monroe County (which I talked about a lot in this email). I am a founding member of the Free Methodist Liturgical Network and serve on the coordinating council with monthly meetings, communications, and hosting prayer services. I stay involved in the Set Free Movement as an advocate and am a part of the Next Step Coalition for racial justice. 

I am starting my three-year term on the MEG Board. I’ll be the leader of the Ann Arbor/Toledo MEG team, overseeing the ministry candidates in this region of our conference. I am on the Seminary MEG sub-team, coaching two Asbury Seminary students every-other-week. I am also a ministry coach for local ministerial candidates, meeting bi-weekly with 6 individuals from different churches including Monroe, Evergreen, and Ypsi FM. (As you can imagine, all of this ⬆️ involves meetings as well as the reports and paperwork and planning and follow-up.)  

I meet every Monday with my pastoral Soul Care Band and every Thursday with my Monroe Soul Care Band. I am facilitating a newly-starting Band of young women, and have met monthly with my “Pastoras” for four years for friendship, spiritual formation, and confession.

I am a lover of language, so I’m kinda the communications guru for a number of organizations. I am the website manager and FB content creator for Monroe Free Methodist and Christians United and the Free Methodist Liturgical Network. 

I pay the church bills and plan our worship services and would love to go back to school for another Master’s or a DMin. (Kevin and I seem to take turns getting degrees. We 💚school 📙)

WEEKDAY might look like this

6am Wake up, make coffee, sit on the porch to talk, read, pray

7am I do yoga or go for a run. Kevin catches up on the News.

7:30am The girls realize their clock reads “7” and wake up with chipper attitudes and voracious appetites. By 8am we start breakfast (normally involving omelets or English muffins or frozen waffles.)

9am-11am Admin-type work: both of us checking and replying to emails, responding, texting, updating our daily task lists. (The bulk of our communication with our Conference Leaders and Community Partners is done via email. Some of these tasks take a few minutes to reply to. Some take a few hours.) 

During this time, the girls get to watch a show (lately their favorite has been Wild Kratts) and then have “sister play time” either in their playhouse or reading books or colored pencils and coloring books. On Monday this involved me picking up Kirsten’s bff Bennett so they could play while I worked.

11am By now Junia has been asking to take a walk for multiple hours now (which is literally my favorite thing), so I loads her up in the stroller and Kirsten mounts her bike 🚴 and we head out on our first 3-mile walk of the day. Kevin joins us about half the time. These walks are fun and prayerful and neighborly. 

12pm Lunch. (Most likely some version of tacos 🌮 all day every day.) 

12:30-4:30pm Girls have naps or quiet time for an hour or two. 💤 Kevin and I get more focused work done💻: writing sermons, sending emails, posting letters, paying bills, publishing newspaper columns and blog posts and Facebook content. Sometimes I take a walk and listen to a podcast in peace.

5pm Dinner (probably another iteration of tacos 🥗)

6pm We take an evening family walk 👫👭 oftentimes to visit Mark and Rachel and Kez.

7pm It’s time to start the bedtime routine with the girls: baths, book, sharing our thankfuls, a song, prayer. (We back into their room 5 times between 7:45 and 9pm when they finally fall asleep.🤦) 

8pm Sometimes I go for another walk by myself. We tidy the house and regroup for the next day. 

9pm  We snuggle up with a bowl of popcorn 🍿 (which I don’t really share) and  watch an episode of Parks and Rec. 

10pm I go to bed to read 📕 (right now it’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and Kevin plays a video game online with Mark. 

the end.

and now

O Lord, God Almighty, as you have taught us to call the evening, the morning, and the noonday one day; and have made the sun to know its going down:  Dispel the darkness of our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be the true God and eternal light, living and reigning for ever and ever.

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