Thank you for the question on a minister’s job, “Is it true that the preacher or minister’s only job is to proclaim the biblical word of God?”
One of the primary responsibility of a pastor is preaching/teaching the Word to believers but that is not his only work. As most church members knows, a pastor has a variety of duties described in the job description.
As an associate pastor over the English speaking congregation in a multi-lingual Asian church, I list some of the main responsibilities that I had:
- Preparing and preaching the Word on Sunday as well as coordinating with the worship team.
- Teaching or leading a Bible study for the Adult Fellowship groups on Friday evenings..
- Attending Church leadership meetings: Pastoral Staff meetings, Elder meeting, Board Meeting, English speaking leadership committee, prayer meeting. Meetings may be weekly or monthly.
- Coordinating the English ministry with the Mandarin and Cantonese ministries as Mission or Evangelism Conference, Church retreat.
- Visiting members and visitors in the evening including hospital visitation.
- Conducting special classes: Baptism-Membership Class, Leadership, Discipleship, Evangelism or Care Ministry Training Classes.
- Providing pre-marital and marital counseling sessions. My pre-marital classes were 12 weeks long for 2 hours.
Most pastors spends 60 houhrs a week or more in the ministry as they shepherd the flock. There is time spent in administration and planning for the ministry as developing a three or five year plan for the ministry and reviewing the worship bulletin before it is printed. To attend meetings, pastor has to spend time traveling to and from which averages about 30 min each way. Quite often, I would be in the church office from 9–5 pm Monday to Friday, attending meetings 4–5 nights a week from 7:00 to 10:00 pm or later and on the Saturdays reviewing the sermon and lessons that I will be preaching and or teaching on Sunday. Most pastors if they do not have a meeting in the evening is spending time in preparing to preach or teach the Word. Pastor’s families are often neglected for the husband is absent from the family due to all the meetings he has to attend in the evenings.
I want others to know that Elders and Deacons also have a heavy load in the ministry as well. It is not easy serving in leadership position as there are great sacrifices by the family for the church.
Do pray for your pastor. There are many things that s/he does that is not known to the church family as pre-marital, marital counseling, hospital visitations, preparations for marriage, baptism. One may see a pastor 5–10 minutes in baptizing or welcoming a member but a lot of work has gone on in preparing for those events.
If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to spend one week with your pastor day and in the evening. You will wonder why would anyone want to become a pastor with all the headaches, heartaches, and the few moments of joy in the ministry. Most pastors do not make the average income of their church members unless one serves in a mega church setting which is different from a small or medium size church with less than 300 attendees.
SUMMARY: The 30 minutes that you see the pastor in the pulpit reflects probably 25 to 30 hours of preparation and that just the beginning of his time management and allocation with all his responsibilities given to him.
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