I’ve been asked versions of the same question multiple times: what does a pastor do all week?
Some parts of a pastor’s job are obvious. Pastors preach and show up at the church’s meetings. Beyond that, it’s hard for many to picture what a pastor could do to fill the time all week. It seems, from the outside, that pastors have a lot of time on their hands.
I decided to ask some friends for a description of how they spend their time in their role as pastors, and here’s what I found: pastors occupy a variety of roles, both public and private. They struggle to fit it all in. While a pastor’s most visible work is the sermon, their hidden work is people. Both take a long time.
Preaching and Public Ministry
Pastors spend a lot of time on their sermons. Sermon and teaching preparation often takes 12 to 20 hours in a week. Often, the number of hours decreases as the preacher accumulates decades of experience, but preparation still takes time.
Beyond that, pastors often work 6 to 12 hours on Sundays. Many pastors I know arrive earlier on Sundays than you might think. They not only preach and lead elements of the service, but meet with people afterward, and handle follow-up conversations that can’t be rushed.
Pastors also spend time in other midweek gatherings, Bible studies, funerals, and weddings. Every pastor I know spends multiple evenings out at ministry events every week.
The Pastor’s Private Ministry
What most people don’t see is the pastor’s private ministry. Pastors report spending time on predictable events each week: staff and elders’ meetings, administration (email, planning, documentation, schedules, task follow-up), mentoring, discipleship and counselling appointments, and dedicated sermon-preparation blocks. But they also face unpredictable demands: hospital visits, funeral preparation, urgent pastoral care needs, and other last-minute ministry demands. Pastors often have to switch gears quickly between analytical, creative, organizational, and people work multiple times in the same day.
People work takes time. One pastor described averaging four to five pastoral care meetings weekly, often 75–90 minutes each plus driving time, and then another block of time for preparation beforehand or documentation afterward. At a minimum, pastoral care tends to occupy eight to ten hours of a pastor’s week.
Pastors aren’t strictly on call, but they tend to be reachable for urgent pastoral needs. Pastors report finding it hard to take time off. One veteran pastor reflected that he “only took one day off” for years and later repented of the overcommitment because his family “paid dearly.” Ministry can quietly expand to fill every available space unless time off is intentionally protected.
The total number of hours a pastor works often is more than the typical full-time role. While many people work hard at demanding jobs, and many pastors get to enjoy flexibility that others don’t, pastoral ministry is unique for its variety, its relational and emotionally taxing work, for the number of evenings and weekends out, and for the fact that a pastor never clocks out from ministry.
A Joy and a Burden
Pastoral ministry is both a joy and a burden. Pastors get paid to spend time in God’s Word and get to see God at work in the lives of people. Pastoring is a privilege.
But it’s a burden—a joyful one, but a burden nonetheless. It involves long hours, a variety of roles and expectations, and no off switch.
“As hard as ministry has been, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” one pastor said. “Serving Christ by serving his people has been the unspeakable honour of my life. I genuinely look back in amazement that he put me in the ministry.” What a gift to serve in ministry, even when the demands are high and the hours long.