Are you a pastor in a church that seems to ignore the fact that there’s only 168 hours in a week?

Does it seem like your original intentions to be centered on prayer, go out and build rock-solid deep relationships with your entire congregation and spend enough time studying the Scriptures were all bad typos in the job description?

Perhaps you need to reassess your game plan.

Here’s a quick pop quiz to help figure out your approach to ministry:

If you, as the pastor, have only limited time available during the week, would you prefer to choose (A) OR (B) in each scenario below:

A. Do more visiting to shut-ins?
B. Put more time into sermon preparation?

A. Attend a wedding reception?
B. Go on a retreat with parish staff?

A. Call on prospective members?
B. Conduct a training session for church officers?

A. Visit a bereaved family?
B. Help two church officers resolve a conflict?

A. Make a hospital call on a fringe member?
B. Attend a continuing education event?

A. Engage in pastoral counseling with members?
B. Attend a planning event with officers?

A. Do more parish calling?
B. Recruit leaders for parish events?

A. Attend an activity with parish youth?
B. Critique a meeting with a church officer?

Apparently the correct answers differ largely NOT ON YOU, but where your called to ministry.  The Alban Institute published an interesting article which gives practical insights for how to approach various types of ministry environments.

Surprise! It turns out that a pastor is not a pastor is not a pastor anywhere and everywhere.  One size does not fit all!

Being self-aware of the context first will dramatically increase the odds of success in your role as pastor.  Requirements for leadership style, relationships, and responsibilities all change based on whether you are in a family, pastoral, program, and corporate sized church.

Are you sitting in the right seat?  Is there more than one seat at the table?  It all matters tremendously.

If you read the informative article from the Congregational Resource Guide site, you’ll also learn the landmines of moving down in church size.

What’s the good news in all this? You’ll notice that pastor burnout is largely avoidable by being able to answer the pop quiz questions correctly.