What Do Pastors Do With All Their Time? - by David de Bruyn

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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This may be the worst teaching we have ever read regarding church leadership and what it means to be pastor. We don't wish to be mean, but yes, it's that bad.

The author has no idea what the Bible teaches about pastors. He doesn't bother with this at all, preferring to reinforce his church tradition which places the pastor at the top of the local church pyramid. 

He then lays a guilt trip on the attendees of his new member class. The poor, overworked pastor is represented as the do-it-all CEO working his fingers to the bone while the parishioners all sit around. Now, he doesn't come out and say this directly, but that's the implication.

His remedy to this situation is to invest even more expectation into the pastor position. Apparently the pastor is the sole surviving member of the five ministries listed in Ephesians 4:11. And as that sole survivor the pastor is supposed to do all the work of training and maturing the sheep into ministry. By himself. 

That is, he is to train the sheep to do all the stuff he as the pastor doesn't want to do. 

The Bible tells us something quite different about church leadership: 

1 Tim. 5:17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 

1 Pet. 5:1-2 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow-elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers... 

Lastly, the author only manages to quote a single snippet of Scripture, which may explain why nothing he writes here is biblical. We must deem this Bad Bible Teaching. 

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“Your dad only works one day a week. What does he do with the rest of his time?” This was asked of one of my daughters by another girl at church. We all chuckled and sighed.

It’s rather understandable, though. The ministry seems mysterious from the outside. It can appear as if a pastor’s job is delivering about an hour or two of public speaking a week, and the rest must be free time, right?

I once helped a new members’ class think through this by writing various weekly ministry tasks on a board, (This is what this man does to new members? Ouch.)

and I then asked the class to assign a reasonable amount of hours to each task. (The author will now list the supposed duties of a pastor. We will note with a yes or no regarding if the item is a actual biblical pastoral duty.)

The list included prayer, (Yes.)

sermon preparation, (No.)

reading for further study, (No.)

preparing other Bible studies or presentations, (No.)

counselling, (Yes.)

training leaders, (No.)

following up with the missing or sick or discouraged, (Yes.)

organising services, (No.)

visiting members, (Yes.)

contacting missionaries, (No.)

evangelising, (No.)

and broader church administration. (No.

Twelve items, only four of which are actually pastoral.)

By the time they’d finished apportioning hours to each task, we ended up with an 80-hour work week, not counting the actual corporate meetings of the church, which added another 8 or so hours. They saw the problem: this would kill most men in their first year. (Indeed. This is why so many pastors burn out or fall into sin. They are not pastoring, they are occupying an unbiblical position.)

I then asked if the pastor should make time for his family, for fitness and health, for maintenance of his own home and possessions, and possibly for recreation or leisure. They heartily agreed, but couldn’t see where it would fit into this 90-hour work week. (The author is setting us up by mischaracterizing the pastor's job.)

The solution is found in Ephesians 4:11-16. (Sighhh. Let's quote the pertinent portion: 

Ep. 4:11-12 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up...

Now let's see what the author has to say about this.)

The pastor is to equip members to do the work of the ministry. (So he lies to us. Clearly Paul told us that the pastor is one of five that does this.)

Much of those 80 hours is supposed to be carried out by the members of the Body, not all by the pastor himself. (!!! The author swerves into the truth...)

He trains others to counsel, evangelise, organise, administrate, teach, and indeed, train others. (...and swerves right back out. The pastor does not do this alone, he does it as a part of a team. Not the leader of the team, part of the team.)

But since the demands of even a small church far exceed what one man can do, (True. Thus the need for a team of men to lead the church together.)

he must treat his time like a precious, scarce resource that must be stewarded efficiently. Consequently, he deploys his time in ways that will result in the most equipping work for the most people.

That means his priority is preaching. (??? What? Where does the Bible say the pastor preaches?)

If he preaches to 200 people for one hour a week, that’s 200 hours of ministry in one go. (The author has an odd idea as to what constitutes ministry.)

A sensible pastor will then pour significant time into the preparation of his sermons and of the worship services. (Well, no. The sensible teacher will do this.)

He will supplement this sermon preparation with other reading and studying to keep himself fresh, creative and growing. (Sigh. This almost reads like satire.)

His second priority will be raising up faithful men who can teach others also (2 Tim 2:2). (Timothy wasn't a pastor.)

Instead of devoting his time to the lukewarm, undecided and half-committed, (This man definitely doesn't have a pastor's heart.)

he will prioritise the faithful, growing and eager ones, (Yup, leave the hard cases in favor of the easy ones. Definitely not a pastor.)

teaching them and counselling them into even greater maturity. They will be first to lift his hands from carrying all the burdens of ministry, and become leaders of ten, fifty or a hundred others. You might call this the Jethro principle, something which he taught his son-in-law Moses to prevent him from “wearing himself out” (Exodus 18:17-26). (Moses and Jethro is not a model for church leadership.)

The pastor will not neglect to counsel those who ask for it or need it, nor will he fail to minister to attempt to minister to everyone, as he is able. (Counselling is a primary activity of a true pastor.)

But he knows the only way to achieve regular and thorough every-member ministry will be to equip the saints who will minister to each other.

His third priority will be overseeing the entire ministry of the church, with its members (and their faithfulness and service), ministries, services, finances, missionaries, events, outreaches, promotion, and physical resources. (No, no, no! There is absolutely no biblical reason for this statement. This is not the biblical pastor, it is the pastor of the author's tradition.)

Again, this is too much for one man, so his priority will be to organise the delegation of these tasks, and continually supervise. (No, no, no! There is absolutely no biblical reason for this statement. This is not the biblical pastor, it is the pastor of the author's tradition.)

In any given week, most full-time pastors won’t be able to get away with less than 10 to 12 hours of sermon preparation, another 6 of further study and prayer, 10 hours of training, discipling, evangelising, counselling and following up with members, and another 12 of general administration. (No, no, no! There is absolutely no biblical reason for this statement. This is not the biblical pastor, it is the pastor of the author's tradition.)

That puts him at 40 hours, not counting the 8 hours of public services. If he wishes to conduct ministry beyond his local church, such as writing, teaching in a seminary, serving on boards, or other media production, that’s over and above his local church commitments. For this reason, most pastors work six days out of seven, to fit it all in. And spare a thought for the bi-vocational pastor, who is trying to do all this work alongside earning a living and providing for his family. (Please, stop. Sir, you have no idea what the Bible says about pastoring. Yet you keep piling on all sorts of nonsense to the point of absurdity. 

That's why we observed that this reads like satire.)

Make no mistake, a pastor can be as lazy as the worst of men. A. W. Tozer said, “It is easy for the minister to be turned into a privileged idler… He has no boss within sight; he is not often required to keep regular hours, so he can work out a comfortable pattern of life that permits him to loaf, putter, play, doze and run about at his pleasure. And many do just that.”

But if a church has hired a pastor who imposes on himself, as Tozer put it, “a way of life no less rugged than that of the workers who support him”, then they will have a very, very busy pastor.

Three takeaways:

1. The more a church financially frees a man up, the more pastoral ministry they will get from him. Not every congregation can do that, but it should be their goal to let their pastor be full-time. (But, but... The author previously told us the pastor "trains others to counsel, evangelise, organise, administrate, teach, and indeed, train others." Where do these others fit in?)
2. A church should expect equipping from their pastor, but ministry from every member. The pastor is included in that membership, so he will certainly do some of that ministry. But a church which expects sufficient personal ministry to every member from one man is dooming itself to mediocre ministry, a burnt-out pastor, and a disgruntled membership. A church which looks to their pastor to focus his time on equipping them with the Word will flourish. (Sigh. Chapter, verse?)
3. The more a church ministers to one another, the more they free their pastor to do equipping work, which further improves their ministry to one another. The grand result is the “whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”(Ephesians 4:16)