Mike Edmisten

I’m reading through the book of Acts right now, and I had an “ah-ha” moment in my reading yesterday.

In Acts 3, Peter healed a man who had been crippled for 40+ years. This obviously got the attention of the people in the city, so they came running up to Peter and his fellow apostle, John. Peter asked the crowd, “Why does this surprise you?” (Um, I can take a guess at why they were surprised!)

Then he proceeded to tell them that it was not through their own power that the man was healed, but the healing came through the power of Jesus. This launched Peter into a message about what God had accomplished through the life and death of his Son.

One phrase in Peter’s message really popped out at me. Peter said, “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.” (Acts 3:15, NIV)

Jesus is “the author of life.” Let that thought percolate in your mind and heart for a minute.

An author is one who writes a script. The author will painstakingly search for the right word to communicate his message. The author will stop at nothing to make sure that his work of communication is done with as much clarity and power as possible.

This verse in Acts tells me that Jesus is an author. He’s writing a script. Life is his manuscript. More specifically, my life is his script. Your life is his script. And he is going to great lengths to make sure that his message is communicated clearly in the script that he is writing in our lives.

Are you going through a season where God is teaching you something new? Is he changing you, shaping you, molding you into a more Christlike person? That’s simply the author clarifying the message of his script.

Are you stagnant or stale? Does it seem like you’ve plateaued spiritually? It seems like the author of your life has writer’s block. Sometimes authors will go days, weeks, even months without writing anything. But then when they do sit down to write, their patience pays off. Maybe God is prepping you for something new. Maybe you’ve actually moved away from him and you’ve got to come back before he can start writing again. Whatever the case, remember this promise from Scripture:

“…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6, NIV)

The author will finish his script…and it’ll be a great read.

This past weekend we attended my brother-in-law’s wedding. It was a great day for Lucas and Adrienne. It was also a great day for me as a dad. Our three-year-old boy, Ryan, was the ring bearer. I was a little nervous about how that would go, especially when the rehearsal was a bit iffy.

But when the wedding day arrived, Ryan was awesome! He was so patient through all the pictures before and after the ceremony. He walked down the aisle for the processional and recessional flawlessly. He even gave me a “thumbs up” signal when he got to his spot in front of the auditorium. Actually, he did that a few times, which tickled a lot of people.

Honestly, he couldn’t have done a better job. So pardon the bragging, but I’m really proud of my boy.

I’ve been posting all week about how I spend my time as a minister in the ACC family. This marks the last post in this particular string.

For most normal people, Sunday is not the busiest day of the week. For pastors, it most definitely is the busiest day of the week. Actually, Sunday doesn’t mark the beginning of the week for me. It is the end of the week. Everything I prepare during the week is geared toward Sunday. Once Sunday is over, my week is over and it’s time to start another one.

My day started at 6:00 am just like every Sunday. It’s usually a toss-up as to who will get to church first on Sunday: Brian Morrissey (our youth/worship minister) or me. I won today because Brian’s fancy alarm clock automatically went to Standard Time this morning. Apparently the clock didn’t realize that President Bush extended Daylight Saving Time this year. So he got to church an hour late today. :o)

I practiced my sermon word-for-word in the empty auditorium this morning, just like I do every Sunday. After that, it was time for worship team practice. And then it was on to our first service.

Preaching two services is tough enough, but teaching a class in between the services can be really draining. I love my class, but it makes for one really tiring morning. If you’ve never preached on a regular basis, it’s hard to explain why it’s so tiring…but it is. In fact, it’s the most draining thing I do all week. When I’m preaching, every single synapse in my brain is firing. I’m completely engaged and involved in what I’m doing. I’m so passionate about it that I give it everything I’ve got every time out.

A few hours after church, I crashed. It’s almost like coming down off a high (although I don’t actually know what that feels like).

But then I had to crank it up again for one more Ground Floor class. This last session was a no-holds-barred Q&A session. I told them to bring their questions, and they definitely did! We actually had to extend the class to get it all in. It was great, but I am wiped out.

Lately, it feels like I’m running on caffeine and adrenaline on Sundays. It’s so hard to find a good rhythm on Sundays because God is just constantly blowing my mind with what is happening in our church family. So many great things are happening each weekend that I’m struggling to just keep up. I am praying that I can find a sustainable stride on Sundays. I know I’ll always push it hard on Sundays, but the last couple of months felt like it went over the top.

So there have you have it. A not-so-average week in the life of your pastor.

Time to watch the World Series. By the way, before the series started, I fearlessly predicted Boston would sweep Colorado. The prediction is looking pretty good at the moment.

Man, this morning was amazing! Seriously, it was incredible. I love it when we juggle things up and do something very different, and that’s definitely what happened at ACC this morning.

Not only was the service completely changed around, but the message ended with me standing in a water tank and getting completely drenched. It was all based around the river of God in Ezekiel 47. And the simple message was that we can’t tiptoe around in the river of God. It’s not a wading pool. It’s a river and we need to dive in!

I loved what one sweet older lady said at the door. She said, “I only have one word to describe today: WOW!”

My sentiments exactly. God definitely brought the “wow” today!

I’m heading into a couple of days off on Friday and Saturday. Well, I’ll be “off” in the sense that I won’t be working. My brother-in-law, Lucas, is marrying a beautiful girl named Adrienne this weekend, so Friday and Saturday will still be plenty busy. Lucas is definitely marrying up, but I won’t tell him if you won’t.

I’ll be checking out of the blogosphere until Sunday. Then I’ll wrap the “what do you do all week?” series of posts.

Time to go dust off my suit (I actually own two of them) and get ready for a busy weekend.

A fourth post chronicling the comings and goings of my week as a pastor at ACC.

I went straight to Starbucks this morning to work on my message for Sunday. I went for a few reasons, only one of which is that I like their coffee. Oh, and I also got a generous gift card from our church for Pastor Appreciation Month.

I love the environment created in this coffee shop. It’s really conducive for my sermon prep. I also have no internet access there. They offer it, but you have to pay a pretty steep fee for it and I’m just not willing to pony up that kind of coin. So I have no internet or email access while I’m there, and that can be a good thing because it’s one less distraction for me.

I worked on my sermon for the entire morning at Starbucks, from 8:30 am-12:00 pm. After grabbing a quick bite of lunch, I went to the office at church. I spent the next hour and a half working with Brian Morrissey setting up the stage and seating in the auditorium. Everything had been moved for the funeral dinner earlier in the week, so everything had to be set up from scratch.

After the set up was completed, Brian and I talked over the service for Sunday one more time. It’s completely rearranged from the way we would normally do it, and it’s gonna be awesome!

After that, I had a little bit of correspondence with our elders. Then I went back to sermon prep. I had to complete my script, my PowerPoint, and my outline for the bulletin.

It’s now 5:00 pm, and I think I’ve got everything ready to roll for Sunday. It truly was a non-stop day.

This is the third installment as I attempt to answer the burning question, “Just what do ministers do all week?”

The first part of my day was spent at a funeral for Millie Beighle. Some of Millie’s family are part of our ACC family. I attend a lot of funerals as a pastor, but it never gets easier. So sad that Millie’s life ended so suddenly.

But now I’m watching our church family really step up. It’s so cool to see our people here at the church building serving a great dinner to a very large contingent of Millie’s family and friends. Basically, this is just the church being the church…and I love it.

My day has pretty much been involved with the funeral and the dinner. I’m trying to do some things in my office here and there, but I also want to be able to visit with the many people that are here.

Wednesday is normally my big study day as I prepare my sermon. Not today. Tomorrow I’ll be out of the office for the majority of the day as I try to get some solid, uninterrupted study time.

Ok, despite what my previous post said, my day didn’t end at 6:00 pm. It ended at 10:00 pm.

I had a friend from church stop by my house and give my an awesome gift to thank me for my ministry. That was definitely a “wow” moment! It really blew my mind. So cool to feel loved by people in our church!

And then I had a somewhat unplanned meeting that went until 10:00 pm.

Now I think my day is officially finished.

This is the second post outlining how I spend my week as a pastor at ACC.

In my previous post, I noted that there is no such thing as an “average week” in ministry. Today was a shining example of that truth. Actually, it was a rather soggy example.

Thanks to the constant barrage of rain since yesterday, our church basement flooded this morning. At 9:00 am, the basement was bone dry. At 9:45 am, the water was three inches deep and rising. Brian Morrissey and I spent our entire morning pushing a squeegee across the basement floor, trying to save the basement furniture from the rising waters, etc. One of the sump pumps wasn’t working properly, which gave us the deluge in our basement. Thankfully, I think the damage was minimal.

Every once in a while, I have a “they never taught me that in Bible College” moment. Today was one of those days. I never knew that part of ministry would include wading through a flooded basement, but it did today. Thankfully, one of our members, Don Allen, came to the church building to fix the sump pump. I’m pretty sure neither Brian nor I would have been able to figure that one out!

That took us to lunch. With the basement in Don’s capable hands, Brian and I went to a lunch meeting with one of our elders. I love how closely our leadership stays in contact with one another at ACC. It’s awesome.

After that, I tried to salvage the rest of my day. The basement flood altered my plans because I had planned on really getting some serious sermonizing done this morning. That obviously didn’t happen. I did get some studying and sermon prep done this afternoon. It’s a long way from finished, but I’m glad I got some of the prep work done today.

Most people don’t realize that it takes 20-25 hours to prep a sermon each week. Some weeks it’s just not possible to give that much time to it, and you just pray for God to make up the difference. This might be one of those weeks. We’ll see.

At 6:00 this evening, I’ll be back at church helping set up tables for a funeral dinner that will be held at ACC tomorrow.

That’ll put a wrap on another full day of ministry.

“Just what do you do all week? Do you just sit around the church building reading your Bible and singing Kumbaya?”

I’ve been asked these kind of questions a lot over the last 11 years of vocational ministry. So I thought I’d take a stab at answering the questions about how I spend my time all week. (Those of you who don’t attend ACC will probably be bored to tears by these posts. Some of you who do attend ACC might be bored, too!)

Each day this week, I’ll blog about what I’ve done that day. It should give you a glimpse of what goes into an average week of ministry. (Keep in mind, there really is no such thing as an “average week” in this job. Every week looks different from the previous week.) It’ll also give you a little behind-the-scenes view of ACC.

As I get started, you need to know that this isn’t because our leadership has been grilling me over my schedule. In fact, it’s just the opposite. This is completely voluntary.

Ok, here we go with Monday’s schedule:

I read my Bible and spent some time in prayer to open my day. I like doing this before anything else because I’m easily distracted. I need to give God the best part of me, and that happens before I get immersed in other things.

Then I was off to a 9:00 am staff meeting. Brian and I meet every Monday morning for a couple of hours. This face-to-face time allows for very honest dialogue about issues in our church. Some of the things we cover each Monday:

1. The worship services yesterday. What worked? What didn’t? How could we have improved? What victories can we celebrate from yesterday? Everything we do in our worship services is intentional, and therefore we intentionally review all aspects of our worship experiences.

2. We also plan for the coming weekend. Yep, it’s Monday and we’re already talking about the weekend. What will services next weekend look like? What theme are we developing? This is all stuff that we consider in our weekly meetings.

3. What else is happening in our church? What needs addressed? Who do we need to pray for?

4. What is going on in our personal lives that we need to discuss? Doing ministry together doesn’t mean we only talk about church stuff. If we don’t have a relationship beyond the church walls, we don’t have much of anything. I don’t just care about Brian as a minister in our church. I care about his family and whatever they may be facing. And he cares about my family. I’ve seen some church staffs that were strictly business. That’s not the way we do things around here.

Our meeting ended at 11:00 am, and then it was time to answer emails, return phone calls, etc.

Then for lunch, Brian and I had another meeting. This time at Golden Corral. This is out of the ordinary, but we went to a lunch meeting with a specific agenda: planning our Christmas worship experiences. We’ve got some great stuff coming in December as we launch our Tangled in the Tinsel series.

Back to the office after 2 hours at Golden Corral. More emails. More phone calls. Also, every time somebody visits ACC for the first time, I write them a letter on Monday. Got several to write this week, which is awesome! All of this correspondence will take up the rest of my day.

After a 12 1/2 hour day yesterday, I’m going to try to cut out a little early today to spend some time with my family. Feels like I haven’t seen them in a long time and that’s gotta change.