(Author’s note: This post is the second in a two-part series as an answer to that jokingly clichéd question, “What does your pastor do the other six days of the week?” Part One can be found here. -E.A.)
Monday: I keep office hours from 9:30 am – 5:30 pm on Mondays and Thursdays. I tend not to get many visitors, so my office hours are typically devoted to the day-to-day, week-to-week administrative tasks of running a church: email, phone calls, online ministry, writing newsletter or blog material, planning worship and other events, and so on. I also help out at the two weekly chapel services that our preschool hosts, which are at 11 am and 2:30 pm, and which make for good breaks from the many stacks of paper I often find myself occupied with on Mondays.
Tuesday: This might be my favorite day of the week because it is devoted to two of the things I enjoy most about ministry—Bible study and visitations. I arrive at the office at 9 or 10 am to study and prepare for the 11:00 am adult Bible study. After Bible study, I’ll grab lunch, and then I usually devote the afternoon to pastoral care, checking in on folks, calling our homebound congregants, that sort of thing—our Bible study includes a prayer chain, so it, along with Sunday morning itself, are my two most reliable ways to hear of any prayer concerns. I also have local ministerial association meetings and the like scheduled on Tuesday afternoons, but if I don’t have that many visits or meetings, I’ll often get a jump on that week’s sermon writing as well.
Wednesday: This one is pretty straightforward. Wednesdays are blocked completely for sermon preparation. I try to work a couple of months ahead with texts and titles (I currently have texts and titles picked out for each Sunday through May) and one week ahead with the sermons themselves. I have found that I usually need 8-10 hours to create a sermon that meets my standards, and I know some pastors who will typically spend 12-15 hours or more on a sermon. Wednesday evenings are also when the night Bible study class meets from 6:30-8:00 pm.
Thursday: See Monday, though there are exceptions—my Disciples clergy group generally meets once a month on Thursday mornings, in which case I’ll wander in sometime in the afternoon, and Thursdays often include senior lunches or other fellowship circles that I will stop by at to say hi.
Friday and Saturday are my days off, unless I am doing something like officiating at a wedding or a funeral. More frequently, there will be a weekend event like a rummage sale or a music jam session that I will swing by at in order to make an appearance at for an hour or two. A lot of pastors take off Monday instead--and I've been asked occasionally why, as an introvert, I do not take Mondays off to recharge after Sunday--but I really like having an actual "weekend" instead of two separate days off.
Sunday: I teach the youth/young adults Sunday School class plus preach and lead worship in the morning, followed by fellowship time. Afternoons tend to rotate between four events: first Sundays are often when my pastoral relations team meets, second Sundays are when I hold visitor/new member sessions (appropriately nicknamed “Second Sundays”), third Sundays are Board of Directors meetings, and fourth Sundays are “Congregational Conversations,” sort of a monthly town hall-type meeting. During evenings, I will occasionally I stop by the local Narcotics Anonymous group meeting that convenes in our church to offer pastoral support and to be a listening ear.
And that’s a fairly typical workweek. I don’t keep strict track of the number of hours I work in a week, but with the occasional evening appointment, it usually works out to around 45 hours a week. If there is a funeral or other such special service that week, it will be more like 50-55, and I'll try to take a morning or afternoon off during the subsequent week to compensate. I come from a family of workaholics, and my seminary was insistent about pounding the need for self-care into my head, so I'm usually pretty good about making sure that my days off are legitimately days off. I try as hard as possible to keep Friday as a true Sabbath where I do no work (even email), but I'd say at least twice a month I find myself doing something work-related on a Saturday.
Was this what you might have expected for a pastor's workweek? For a wider array of perspectives, try checking out this from a UCC pastor. The post is several years old, but still very much relevant, and was the inspiration for this two-part series.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
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