Sunday Starts Early

There are several categories of people who attend the typical church. (Massive generalizations)

• Casual: Hey man, I’m here.
• Here to play my part: Hey, I’m here and I want to worship and I want to serve too.
• Church is my life: Am I ever anywhere else, because all I ever do is come here?

Every staff person I know at a local church wishes they were in that second category but for the most part is in the "Church is my life" camp. I want to say this, all of those are healthy and pleasing to God.

So, it’s 6:45 am on a Sunday… what is the typical pastor doing?

I can’t speak for the hundreds of thousands of pastors out there… but this is what a typical staff person is doing.

• Praying (Crazy, I know)
• Preparing (Finalizing whatever they are doing for Sunday morning)
• Practicing (Just like any profession… pros practice)

I like to get up early on Sunday’s. I generally roll into the parking lot about 7:20 and I’ll leave the property about 12:45. My role is to help the service run as smoothly as possible. We go over all the technical aspects most people wouldn’t think about for a service. Lighting, audio, who says what and when, musicians practice, doors unlocked and lights on, make sure volunteers and paid staff are where they need to be, on and on… my personal favorite is "the unknown job." Every single Sunday something "comes up" that is new, urgent, tragic, pressing, unexpected, odd, funny, painful, embarrassing, or otherwise needs to be handled.

Someone takes care of almost every detail to make a Sunday morning service happen, hopefully smoothly. And in the typical church I’ve served in… all those little details only get noticed when someone doesn’t do something just the way it’s always done. It’s a tricky business eliminating distractions from worship and creating an environment where people can be comfortable enough to take the next step with God… but it is also quietly rewarding. Few things in life bring a pastor more pleasure than seeing the little things they do amount to or result in something really big happening in someone’s life.