Monday, Monday - Ya Gotta Love This Day!

Monday, Monday. Oh boy. How are we doing Pastors?

Back in the ‘60s, the Mamas and the Papas cut a 45 record with the title: Monday, Monday. Ironically, here are some of the lyrics:

Every other day, every other day
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah.
But whenever Monday comes - but whenever Monday comes
You can find me crying all of the time.

You really should listen to it here while you read the rest of this post!

Some pastors find themselves depleted and drained on a Monday. I think they are the pastors who are more introverted by nature. If you’re introverted, or lean that way, the weekend just drains you. You have to be around people all day on Sunday, likely on Sunday evening – and by Monday, Monday, you’re just out of gas. You need to be alone and recharge.

Other pastors find themselves energized on Mondays. They’re the more extroverted type. They feed off the power of people and relationships and crowds – even small crowds. They have six days until the next Sunday, lots of time to prepare, and they are riding a high from all of the social interaction of Sunday.

This category, the extroverts, would be me and Jonny. In fact, we like being around people all the time. We don’t like being alone. Solitude is draining to us. On Saturdays we are tired. We can’t wait until Sunday morning and evening, when we are going to be with the masses, again, even the small masses.

No matter which you are, sometimes Monday finds us “crying all of the time.” We replay defeats in our mind from the day before – the critical church leader, the disruptive student, the ungrateful, complaining parent, the person who didn’t show up for the third Sunday in a row, the piece of technology that did not work as planned, you name it, you fill in the blank.

These days, these Mondays, these are the times when we remind ourselves of two things:

1.     Who we are serving.
2.     Why we signed up for ministry.
3.     That we wanted a life of significance.
4.     And that even Moses and Jesus experienced follower problems!

Okay, so I can’t count. I got inspired. Will you allow me to focus you a bit?

1.     You and I are serving Jesus, the KING of all the universe, who called us to make disciples of all ethnicities, and share his GOSPEL OF GRACE with real lost, and real found people every day. Both the believers and the unbelievers need that grace, because Jesus bought it for us, and gave it to us to pass out with reckless abandon!

2.     We signed up for this gig because we felt God tugging, yeah, yanking on our heart – to step forward and say, “here I am Lord, send me!” We enlisted because God asked us to, and well, since he asked, we couldn’t refuse.

3.     We wanted our lives to be significant! We didn’t want to do ANYTHING ELSE! We could have. We could have gotten a degree in so many different vocational areas, but we chose ministry because we care about people, just like Jesus did, and we wanted to give 100%, our full time effort, to nurturing peoples’ faith.

4.     Yes, even Moses and Jesus did not have a 100% retention rate. Why, Moses saw whole crowds of people swallowed up into fiery holes in the earth! Kind of wish you could… I mean, never mind. Anyway, Jesus saw crowds walk away from him and his message, and He was God! Don’t feel bad if people reject you, react to you, or simply walk away from you. You’re in good company.

Oh, Monday, Monday – ya gotta love this day! C’mon, listen to it one more time, especially if you’re over 50, just for old time’s sake – then get up and get to work. You work for the KING, and you’ve got significant stuff to do. Your ministry matters so much in God’s Kingdom as he builds his church and uses you.