My friend Rev. Becca Clark and I got to participate in a “shadow pastors” project by the United Methodist Reporter. They wanted to know what an average week was like for four very different pastors in very different contexts. So for a week we logged our every pastoral action (minus congregants’ personal info, of course) and UMR staffer Mallory McCall compiled it. It is really interesting to read the final project and look at the breadth of actions that pastors do.

Sound familiar? This project reminded me of our own #Pastors24 project (and Becca’s #OurExamen project) where the great diversity of pastoral concerns and activities was exhibited. I think any article that raises awareness about what we do all day is a commendable one, and any project that makes pastors more human and approachable absolutely makes my calling easier.

Here’s the article: Shadowing Pastors: A Week in the Life of a UM Pastor

There were obviously space restrictions (as with any print media) and I regret that in the UMR article, my Wednesday activities do not indicate the reality that that’s my heaviest ministry day. On that particular day, I had a lunch meeting, a funeral, an after-school program, and a youth bible study. Whew! I promise I did not sit on facebook all day! Ha!

For people that are interested, I’ve uploaded my log for that week to Google and you can download it or view it here for your own enjoyment and/or stalking pleasure.

- Stardate: PastorsLog

Thanks to the UMReporter for the opportunity, glad to get to know Revs Brown & Lyon (and Clark, of course!) a little better…and I hope readers of the blog enjoy the article.

Last month 72 pastors and ministry workers participated in the Pastor’s 24 project. You can read more about it here. Basically it was a call for pastors to tweet about their ministry-related events during the day so people get an idea about what ministry really entails.

One of the joys that has come from that experiment is a desire to continue the experience with a different emphasis. Rev. Becca Clark has adapted the project into a call for people to tweet their joys in ministry as an acknowledgement of blessings. She calls it #OurExamen. I’ll let her explain:

It felt like an examen to me. The way I think of an examen may not be by-the-book Ignatian, but it is taking some time to reflect on the events of the day and determine when I felt closest to God or most connected to my calling (and sometimes, when I felt farthest away, because that’s important to know, too). What things lifted me up? For what do I give thanks? What do I give back to God? This exercise of tweeting my ministry helped me be aware of the silly things that were annoying or when I felt far from God/my calling, and the many things that were uplifting and sacred and drew me closer to God and who God is calling me to be as a pastor and a person… In our shared frustrations, I found some humor and consolation, and in our shared celebrations, I saw nothing short of the laborers in God’s vineyard.

The instructions are simple.

Spend time reflecting on (some people call this praying about!) the events of the past day or days. Ask yourself the following questions, or variations thereof:
- What lifted me up? Brought me closer to God? Affirmed my sense of calling?
- What dragged me down? When did I feel farthest from God and my sense of calling?
- What challenges did I face? What unresolved issues or tasks to I offer back to God?
- What do I want to celebrate? Bemoan? Share?

…

Post whatever reflections you wish to your Twitter account, and include the hashtag (that’s the little #-plus-topic code that lets Twitter put all updates with the same category together in a common search) #ourexamen. That’s examen for the process, and our because we’re sharing it (and because #examen was already taken by every spanish-speaking person talking about exams).

If you want to participate, read her blog post here and post your updates using the #OurExamen hashtag on twitter. Enjoy!

Wow. That was fun.

This project began as a simple question: what *do* pastors do on a random day of ministry? What if we could all tweet about our days and find out? What incredible diversity and little moments of ministry could we unearth?

Hence this project. While it has been criticized as self-congratulatory, self-justificating, or simply a waste of time better spent in prayer, the purpose was not to promote ourselves but to educate the public about what pastors do all day. For the Methodists it was a throwback to Wesleyan Holy Clubs who would chronicle their day in 15 minute increments. And it was fun.

Thanks to twitter/facebook grassroots promotions, the UMNS News Service, and even UMC.org, this project got onto people’s radars and into their routines yesterday. And #pastors24 became a way for pastors to connect and people on the outside to get a glimpse into a typical pastor’s day.

So, we’re done with that day. And since I’ve got enough academia still running through my blood, analyzing the data was pretty fun. Here’s a taste:

Background:

• Articles at Hacking Christianity: Original, 2 Day Preview, Pastors24
• Writeup of the Pastor’s 24 project at UMNS Reporter Blog
• Blurb about Pastor’s 24 project at UMNS Daily Digest

Data:

• Using Twitter’s search function, we’ve included all the tweets from 12:01am EST to 11:59pm PST that used the hashtag #pastors24 and some misspellings (#pastor24, #pastor’s24)
• From those parameters, there were 1050 tweets that were included in the data below.

Participants:

• There were ~72 pastors and ministry people who participated. While there were 107 people who tweeted the hashtag, some were RT-ing or asking questions and didn’t participate. So this is every person with at least 3 tweets.

• We plugged the names of every tweet into Wordle and the above picture came out. Click to enlarge. The larger the name, the more tweets! Though it wasn’t a contest, @pastorbecca had the most tweets by far, followed closely by @WmHWatson @agarvin, @PastorEmJ, and @herevrush. (@umjeremy is not counted since many of my tweets were maintaining the project)

Topics:

• There were 1050 updates sent by pastors participating in this project. This is a rough number. It does include some misspelled tweets (ie. #pastor24), but not every tweet appears in twitter’s search function.
• At one point, we were a trending topic in Atlanta, meaning out of all the tweets coming from Atlanta, we were in the top 10. Wild.

• We plugged in the full text of the tweets into Wordle, excluding the #pastors24 hashtag, and posted the picture above. Click it to enlarge. There’s a few things that jump out to me:

Meetings are one of the top words pastors used. Whether it is meeting with a student, parent, committee, teacher, youth…we are meeting a lot.

There’s a lot of “youth” mentions which is powerful. It may be a bit swayed since at least 2 of the participants are in children’s and youth ministry, but still neat.

A lot of pastors do work on meetings, worship, bible studies the day-of. A large number of pastors were actively working on their evening programs the day it was to happen. This isn’t a criticism just something I noticed.

Many pastors worked 12-13 hour days, even if the first/last hours were doing computer work.

• Really the best way to get a glimpse of pastors’ days is to go to the #pastors24 stream and scroll. Click on a name and scroll through their tweets from yesterday. Amazing, huh?

Reflections:

I’m incredibly interested in feedback from the Pastors who participated. Here’s a few tweets that I starred:

Early reflection of #pastors24: inspired by prayer in stream; happy w/ breadth of what we call ministry; finding myself more intentional | @pastorbecca

Good night my fellow pastors. It’s been a blessing to journey with you today. #pastors24 | @lanecottonwinn

sorry for the spam all day. Amazing to see it all–esp when the day felt kinda calm. Praying for everyone who participated. #pastors24 | @PastorEmJ

And I suspect that these tweets may sound raw but they are reflective of ourselves:

108 miles traveled. 13 hrs away from home. 3 pastoral visits. numerous conversations. 1 committee meeting. that’s my wednesday #pastors24 | @mjmm

final question from me: does anyone besides me sometimes find this work grindingly oppressive and once-in-awhile no fun at all?#pastors24 | @barryweber

sometimes i wonder why i do this, but overall i feel blessed by the congregation i serve, my family, and friends in ministry. #pastors24 | @mjmm

Your Turn:

I would love to hear how others experienced this. Can you comment below and let us know your experience?

1. Were you more intentional yesterday? In what way?
2. Did you feel more connected to other pastors yesterday? Why? Any other pastors in particular?
3. What trends or common updates did you see yesterday?

Discuss.

Thanks to the participants for taking the time to educate the world about our day.

Blessings for your journeys!

[Shameless plug: I'm a United Methodist pastor and this is an active blog about faith, technology, and group theory...so feel free to subscribe, follow on Facebook, or follow on Twitter and join the conversations!]

Today is Pastor’s 24!

Woohoo! Join in the project!

What is it?

• This is an educational effort by various pastors and ministry professionals to give people a glimpse into what we do on a random non-Sunday day. See original article here.
• Pastors will update their twitter feeds with the hashtag #pastors24 whenever they do anything ministry-related all day today.

How can I follow along?

• Follow the search topic #pastors24 on Twitter.
• Click here for the twitter search page or follow the topic on Twitterfall.

Who are the Participants?

1. Jerrod Burris
2. Bridget Cabrera
3. Becca Clark
4. Jim Doepken
5. Don Frazure
6. Amanda Garvin
7. Ashley Green-Young
8. Jack Hinnen
9. Em J
10. Kent F. Jackson
11. Ed Johnson Jr.
12. Shannon Karafanda
13. Tiffany Kromer
14. Lesley Langford
15. Marla Marcum
16. Keith McIlwain
17. Melissa Meyers
18. Kristen Parks
19. Jim Parsons
20. Tara Paul
21. Rob Passow
22. Dalton Rushing
23. Marthame Sanders
24. Jenny Smith
25. Jeremy Smith
26. Katie Stickney
27. Andy Stoddard
28. Aaron Tiger
29. Sonja Tobey
30. David Barry Weber
31. Lane Cotton Winn
32. UMConnection
33. Gina (your twitter account is protected, we can’t read it Gina!)
34. Anyone who tweets with the hashtag #pastors24!!

Background:

• Articles at Hacking Christianity: Original, 2 Day Preview
• Writeup of the Pastor’s 24 project at UMNS Reporter Blog
• Blurb about Pastor’s 24 project at UMNS Daily Digest

We’ll have a recap post tomorrow with interesting updates or surprising trends.

Thanks to all our participants and readers! We hope it is illuminating!

Hello folks,

Got a pretty decent response to the Pastor’s 24 project! We are twittering everything that happens in a random non-Sunday workday of a pastor.

We were inspired by a police station that did the same thing in a 24 hour period to expose what breadth of issues they deal with. We strongly suspect that pastors deal with a similar amount of diversity. Hopefully this project is educational to outsiders and insiders alike!

So in 2 days, we’ll have the #pastors24 event. Twitter your every pastoral action on Wednesday, October 27th for 24 hours! See original article here.

Here’s the list of participants so far (names are linked to twitter accounts).

1. Don Frazure
2. Amanda Garvin
3. Marla Marcum
4. Keith McIlwain
5. Melissa Meyers
6. Kristen Parks
7. Rob Passow
8. Jenny Smith
9. Jeremy Smith
10. Katie Stickney
11. UMConnection
12. Emily (no mentioned twitter account, Emily! Let us know!)

Looks like a good group! Add your name and twitter account below and we’ll add you to tomorrow’s reminder and Wednesday’s twitterstream.

Remember:

1. Wednesday, October 27th will be the pastors24 day.  Post every entry under the twitter hashtag #pastors24
2. Sign up below and include your twitter name, then I’ll include you in updates as a participant and link to your twitter/blog (free publicity if you participate!)

Spread the word! Thanks to everyone who spread this around!

UPDATE: This project took place on October 27th, 2010.

Read the Report here!

Original Article:

A police station in the UK recently tweeted every single call and dispatch in a 24 hour period. The Greater Manchester Police Force between 5am on Thursday October 14 and 5am Friday October 15  dealt with 3,205 incidents and posted details of every single one on Twitter (Here’s the tweets archive). Their purpose was educational:

“The reality of police work is that although crime is a big part of what we do, we do much else besides,” Chief Constable Peter Fahy of Manchester said in a message posted to YouTube. “We’re very much the agency of last resort, and a big part of our workload is related to wider social problems of alcohol, drugs, mental health and people having problems with their relationships.”

In other words, the public perception of everything a police force does is very much out of line with what they actually do, which is much broader in scope.

It started me thinking about the common conceptions about being a pastor.

You know the jokes: pastors only work on Sundays and only care for spiritual concerns.

But I wonder what great diversity there might be in a pastor’s daily life? Could outlining what a typical pastor’s day looks like be interesting to people?

Of course, John Wesley and his Holy Club did just this every day of outlining how they spent their time while at Oxford and continued the practice to a less-ridiculous degree with Wesley’s journals. So perhaps along with public education there is a spiritual component of examining how you do your time.

So here’s the challenge: are there people interested in participating in a Pastor’s 24 hour twitter project?

Here’s what it would look like:

• Pastors or people in ministry work would have twitter accounts that they would update with every single ministry-related thing they do in a 24 hour period, from the big to the mundane.
• Obviously, details would be kept to a minimum. If a meeting is over a sensitive topic, the tweet might just be “met with parishioner” or “finance meeting”
• Try to post as close as possible to the time it completed, either by the twitter web interface or a cell phone (you can setup tweeting by text message here).
• Do this for 24 hours so the world has a better idea of the (1) complexity of pastoral issues and (2) the diversity of our ministry contexts!
• Use the hashtag (say what?) of #pastors24 at the end of the update so we can follow everyone’s work.

What do you think? Willing to participate?

If there’s interest, here’s the proposed action list:

1. Plan for next Wednesday, October 27th will be the pastors24 day.  Wednesdays are usually full ministry days for me, at least.  Post every entry under the twitter hashtag #pastors24
2. Sign up below and write your twitter name or link, then I’ll include you in updates later this week as a participant and link to your twitter/blog (free publicity if you participate!)

Thoughts?