Do you think about the house you are calling before you pick up the phone? Do you look at the clock and check what time it is before dialing the number? Are you aware of the viewing habits of the person you might be calling?
There is an unwritten rule in my family, that we have been encouraged to value, that unless you have said you will call out with 9am and 9.30pm , those calls should be for emergency reasons only. It’s a rule I tend to stick to as a minister as I am not sure what times other people get up or go to bed. I also try not to call at the weekend, although I suspect that is a practice from my days in a Bank as the weekend is family time, or time to enjoy some leisure activity.
In my last congregation there was one lady that I always knew I could phone before 9am, as she was always up at 7am and well in to her day. These pre-business hours calls were often a quick check of information needed before visiting, or a chance to catch her before she disappeared for the day so that where help was needed she would be aware.
I’ve often had session clerks who are as night-owlish as me, so late night pangs of anxiety on either side were better dealt with in a quick call.
This last few weeks I’ve been fascinated by when people think it is appropriate to call the manse. Sometimes people forget that even a manse has children or people who particularly enjoy something they are watching.
Now I would be the first to say use the answer phone, yet often the automatic response to answer takes over, and perhaps at times that has to be the right thing to do. It was good to be able to answer the phone before 6am from the person who needed to know that someone could hear their grief and while not able to physically respond immediately could listen to their tears.
It doesn’t convince me though that pre 9am calls should be a regular feature of life. And where you know your minister watches rugby, maybe don’t call while the opening game of the season is being played, and if you do maybe at least flick on the television to check the state of play. Otherwise you will hear the screaming and shouting that is happening as the child who answered the phone hands it to their parent.
Beachblesser's Blog 
Is watching rugby and having a family life allowed??? 😉
My first encounter with this was a couple of years ago. A call at 10:15pm the night before to find out how the pulpit money should be paid. We only answered because, like you, at that time of night we assume it will be an urgent call. Suppose it was urgent for someone!
The caller may expect a frosty response if they phone after 9pm.
Polite, but frosty.
Timing is an odd thing; like you, my family had an unwritten rule re. appropriate/inappropriate times to make phone calls. We lived well out of town and were early to bed/early to rise folk. No calls were made after 9pm and none were expected to be received after such a time. Mornings were such a flurry of activity in getting out to school/ work and we were all out of the house by 8.15 latest so there was no point even bothering to call us.
When I moved to Scotland, I was quite shocked by how late people were prepared to make phone calls… and depending upon the friend and their night-owlish tendencies, I have occasionally managed to overcome the initial twitch as I make a call to someone c.9.30/10pm. It still feels…wrong!
I’ll be interested to see how this matter of timing works out in a parish context: as a single person, obviously I have no life, nor need of sleep, nor need to wind down… so expectations re. availability are somewhat different to that of someone with a family [not better, not worse, just different areas of tension]. In one placement I have already had the ‘oh, but we saw your light was still on, so we thought as you were up it would be fine…’ Hmmmmm!!!!