My Day as a Real "Pastor"

The Thursday after Ash Wednesday (3/10) was a VERY long one for me. I say this because, for the first time since arriving, my day was full of activities related to my role here at the church. I felt like a real pastor now: counseling, planning, meeting, training, and helping with charities. The job of the pastor, after all, is certainly not limited to a sermon every week. I have had the chance while here to observe the "ins and outs" of pastoring a church. More interesting, however, has been my own taking part in them. I admire pastors so much more at this point, as I get so exhausted after days like these.

My day started fairly early, meeting with one of my fellow Life Group leaders, Daniel Stump. This statement deserves some explanation: At Hope Valley Uniting Church, they have a bunch of little "Life Groups" in which a select group of people get together, share in fellowship, encourage one another in the Faith, participate in Bible study, pray, and just have a nice time together. More than the traditional small groups found at many churches, these "life groups" are designed to cater to a specific sub-set of people. For example, their are several life groups set aside for those with families. Within that group, there are specific life groups for those with toddlers, another for small children, another for teenagers, etc. So the life groups try to meet individuals where they are at in life and stick them with other similarly positioned people. The idea being that when in similar stages of life, there will be increased opportunity for the groups to become a meaningful and central point of one's life. A place where you gain help, accountability, friends, and love. For the most part, I love the model and I think it works very well. There are life groups for newly weds, for college students, for youth, for running-fanatics, for the elderly, and for many other groups. They all work together, of course, to equip and disciple and build the whole Church up. One of the setbacks of such a setting is the amount of leaders you need! It seems the pastors are always talking about needing more leaders (as Hope Valley is experiencing a huge spurt in growth right now). Another major part of this life group system is that it is very much a primary focus of the church. Whereas at many churches, small groups are poorly attended, not often used, and rather secondary to the major functions of the church, Hope Valley puts a heavy emphasis on them. It seems nearly every person is approached about being in a group and long discussion is held about where they might fit best. It's a lot of work!

But, anyways, Jon (my mentor) has asked me to help with one of the newer life groups at the Church, one set aside for first year college and career age men (a transitional group really). He hasn't asked me to lead it per se, but to help equip and disciple its current leader, giving Him some direction and helping him feel more comfortable in his role. The current leader of the group is Daniel Stump, as I said above.

So I met with Daniel to talk about his group, his vision for it, and how to be very intentional in his leadership. Daniel is a great guy with a good head on his shoulders. The plan was that we would go for a walk in the nearby hills and chat. The walk through the hills was lovely. As seen in these images here. It is such a neat world to live in a big city, but have such lovely country surrounding you. Truly magnificent!




After going through the woods and chatting a bit about the group, Daniel wanted to show me his favorite store--a live fish shop! This may sound pretty silly, but Daniel is a huge fish nut and this store was actually pretty incredible. I have definitely not seen so many varieties of fish to choose from. They had some of the biggest, some of the most colorful, and some of the oddest fish I have ever seen. I really enjoyed it actually. I have included a couple of pictures. They even had a salt water crocodile (which was not for sale). Outrageous!

After going to the aquarium we grabbed a meat pie for lunch sat down to some serious business, prayed about our groups future and got the ball rolling on some things. Daniel is great and he will do just fine. I am glad to be helping him out a bit.

After this I met up with one of the youth group students who has been facing a bit of a hard spell. I took him to McDonald's and we talked it up for awhile. It felt good to just pour into someone and show them that I genuinely care about them. I told him I wanted to get to know his life better and so he decided to drive me up into the hills (a gorgeous drive...wow...the landscape around here is absolutely stunning) and show me his favorite riding spots. It was fun.

He got me back to the church just in time for my next meeting with Jacob Brook (the son of one of the pastor's here. Jacob helps his Dad, Roger, every Thursday in the city center at a charity called the "Curry Truck." The Currey Truck was started by Roger (I think he started it) a little while back as a way to help feed the homeless in the city. The way it works is actually pretty amazing. We park a truck in one of the city squares (a small grassy area). The truck is now known as a beacon for free food to the area homeless. The come and mill about and we, the volunteers (who almost all come from Hope Valley) just get a chance to talk to them, pour into their lives and show them they are cared for. As each person arrives, they see Roger for a ticket. This ticket entitles them to a meal. After a bit of time, the local owner of a really high quality curry restaurant comes out to get the number from Roger as to how many tickets were given away. (Somehow, a while ago, Roger approached this restaurant about supplying free meals to the homeless and they agreed! Isn't that amazing!?! And this is no crappy, second-hand meal. This guy pulls out all the stops bring out in to go containers some of the best smelling, best looking curry meals I have ever seen. For that night at least, the homeless eat much better than I do. What a blessing!) So we don't have to prepare the meals or anything. This frees us up to just keep talking and showing love to the people. Once the meals arrive, we pray (this is well received) and hand out the meals and a drink. That's it. There is no gimmick, no sermon, no anything. It is just free food given by the hands of willing servants of God. The volunteers might sit and talk to them as they eat, but after the food is out, everybody generally leaves. I think it is great.

So I went with Jacob and helped out with this event. I got to meet a few people and talk a bit. I am good at talking, but horrible at starting a conversation. So that was the stretch for me. In fact, the whole event was a stretch for me. My gifts have always been in teaching and other relating things. Charity, hospitality, and practical evangelism are always harder for me because they don't come naturally (not that I don't love doing them, they just aren't natural). So it was really good that I went to this. As I feel out a call to ministry, it is important that I am intentional about improving areas I feel week in. I had a great time though and really got a kick out of helping these people. So many of them were hurting, broken people with not a lot of hope it seemed. A few were perpetual drunks. Some were sickly. Others were haggard and clearly living a rough life. My heart bleeds for them.

Jacob told me to be careful with how I deal with them as well. Apparently he once had a knife pulled on him will volunteering and there are frequently fights among some of the homeless people. Apparently the cops in Adelaide are never too far from the event, as a gathering of that sort of people often produces some problems. True to form, that night there was a fight between a man and one of the ladies (who was clearly intoxicated). And, true to Jacob's prediction, the police appeared out of nowhere and were on it quickly. He wasn't lying! Apart from this, however, the event went very well.

The Curry truck runs every week on Thursdays. I plan to go as often as possible. I went again the following week (3/17) and actually led the prayer. This was fun because afterward everybody knew I wasn't one of them. They kept asking me if I was Canadian (apparently Michigan accents sound more Canadian than American in many people's mind) or singing American songs as I walked by. Interesting. They know a lot about American culture here. One gentleman was telling me all about American television. Still another seemed to know every major American musician of the last decade. It made for some good discussion.

Anyways....back to the previous Thursday. After the Curry Truck, I returned to the church in time to help out once more with Sausage and Salad nights, meet a few people, and pour into the lives of the people coming there for help. This was also good, but by now I was just getting worn out. It is hard to do an extrovert's job as an introvert!

After the Sausage and Salad night, I went into an event the church was hosting that night, equipping people for Pastoral Care ministry. I sat in and participated in the event, got to know some more people and tried to help it run smoothly.

When that finished, I walked home and chilled. It had been a very long day.

In Christ,

Chris