Administrative Interview (Tyler)

I interviewed Aaron Cloud on Monday February 2nd, 2009.

1.Pay Bills/Financial Records (2 hours): Aaron spends a good amount of his time on dealing with financial records and bills. Everyday he feels as if there was a new bill that came into the mail that day. He usually opens it and makes sure that there isn't any irregularities in the bill and then gives the paper to the treasurer. He doesn't do too much with the bills directly, but he is aware of the financial situation of his church.
2.Attendance (1 Hour): Aaron likes to keep a good record of the attendance in his church. He likes to watch as the attendance both rises and falls from week to week. Because he is an analyzer, he usually tries to figure out why one week was larger than the next. If he is able to discern why the population grew one week, he will then try to emulate that the next week. This is the type of clerical analysis he does.
3.Pastoral Preparation (15 Hours): While this isn't much of an administrative task, it does involve a lot of book and word study. He spends a good amount of time on the computer and in his library studying.
4.Phone Calls (2 Hours): Sometimes there are members in his church that will want to call and ask about the upcoming service or may have a question concerning a recent fundraiser. These phone calls are random but frequent and take up about 2 hours a week.

Observations: I was actually surprised at how little amount of administrative work that Aaron has to do. He is the pastor at a relatively small church and as a result, there is not much to do in the sense of administration. Perhaps the most trying tasks of his job is actually finding some administrative things to do. If he paces himself, he is able to create a busy week that leaves him feeling fulfilled. But, if he rushes and does to much on the front end, he is left void. There is a balance between the pastoral role and the administrative role, and Aaron handles that balance extraordinarily well.