Week 4: Administrative Work

February 3rd, 2009

4. Administrative Work

Will Shelor is the Senior pastor of Central Christian Church in Van Buren, Indiana. Central Christian Church is a small country church with a congregation of seventy, forty to fifty on average each Sunday. Throughout the years, CCC has gone through numerous pastors. The role of pastor is mainly to run services (preach, funerals, weddings, etc), lead Bible studies, make house calls/visits, and attend church functions. The majority of administration is delegated to those on the Board as well as those that have a Church Office role (basically these positions overlap in this church).

While Pastor Will does not have a great deal of administrative work, he does spend time in the office (eight hours about three to four times a week). This time is spent on working sermons and the order of the Sunday services. When he is not in the office he is out visiting members in nursing homes and visiting with families.

What Pastor Will does:
Prepares sermons
Prepares Sunday service
House calls/visits/ shut-ins
Attends monthly elders meetings
Leads weekly Adult Bible Study (Sunday evenings)

Since I work at this church, much of this was already known to me. What I find so interesting with this church is how little a say or role a pastor has in administrative duties. Truly, the church is ran by the congregation (the board). For the pastor, it must be refreshing to not have such duties weighing you down. On the other hand, does the pastor have much a voice in anything? This church is very much set in its “way” of doings things, what if the pastor wanted to mix things up a bit?

-Kelly Jones