Every pastor should have a woodpile

This is the 2013 version of my personal woodpile, sans the wood. It was full last September, now almost empty.

I highly recommend that my pastor and other church staff colleagues find a way to get their very own woodpile as a therapeutic and economically helpful ministry component.

A woodpile without wood is a decidedly forlorn spot and begs to be made complete.

I have only about two wheelbarrow loads of wood left from the last burning season which began sometime in October of 2012 and ended one cool day this past April.

My woodpile will hold about three cords of wood and I will have it filled up by sometime this fall mostly with dead white and red oak trees from my five acre lot. I have two large trees already on the ground and one standing.

My faithful Stihl and I drop and cut up every tree (the biggest I have dropped is this one) and every stick that is put in my wood pile gets there because I personally bust it up with a 12 pound maul and sometimes wedges. I have yet to find any part of a tree that I cannot break up into pieces small enough for my wood heater, an older model with a pretty large box. I like to mix some green and some dry wood because it burns much longer.

I have, alas, been unable to get my wonderful wife to chop any wood even though I have a pink maul, there seeming to be some immutable law pertaining to division of labor in my household. I check the mail for an award from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood but have yet to find one.

Filling up the old woodpile takes energy and effort, sweat but no swearing. It is highly therapeutic, and was especially so back when I actively pastored a church.

See that big stick of wood two feet in diameter. Watch the pastor, alone, with mightly blows break it up into smaller pieces to be consumed by fire. Notice that he is a formidable man, not to be trifled with, at least when he is by himself at the woodpile.

Watch heavy stress, prickly church problems, and grave concerns flee after a woodpile session.

One of the things about pastoring a church is that you can work hard all day, all week, all year and then look back and find very little in the way of visible results. Did I really accomplish anything? What do I have to show for my work besides a paycheck and occasional compliment?

Finish the woodpile and gaze upon a few months completed work. That has value, brethren. You know that you did it, every part of it and you can feel good about it.

Look for another pic of the old woodpile later this year.