The little guy’s eyes were wide, and his mouth a bit agape as he looked up at me last Sunday in the vestibule after morning worship. He had a question, and his mother nudged him a bit to get him to go ahead and ask it.
“Do you LIVE here?”
I roared in laughter, then answered, “No, but it sure seems like it most of the time!” I then explained to him that Dana and I and our kids live in a house just like everybody else, but that I do spend the vast majority of my time at the church. And I do; on most normal weeks, I am at the church every single day, some days 12 to 15 hours, others a more mundane seven or eight hours.
I am blessed. I have a lovely home office that I use at other times to do much of my desk and study work. So, whether at church or at home, I can be as productive as I need to be.
Pastoring is often such a weird thing. The week that the precious tyke asked me if I lived at the church, I was (among many other things) the church pastor, plumber, electrician, equipment technician and seamster. As pastor, I prepared and preached three messages, taught a Sunday School class, led and taught our youth program, directed the youth choir, made hospital visits and did two counseling sessions. As the plumber, I replaced a malfunctioning urinal valve. As the electrician, I fixed a bad security light. As the equipment tech, I repaired our floor scrubber. As the seamster, I sewed a rip in one of our auditorium chairs.