The Preacher Came to Work Late Today

I wonder if I’m the only one with this problem.

Take Thursday morning, for example. I was wide awake at 5:15, got dressed and studied several chapters of the Old Testament book of Esther. I’m slowly working my way through the entire Bible, rethinking these wonderful scriptures I first met in the late 1940s, and writing in the margins for the grandchild who will eventually inherit this copy. (With eight grandchildren, I study and preach from eight Bibles; eventually, each will own Grandpa’s Bible.)

Then, I turned on the television and with the sound muted, watched the weather forecast while doing 15 minutes of a stretching-and-weights routine I put together years ago. It was cold outside, so I bundled up and grabbed my water bottle and headed out the door for the river levee where I walked three miles and talked to the Lord. It was 7 o’clock when I returned. I turned on the coffee, took my bath, and got dressed. My wife awakened, I brought her a cup of coffee and we chatted. I had breakfast and read the paper, then a phone call occupied 15 or 20 minutes. I thought of a message to put on my website; a pleasant chore which I can never do in less than half an hour.

The time now was 9 am and I was just leaving the house.

The drive to my office across New Orleans’ morning traffic takes 45 minutes. All the way, I kept thinking, “I’m late to the office. What will people think?”

Wonder if I’m the only one with this problem.

In a real sense, I had been on duty since 5:15. Reading the Bible and praying, exercising and walking, eating a good breakfast and reading the morning paper, and then counseling by phone and writing by computer–all these are as much my responsibility as a minister of the gospel as any task that will come up in the course of what we think of as “working hours.”

“Be on guard for yourself,” the Apostle Paul instructed the pastors of Ephesus in Acts 20:28, and then “for all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” First, take care of yourself. Fail to do that and you’ll not be caring for anyone. Then and only then, take care of the flock.

Pastors generally do not have a taskmaster breathing down their necks, timing their arrival and departure from the office, checking off their chores, making sure they get their work done. In my work with the hundred or so Southern Baptist churches of metro New Orleans, I most certainly do not have one, for which I am grateful. However.


I’m my own taskmaster, and not a very merciful one at that. At any given time, I could produce a long list of tasks I have left undone and work I should be doing, as well as instances of self-indulgence when my time could have been better invested, and enough evidence of laziness and sloth to convince a panel of judges of my unworthiness for any position of trust in the Kingdom. My conscience reminds me that I watched a 1942 Bette Davis movie on television last night, and enjoyed every moment of it. My good sense says it was relaxing and beneficial; my guilty conscience points the accusing finger.

Wonder if I’m the only one with this problem.

Decades ago I read where an old preacher said the factory workers in his town tramp by his front door at five o’clock each morning on their way to their shifts. “It’s important,” he said, “that they not think their pastor is comfortably abed while they are working.” Therefore, he set his alarm clock and rose at that same hour and made certain he was at work in his study as soon as his people began in the factory. He did not say if he went back to bed later–okay, I admit I’m a cynic–but left the impression that he was hard at work over his books and the Bible from dawn onwards.

For my money, that’s the sort of instruction that does damage to a minister, and drives his labors with questions of “what will people think” and “how can I impress them” rather than “what does the Lord want” and “what is the best thing to do.”

No minister can or needs to explain to his church members that he might have been out until midnight the evening before ministering to the needs of his flock or on his knees in the middle of the night interceding for them. The plain fact is that he is not answerable to them, but to the Father.

The downside of this, of course, is that the pastoral ministry may actually provide a haven for lazy preachers. If no one holds him accountable for how he spends his time, he may take advantage of that and begin to love sleep too much. Or the television. The computer. Novels. Gardening. A thousand lesser things.

Some denominations and many churches deal with this by requiring their ministers to have accountability groups to whom they are responsible. Members of this group freely ask the pastor about his use of time and the balance in his life. If there is a downside to this arrangement, other than that some may begin to sit in judgment on their minister and once again, he rises early in order to please other people, I don’t know what it is.

These days, with cell phone technology, I wonder if a pastor can legitimately say he’s always in his office when he means he always has the cell phone with him and is always–almost always anyway–on call.

And I’m wondering if I’m the only minister with this problem.

My alter ego–the lazy self-indulgent side of me–says it’s amazing how much time you can save in the morning if you do not read the Bible or exercise or walk. I answer, “No. I’ve tried that, and that’s no solution either.”

After all, getting to the office early is hardly the point.

Coming to the Master faithfully is.

One thought on “The Preacher Came to Work Late Today

  1. Joe,

    Thanks for the reminder – I have come to reaffirm this as my own adjustments are taking place – Thanks for your continued encouragement

Comments are closed.