How Much Are You Working?

Tuesday, 05 January 2010 05:22 PM EST Ministry News

Almost two-thirds of all senior pastors work 50 or more hours each week, while 8 percent pull 70-plus-hour workweeks. That's according to the latest survey of 1,000 pastors conducted by LifeWay Research, which also found that among full-time senior pastors, 42 percent work at least 60 hours a week.

What do these dedicated ministers spend most of their time doing? Half of them spend five to 14 hours in sermon preparation, while 9 percent spend a whopping 25-plus hours honing their weekend preaching. More than 70 percent are caught up in meetings for at least five hours each week, and a quarter of all senior pastors spend six or more hours each week in counseling. Almost half spend between two and five hours in visitation.

"In the early church, the apostles recognized the need to focus their time on prayer and studying the Scripture, as evidenced in Acts 6:4, for instance," said Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research. "They shared other ministry tasks—even pressing issues—with qualified believers. Pastors’ top two uses of their ministry time today show this same priority in sermon preparation and prayer."

Most of the pastors surveyed kept their families as top priority in both words and actions, with 30 percent spending 20 to 29 hours a week with their spouses and children. However, McConnell also offered a warning for pastors taking on additional ministry responsibilities at the cost of infringing upon family or personal time.

"While the priorities are right, [pastors] may need better protection." McConnell said. "The total hours pastors work in addition to these biblical priorities shows that more of the other ministry tasks need to be shared. Jesus Christ designed the work of the church to be done by believers together in unity." [lifeway.com, 12/28/09]

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Comments

0 #5 Fern 2010-02-08 16:34 Older pastors spend a great deal of time studying, praying, serving the congregation. Their families seem to fit somewhere in the mix of their service to God and most families work along side their pastor/husband/father. Younger pastors seem to focus on technology and want to run their church with a computer/blackberry/fax ect. Leaving the older members out that are not up with all this tech stuff. Sermons are power point/ shown on a screen while the pastor reads to them. This lacks interaction with really looking out at the congregation. Quote

+1 #4 Chris Stansell 2010-01-07 09:51 Well, I was raised in the parsonage all my life. I went to college, got married and have lived in the parsonage since about age 27 and am still in the parsonage, now as a pastor and not a pastor's son. I have 41 years of experience with being there and I will say while I have seen in our circles a SMALL percentage or golfers, hunters and travelers among clergy the majority are to me in fact overwhelmed. I'm surprised that the article says so many give so much time to their families, I try but would fall short of 29 hours in true interaction time. Quote

0 #3 Shirley 2010-01-06 11:09 Short comment would be the calling doesn't seem to have
any clear lines for anyone to follow. If you count all the night
calls to talk to parishioners and doing other meetings plus
all the preparation time for those plus Sun. morning prep.
I think I should check my schedule again! Quote

+1 #2 Yvette 2010-01-05 15:56 The survey results are pretty accurate in my part of the world. I am a pastor and many of my friends who pastor independently as well as in denominational organizations spend approximately this amount of time in ministry weekly. There are some who still schedule golfing and fishing into their week, but they are not the majority. The rest of us just need to go back to Acts, or even further, back to Exodus 18 and take Jethro's advice given to Moses. Quote

0 #1 Htowner 2010-01-05 15:42 Not to disagree BUT, the ministers I know, the ones that do not have an outside job-if they work 40 hours, it's a minor miracle! I've never seen as much golfing, fishing, hunting and traveling going on in my life. This is mainly with the more independent churches-perhaps that has something to do with it… Quote

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