Leadership gurus will tell you that a primary skill of an effective leader is the ability to manage time for maximum productivity. Out of curiosity, our research team asked over 200 pastors to provide us an hour-by-hour calendar of a typical 168-hour week for them. Keep in mind that 168 hours represent all the hours in a week, so their reports included such mundane items as sleeping and eating.
Impressed with the Effective Leaders
Our study included 101 pastors that we called effective leaders because their churches ranked in the top five percent in conversion growth in American churches. A comparison group of pastors of similar number were leading churches that did not have significant conversion growth.
Our researchers were impressed with the time management skills of the effective pastors. Perhaps the best way to show their skills is to compare their use of time with that of the leaders of the comparison churches.
Differences in Priorities
Without comment, let us highlight some of the most significant differences between the pastors of the effective churches versus the pastors of the comparison churches. You may be surprised at some of the findings.
- Pastors of effective churches sleep slightly over six hours per day. Pastors of comparison churches sleep almost eight hours per day.
- Pastors of effective churches spend twenty-two hours in sermon preparation each week versus four hours for pastors of comparison churches.
- The effective church leaders spent ten hours each week in pastoral care compared to thirty-three hours for the comparison group pastors. Pastoral care included counseling, hospital visits, weddings, and funerals.
- Effective church leaders average five hours per week in sharing the gospel with others. Most of the comparison church pastors entered “0” for their weekly time in personal evangelism.
- Comparison church leaders spend eight hours a week – more than an hour each day – performing custodial duties at the church. The typical custodial duties included opening and closing the facilities, turning on and off the lights, and general cleaning of the building.
- Leaders of effective churches average 22 hours a week in family activities. The comparison church leaders weren’t too far behind with 18 hours of family time each week.
Priorities and Balance
The time allocation of effective leaders seems to complement the way they describe their own leadership styles. In order to accomplish what they considered priority functions, they had to sacrifice in other areas. The leaders of effective churches spent over 40 hours per week with their families and in sermon preparation time. In order to fulfill these priorities, they obviously had to let some things go.
Thus the effective leaders cannot do many of the responsibilities often expected of them as pastors. They cannot make all the hospital visits. They cannot counsel everyone. And they cannot perform all of the custodial duties that may be expected of them. But as leaders they can see that those things get done.
Leaders of effective churches thus make certain that their family and work life is balanced. And they make certain they have time to be missional and all about the Great Commission.
They also give priority in time to prayer and to preparation in God’s Word for the sermons to follow.
They almost sound like they are following the pattern of the early church leaders: “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the preaching ministry” (Acts 6:4, HCSB).
Biblical. Missional. Evangelistic. And powerful preaching.
How are you spending your time?
photo credit: seychelles88 via photopin cc
A good follow up to that would be: How many effective churches have additional staff (full or part time, volunteer) to take burdens off the pastor?
Good comment Ian. You and Les have raised some good questions. It sounds like the Effective pastor has a good staff to assist him along with an administrative assistant. It seems like we are all effective however, if we are where God has placed us and we are doing what he has called us to do. I also imagine all of us have a desire to live out Acts 6:4.
Dr. Rainier, you started with the basic premise that evangelism and consequent church growth is the identified measurement for “effective” pastors. As one with a doctoral degree, you are aware that research is determined by researcher bias. If you started with the health of the congregation as that which determines “effective” pastoral leadership, you likely will conclude that 33 hours in pastoral care is far more significant than 10 hours per week. Even more telling, the “effective” pastor spends 44 hours with his family and sermon preparation, equally divided. 44 hours is more than a full-time job, spent in self-actualization. So what really is his job? Is that the measurement for a Pastor, Shepherd? In giving your results, you are responsible for also sharing the bias of your premise, and hence the exclusion of other considerations in your pre-determined conclusions.
Let the Lord bless the work of the faithful Laborer, who understands his and her calling, and blesses God for the results of that ministry. Your research actually uplifts the faithful work of Pastors who care for their flock, but without your giving them credit for being effective in their assigned ministry. Thank you for highlighting the good work of the Evangelist; while becoming open to allow Paul, Silas, Stephen and James to do their assigned ministries, with equal regard.
Dr. Rainer,
A question I have as a young pastor is how do you communicate to your church that you need help with all the extra responsibilities so you can become more effective? Do you automatically begin to make the adjustments or do you give the church the opportunity to see that you need the help and then after it is noticed by the church make the adjustments? The question is posed because some churches assume you are a lazy pastor if you aren’t doing most of the ministry.
One way to communicate this is through a mutual ministry review (evaluation but that’s not what a mutual ministry review is about). In essence, you and the Parish leaders talk about your shared ministry: what is expected from each order (lay and clergy), what strengths are exhibited by both orders, and most importantly where support is needed to become more effective in the mutual ministry of the leadership.
In my denomination, Episcopal, it is helpful that my ordination vow expresses the denomination’s expectation of the priest. While I am still a new minister (4th anniversary as a priest in December) I have more than 22 years of experience as an senior leader in the military so job delineation and description is easier for me to stand behind.
I hope that helps.
Officer, Pastor/Priest Ferguson, thank you for identifying the need to credit and communicate with the various forms of ministries that God ordained.
Every church should have a good Ministry of Helps team. Pastors need to teach and train their people what Ministry of Helps is. There are many examples in the New Testament of the Ministry of Helps. This Ministry of Helps will help the Pastor and the church run sufficient and orderly. There are many good resources out there. I hope this helps.
The problem, as I have seem so many times, is that the pastor will not appoint enough leadership staff for fear of “loosing control”. I fully support a pastor-led church, but never a pastor-controlled church.
Well written article but I think this article can also be misleading and disheartening for many pastors. The dynamic you describe, at least in my denomination, means that the church has at least 2 clergy on staff, employs at least 2 paid office personnel and has a number of other volunteer staff members. That doesn’t mention the paid minister of music.
How do these measures of effectiveness translate to the majority of churches today that have less than 150 members (and most likely less than 80) with an average Sunday attendance of 50-75 or less? As the lone clergy with one volunteer staff person who works 2 days a week – these measures don’t apply in my context. I am the only person in the building all but 2 days a week so if I don’t open and close the doors they don’t get opened and closed, etc.
I think it would be helpful to define the context in which these statistics apply so newer clergy don’t get misled to believing they aren’t being effective in their context.
It is vital to a Pastors health, his family, and his church that there be regular (I choose weekly) evaluation of how your time is spent. As stewards of time, are we using it wisely?
I find as I evaluate that I spend more time than I should on administrative tasks, but as with all healthy evaluation, you learn from it, and set goals/ accountability to improve in the future. It also helps those in a smaller context to note the areas in which they can train up new leaders, to free the Pastor up for the Ministry of the Word and Prayer.
We are going to be held accountable for our time I know. But when we start comparing our churches to each other, I do not believe it is realistic. Naturally the pastor with a larger church, with staff personnel which will include janitors, paid Music Ministers, people to help with visitation, hospital visits, and a Youth Director will free up the pastor, so that pastor will naturally fit into your model. Some of us do not have these luxuries. My Youth department starts at age 65. We average about 65-70 people a week. When the toilets need to be fixed or cleaned, I do it. When the doors need to be opened, I do it. I mop, clean, turn on light, and adjust the heat and air. I spend at least 20-30 hours a week in sermon prep. I just feel like we (small churches) are always looked down on by the larger churches (kind of like the Pharisee when he prayed and said “thank you Lord that I am not like that sinner.” as he prayed with his head held up high). I thank God that He has put me where I am. I know that I am in God’s will and that He placed me where I am for a reason. I want to be faithful and obedient to Him. I know that I don’t fit into your perfect model and that I am not a mega church with multiple sites. This is not what God has called me to do. Plus I refuse to be like the world to reach people (this is a whole different subject I know).
From: Little Church Pastor
I completely agree with your above comments. For those of us who do pastor a small church, there are more tasks we do. What is really so bad about turning off the lights? Unless you are at a very large facility where it takes 30 minutes to make the rounds. I flip four switches, all next to each other. Wow I just used up 30 seconds of my time. Also, the age of the congregation will dictate how much pastoral care time is needed. Young congregations ( I am generalizing here) do not seem to care much about pastoral care where middle age to older congregations do. The quote “leaders see that things get done” I find grating. I do not have an assistant, youth, or music pastor, secretary, janitor, or my favorite a “research assistant”. Sometimes it can be delegated and sometimes I am the one who needs to do it. Why the disdain for people who need more sleep, “sleep almost 8 hours a night.” If I slept just over 6 hours a night by day five I would be a zombie. I need 7 and a quarter hours of sleep. Not sure how that makes you more effective, unless you are saying two more hours a day automatically makes you effective. Finally, I enjoyed your Pharisee sinner comparison. I have never thought of it that way, but yep, I sure feel like the small churches are looked down upon, which is a shame considering 75 is the number I hear quoted as the typical size of a SBC church. I am grateful and encouraged at what God is doing in His small churches around the world.
22 hours of sermon prep WITH a research assistant????? What exactly are they doing?
Excellent Response
I am a layman in a small SBC church. And I am the music director, Sunday School Superintendent, Sunday School teacher and I chair the Nominating committee. In a smaller congregation, lay leaders take on 1 or more responsibilities to allow the Pastor to do what God had called him to do. To pray, study, and prepare the saints for the ministry.
We are all in the ministry and we are all ministry assistants.
I have read all the current comments and I think they are mostly good. But it seems to me that the whole purpose of this article is to report what pastors have said about how they spend their time and to encourage them to do and be what God has called Pastors for.
Rejecting out of hand what brother Ranier has said seems to me to be a bit harsh. Just as a Pastor, our ministry assistants are doing what he suggests.
I would like some help understanding what “five hours sharing the gospel with people” looks like. For example would that be going :door to door”, to church visitior, community service, neighbourhood service or what?
I appreciate the work that went into this article, as I believe we can learn from one another regardless of the church size or configuration. From the sounds of the responses here though, it looks like many more articles need to be written about the dynamics of the small church. I’m a small church pastor myself (under 150). With the way our society has adopted an anti-religious bearing, small, nimble, flexible, and affordable church will probably be the way of the future anyhow. If the rest of you guys don’t have paid staff, etc., hang on. You’re probably going to be the in-crowd pretty soon.
http://www.bareknuckle.org
All healthy entities do one of two things; they grow, and, when they reach full maturation, multiply. I don’t believe a church that is not growing numerically or helping to plant other churches constitutes a healthy congregation. The most telling statistic to me in the article had nothing to do with the number of hours spent on sermon prep vs cleaning toilets, but the fact that churches that are growing by reaching lost folks are led by a pastor who is himself actively engaged in personal evangelism to the tune of five hours per week, vs zero hours per week for the stagnant church’s pastor.