How many hours must a pastor work to satisfy the congregation?

Thom Rainer June 9, 2025

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How many hours must a pastor work each week to satisfy the congregation?

This question, often unspoken, hovers over many churches and their leaders. A simple experiment I conducted several years ago might shed some light on this complex issue.

When I was a pastor in St. Petersburg, Florida, I surveyed the twelve deacons in my church (I often joked that we had eleven good deacons and one Judas!) The survey listed several pastoral responsibilities, and I asked them to share the minimum amount of time they believed I should devote to each area every week. The list included about twenty predefined responsibilities, with space for them to add others if they wished.

I wasn't entirely sure what I expected from the survey, but the results were startling. After tallying the responses, I discovered that to meet the deacons' minimum expectations, I would need to dedicate the following hours each week:

Prayer at the church: 14 hours
Sermon preparation:18 hours
Outreach and evangelism:10 hours
Counseling: 10 hours
Hospital and home visits: 15 hours
Administrative functions: 18 hours
Community involvement: 5 hours
Denominational involvement: 5 hours
Church meetings: 5 hours
Worship services/preaching: 4 hours
Other: 10 hours

Total: 114 hours per week

To put this in perspective, meeting the minimum expectations of twelve deacons would have required me to work over 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Alternatively, if I took one day off, I'd need to work 19 hours a day for six days a week. And keep in mind, these expectations came from just twelve people—not the entire congregation.

This exercise revealed an impossible reality: no pastor can humanly meet the varied and often conflicting expectations of every church member. The sheer number of responsibilities competing for limited hours in the week creates constant tension for pastors.

A few key questions

For laypeople: what are your workweek expectations of your pastor? Are they realistic, and do they account for the human limitations of a single individual?

For pastors: how do you manage these expectations without succumbing to burnout or neglecting your personal and family life?

Reflecting on this topic reminds us that ministry is a calling, but it is also a role performed by humans with finite time and energy. Honest conversations about expectations—rooted in grace and mutual understanding—can lead to healthier relationships between pastors and their congregations.

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Thom S. Rainer is the founder and CEO of Church Answers, and online community and resource for church leaders. Prior to founding Church Answers, Rainer served as president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. Before coming to LifeWay, he served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism. He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Alabama and earned his Master of Divinity and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Learn More »

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