Understanding Your Pastors Time

Over the past couple weeks I've been part of several conversations about the expectations of pastors. Everyone I have spoken with has different expectations and sadly, most of them have unrealistic expectations.

I don't call them unrealistic because of theological considerations. Though, if we were going to go that route it wouldn't be hard. I call them unrealistic because of time considerations. Basically, when you add up all the duties they are expected to do and the hours it takes it's just not a list of realistic expectations. So, let's look at some of these expectations, the time they take, and what that means.

Let's start by looking at Sunday morning worship. For most of us you are talking about an hour of worship and maybe a Sunday morning bible study. This might be an hour to about two and a half hours of our time. But, for pastors it takes a lot more time than that.

To prepare for Sunday morning service our pastors have to prepare those great sermons. That takes, when averaged out, about 8 hours to prep. We, also, have that bible study they do. That's another 8 hours of prep. Then, throw in your typical church with multiple service times and a bible study and you have another 6 hours on Sunday. That's about 22 hours a week for them for what we usually see as a few hours.

After this expectations vary. Pastors have a certain amount of other responsibility depending on the church and their role their. There is hospital visitation, counseling, pre-marriage class, confirmation for the children, managing the alms fun for the needy, oversight of the ministries, and so much more. At the same time we expect them to be the model spouse and parent. Those take a lot of time.

When you get to a larger church this gets compounded because there are more people to counsel, more people to visit in the hospital, and just more to do.

But, how much time do these things take? Take a church with weekend attendance about 1000. That pastor has at least 10 hours a week in meetings overseeing ministries around the church. At this point we only have Sunday services and oversight and yet 32 hours a week of time are accounted for.

Now, what else do we expect and when do we expect the day to end. Are they supposed to go at it 50, 60, or 70 hours a week?

Hospital visitation is one of the hot expectations. If a church of 1000 has 3 people in the hospital (this is a low estimate) that would be a good 3 hours per person of time when you figure for commute and everything else involved. The total is at 41 hours a week.

Confirmation, or teaching of children, is another common part to church. If you figure for a one hour class, with pre made materials to go over, that's another 5 hours. We are up to 46.

Do you see how it can climb quickly?

At this point we haven't talked about future planning, giving to the needy, ministering to people, counseling, or a host of other things and yet we already have the pastor working 46 hours a week.

The idea I am trying to convey is that expecting the pastor to be part of or do everything that's the duty of the church is not realistic time wise. God just did not put enough hours in the day.

This leaves me with a few questions: What are my expectations of my pastor based on? What is realistic for him to do? What is the biblical model for this? God wouldn't make a situation that's unworkable. So, what is the solution?