Pastor, what does your schedule look like?

When I was in high school I went to a Christian vocation conference at Bethel College in McKenzie, TN. It was a conference to get young people to come to the college, talk about their desires to go into the ministry and ultimately go to Bethel College. I had a good time and I ended up going to Bethel too. I had a question that I asked one of the leaders, "What does a pastor do all day?" Ultimately nobody answered the question. Perhaps other people don't have this problem, but I think they might. We had a lot of bi-vocational pastors in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the denomination that I grew up. Since some of the men could work at a shoe store part time and still do a great job pastoring the church, the question was in everyone's mind, "What does that pastor down the street do who is only a pastor?" Though I read a lot on the ministry, have pastored a couple of churches as a student pastor, and am now going to seminary, I have had no one answer the question until now. What I saw from my pastor growing up is that he did two things, visited the sick and prepared his sermon. Pastor's at other church I have thought they spent some time counseling. I'm reading the book Planting Missional Churches: Planting a Church That's Biblically Sound and Reaching People in Culture by Ed Stetzer. He addresses this issue in a way that I think is helpful. He distinguishes between the bi-vocational pastor and those who do full time work in their ministry. He also says that a pastor should be thinking of working at least 50 hours per week since that is what his volunteer leaders do when they work a 40 hour week and then add ministry duties that equals 50-60 hours per week.






Schedule CategoryFull-TimeBi-vocational
Evangelistic Outreach153
Sermon and Study Preparation103
Administration102
Ministry(Visitation of Sick, Counseling)15 3



I found this helpful. Just thought I would share.

Comments

Milton Stanley said…
Looks about right to me, although in practice I would probably switch the two 15s with the two 10s.
8:58 PM
Pathfinder said…
Interesting! Although the clergy actually do a lot more than that. See "How come a pastor only has to
work one day a week?" at http://www.victorious.org/chur32.htm. I'm a pastor working part time. If I could get down to working 50 hours a week I think that would be good for my health.
11:52 AM
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