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I’ve been thinking about the issue of pastoral ministry and work for quite a long time now. It’s taken various forms over the last year, everything from salary issues to sermon preparation.
Much of what I have to say in this series is based upon my personal habits and rhythms and experiences. And these posts should be seen as general rule of thumb observations (in most normal cases “this” should happen…).
In my opinion a pastor needs to work hard (as opposed to hardly work). This work will clearly look different than the gal in corporate world or the guy who is a contractor. My work isn’t physically laborious (most of the time), isn’t based upon how many sales I generate, or how many projects I complete for the company.
In fact, I’d argue that I need to strive to work no less than my non-vocational ministry counterparts. That is, why should I be outpaced in effort? I’m not talking about workaholicism. I’m talking about working hard with ambition (1 Tim 3.1).
Why would it ever be okay, during the work week, to sit around my house watching Oprah, playing video games, or hanging out with my family all day? I mean if its not allowed in any other workplace why would we allow for it in ministry?
Think about how important this is. For a pastor (especially a church planting pastor) there is no time clock, no one checking to make sure you made it to the “office,” no one monitoring your day-to-day activities, and so forth. I’m convinced if you are not a self motivated, self starter, who invites accountability and oversight in this area you are not prepared for ministry and probably should not be a pastor and certainly not a church planter.
We all have to fight entropy. If we don’t have appropriate systems of accountability we will end up lazy, undisciplined sluggards who are doing more harm than good in ministry.
So what do we do? Here are some things I’ve been doing…
1. Keep track of your hours. No one has ever asked me to do this and no one has ever asked to see it. Come to think of it, no one has ever questioned whether I work hard enough. But since September I have been keeping track of what I do on a day-to-day basis. It’s very simple, I write down what I do and the time I do it. So it’s a record of what I actually do, not an agenda of what I hope to do.
The great thing with this is 1) I know exactly what I did last week and for the heck of it I figured out exactly how many hours I worked. 2) It is great because I can look back and see if I’m working hard or hardly working. Do you have questions about whether or not you’re working hard enough? Keep track of your hours and you’ll know immediately.
2. Set the pace. When it comes to LifeConnection I must set the pace. I don’t want to dictate how many hows you should work. But, if I’m putting in 35-40 hours a week can I look a non-paid partner in the eye and ask them to give me 10 hours a week when they’ve already put in 40-45 hours a week at their job? Shouldn’t I be doing the same amount of time (45-55 hours)? So you can figure that out for your ministry, but if you’re not setting the pace as the lead in the ministry somethings not right, I promise you that.
3. Get out of bed. I am working to become more disciplined with my sleeping. This has to happen on the front end doesn’t it? If my goal is to get out of bed before the crack of noon I need to hit the sack before 4am don’t I?
When should you be out of bed? You probably better decide that based upon your culture. When I worked with college students I was up much later than the average businessman but up way earlier than any college student.
For those of us in ministry to adults I would think we should be getting out of bed at least when our community is up, don’t you? But again, if I’m to set the pace shouldn’t I be up before that? Is there any reason I should be sleeping until 9, 10, 11, 12, 1pm?
Sum it up already…
In general I’d say that pastors need to work and they need to work hard. If we are receiving money from the people of God to support the work of God then we better become good stewards of our time, energy, and money.
Secondly, if you are not able to become disciplined and work hard I have to question whether you should be involved in ministry. This isn’t to say we’re ever going to be perfect or that we have no room for growth. But If I’m working 5 or 6 hours a day and putting in a whopping 5 day work week there are problems.
Finally, we can all grow in our discipline. They say (whoever “they” is) that it takes 21 days of repetition to form a habit and habits are the basic units of discipline. So maybe you’ve failed at this discipline thing and you’re getting lazy in more ways than one. Tomorrow’s a new day. Seek forgiveness if you need (from God and from people) and set your sights on working hard.
So what do you think?
If you’re not in vocational ministry how do you view this issue of pastoral work? What seems appropriate to you?
If you are in ministry what do you think about this issue?
I’d love to see if there are differences of opinion between these two groups on this issue. Looking forward to seeing the conversation.
