Several times over recent months, people have asked me: ‘What exactly is it you do?' If you want to know the highlights of my work from month to month, just look at the Minister's Report in the Eldership minutes displayed on the church notice board outside the kitchen. However, in a more general way it's a very good question: for I am accountable, to God and to you, for how I spend my time.
Preparing for and leading worship takes a significant chunk of time. At the beginning of the week I look at the set Bible readings, taking special themes like Harvest or Racial Justice into account as well as where we are in the church year. I choose possible hymns and send a draft order of service to our organist and our children's workers so they can improve it. Putting the service together and writing theme introduction, sermon and prayers takes about half a day, as late in the week as possible - just in case anything new happens! About once a month I'm away from church, either leading worship in one of our smaller churches - St Andrew's is very unusual in having a full-time minister and you're generous enough to share me - or on a training course. But most of the time, you know where I am on Sunday mornings.
Back to the rest of the week, there are some fixed points. On Monday afternoons I help at the Broomhall homework club for mainly Somali local children. On Tuesday mornings I'm in the University Chaplaincy Centre on Glossop Road, ready to listen if there's a student crisis, or to do my church work and answer the phone if there's not. On alternate Tuesday afternoons I hurry from the Chaplaincy to our own Social Group, where members of St Andrew's and local people get to know one another better as we listen to a speaker or have a go at a craft activity. And on Friday mornings I begin the day sharing a wonderful cooked breakfast at the Broomhall Breakfast drop-in with people from local churches and others with no home.
You'll be aware that apart from chairing the Elders meeting I sit regularly on some church committees - for example, the Worship Group and Youth and Education - as well as meetings of our local ecumenical group, Churches Together in Broomhill and Broomhall. More recently I've started doing some work with national church groups: Women in Ministries, the Roman Catholic-United Reformed Church dialogue and the new URC Faith and Order committee. I also do a bit of teaching work: tutoring some TLS (Training for Learning and Serving) students for their Worship module; working with Kyusuk Kong as he writes up his doctorate and with ministerial students as they consider how to study the Bible in small groups. I offer small-group study to our church, too, when anyone is interested in taking it up.
That's the regular work - but of course, people's lives don't go to plan. If someone goes into hospital, I visit them. When someone dies, I plan the funeral with the family, lead it and offer my care. And whenever I know that a pastoral visit would be appreciated, that's a high priority - though I do need to be told, either personally or via an Elder. I hope that as I continue at St Andrew's, you'll become confident in sharing some of the important moments in your lives with me; for that is how I will truly become your minister, helping to connect you to God, to one another and to the world beyond our door.