Featured pastoral expectations

I chuckle at the idea that all pastors should be bi-vocational. There are pastors that need to be bi-vocational out of necessity. Their church may be too small to support a full time salary and benefits. Tell me, (I am asking this generically) what is your reasonable expectation for a pastor who may be working 50 hours a week, is married, and raising children? Sermon prep takes a lot of time. Some pastors take 10-20 hours a week in preparing their Lord's Day message. This is in addition to the hours spent on their day job and with their families. The callous disregard of many church bodies towards their pastor is one of the leading causes of pastors either leaving a church or quitting the ministry.

If a church has the financial means it should free its pastor up to labor in the Word and prayer full time. It is to their benefit that he does so.

 

:applause: :wavey:

 

Agreed. Those churches that can support a pastor full-time need to do so, and not at starvation wages. If they can afford the building, they can find a way to pay the man a decent salary.

Many church members today seem to think they rightfully sit in judgment of their pastor. So, if anyone is among those, please tell me this: Who sits in judgment of you? Could you pass muster if watched 24/7?

ABC is right. Get off your high horse and take a serious look at your own life, instead of judging those who attempt to bring you into God's presence once or twice a week.

 

:applause::applause:

I wonder how each of us that are not Pastors would feel if we were expected to perform at our daily jobs like we expect our Pastors to perform?

 

Several years ago, our young pastor distributed a survey among the members. The survey asked how much time we expected him to spend in various activities.

Sermon preparation
Outreach visitation
Personal witnessing
Hospital visitation.
Teaching
Administrative duties
Denominational activities
Counseling
Revivals at other churches
Conventions and conferences
Personal devotion and study

When he tabulated the results, we were in for a shock. The surveys indicated that if he spent as much time in those activities as we thought he should, he would be working 80 hours a week, which included two sermons on Sunday, a Wednesday Bible study.

It was immediately obvious that these expectations were unrealistic. For instance, we didn't realize that he spent 15-20 hours a week just on sermon and Bible study preparation.

I remember what he said. "Folks, I have responsibilities as your pastor that nobody else can do. If I neglect them, you won't be happy. I also have responsibilities that go with just being a member of this church. There are some things that, if you don't do them, they won't get done. I can't and won't do those things that you as members should take responsibility for doing. There are going to be some times when I am simply not available. You'll have to handle those times."

I'm wondering if our expectations were typical of those of many churches.

 

Wow! What kind of churches do you all attend? Good grief, it sounds like to me those churches should save us all a lot of trouble and just close up.

 

Tom, your church's survey results are typical of most churches. It comes from the "country club" mentality of the members. But it isn't really their fault, they have not been taught better by their pastors. Your young pastor had it right!

 

Outside of administrative duties and preaching outside the church at revivals, what on that list is unreasonable expectation? If one person cannot handle it, they should follow the biblicap model of a plurality of elders. Where in the Bible is the qualification of an elder to include 20 hours of sermon prep time?

 

The point wasn't the expectations themselves, but the time the congregation expected hm to spend on each one, every week.

 

That appears to be quite the exagerated caricature you have portrayed. I've been reading and involved in most of these threads. Outside of one, maybe two people who think a pastor should not be payed, everything else on your list is fiction.

I do agree we need to support and pray for our leaders and examine our own involvement and role in serving within the church.

 

The "caricature" is actually a reality for many pastors and churches.

 

That could also be flawed. One person could have listed 5 of those and divided it by a 40 hpur work week while another listed 5 different and did the same thing, and so on. When all of the tasks were added up with the time expectations totaled, the numbers could be scewed. Hardly a fair or scientific survey to conduct.

 

I was going by what she said concerning the threads running here.

Considering most churches are run with a business model mindset, those would he normal expectations of 'employees', 'shareholders' and 'customers' of their CEO. We shouldn't fault the people..."the customer is always right".

 

Could be, but other surveys have been done reflecting the same unrealistic expectations of pastors.

 

Yes it is and until one has actually served as a pastor they have not a clue and do not know what they are talking about. I went on vacation and while I was gone my chairman of Deacons (who is retired) covered for me by taking phone calls making visits and dealing with issues. When I gt back he told me he never wants my job. Not because he doesn't care for the people but the demands can be quite challenging.

Putting 15-20 hours into a sermon is quite common and needful. I have had tomes where I have had to spend less time but those are rare.

 

That's like saying since you have never served as president you have no clue what you are talking about concerning the job he does. Also,sermon preparation is a relatively modern invention of the church. Does it really need to take 3, 8+ hour days to prepare a half hour talk...or is that merely what one chooses to do? If one knows the Bible like an elder is expected to, I can't figure out why it would ever take that long. I know for a fact my pastor prepares his sermon on Tuesdays. I'm willing to bet he spends less than 8 hours total preparing.