At our church, I chair the Staff-Parish Relations Committee. The SPRC committee has various duties, but is mostly the interface between the church body (the parish) and the staff and pastors that handles questions like how the church thinks the pastors are doing, problems the staff has, hiring people, setting salaries, etc. We are kind of like the Human Resources committee of the church. We also work with the District Superintendent, the Cabinet, and the Bishop when a pastoral change is going to happen.
It just so happens that Bob Olmstead, our senior pastor for ten years, is retiring at the end of June. So, for the last year or so, we've been busy. Especially in the last few months. About a month ago, we met with and accepted the appointment of Doug Monroe, the person who will be our next senior pastor.
And, of course, on top of helping to plan the transition, plan for Bob's retirement parties, we still have various other personnel issues that keep coming up.
I counted the number of emails I had exchanged (received or sent) since the beginning of the year on SPRC issues. In that 100 days or so, the total: 860 messages. Some days, it's hardly any; other days, it's ridiculous. And that doesn't count the phone calls and meetings. At times, it feels like a second job.
All this for a volunteer position. Whew...
I'm not sorry that I'm doing it -- it's something that I felt called to do, and I think this is where I should be right now. But at the same time, I really wish I could figure out how to make it just a little less demanding.