???Pastor??? What Do Pastors Do With Their Time?

I was recently asked.  “What do pastors do with their time?”  This I can only answer for myself.     I believe everyone in the church should be using their gifts and abilities to fulfill the “one another” commands and their responsibility to the body of Christ.  Since many others work a full time job and then serve the church 5 to 10 hours after their work and outside of services, I try to do the same.  I put an average of 45-50 hours per week in outside of our regular service times.  The reason for this amount of time is that most people would consider 40 hours a full week of work.

I will share an “average” week; although, a normal or “average” week seems to happen very seldom.  According to Acts 6:4 the primary ministry of the pastor/elder is to be the “ministry of the Word and prayer”.   I spend about 4 hours of my “church time” praying and the following is a breakdown of my Word ministry.  As mentioned previously, I spend 8-10 hours each week preparing my Sunday AM sermon.  I don’t preach on Sunday evenings, but teach and often on a shorter topic or theme in further application of the Sunday morning sermon so I average 4-6 of prep for that time.   Our “First Word” ministry, which is a video blog, takes about 5 hours a week.  This is possible because we have other men who teach Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible Study.  I teach a weekly men’s Bible Study into which I put 3 hours  of preparation and attendance.  Planning for future teaching/preaching ministries averages 1-2 hours a week.  One area under the ministry of the word which varies greatly is counseling in person, by phone, and electronic media.  These primary areas of ministry take over 30 hours a week on a regular basis.

The rest of my week is taken up performing various other duties.  Meetings such as those with deacons and preparation for those meetings as well as  time with my assistant or other pastors takes around 2.5 hours each week.  Administrative,  maintenance, and secretarial type tasks such as computer maintenance, sermon uploads, mail, bulletin prep, e-mail , phone calls, cleaning, setting up, van care, and calendar/long-range planning all add up to about 12 hours a week on the average.  (A pastor who is expected to preach 3 or more sermons each week will need an office assistant or others to help in many of these areas to free him for more time in the Word.)  I am thankful for many volunteers who have helped to greatly reduce the time I need to spend on these areas each week. Visits with new contacts, shut-ins, church members, or the sick can take up many hours in the week.  When there is any serious medical need our main hospitals are 1-1.5 hours away so one visit can easily take 3-4 hours out of a week.

I have not yet mentioned that I try to do reading to improve on preaching and shepherding skills as well as current topics that are relevant to the church.   Having at least a minimal knowledge of current events and activities culturally, politically, and socially helps in relating to people and applying the scripture to those in our society so reading and information gathering is necessary here as well. 

Outside of “church time” I spend personal time in Bible study and prayer as well, but because of limited time/space I will save that topic for a later date.

Let me encourage you to be praying for and encouraging/assisting your pastor as he strives to shepherd the flock God has placed him with.