Pastoral Expectations Survey Results

The results are in from our Pastoral Expectations Survey. To review the survey itself, please see my January 16th posting. The following data is based on 132 surveys that were returned from the congregation. Church attenders were given 15 minutes to complete the survey at the end of the worship service on Sunday morning, January 27th. Those who were absent and those who wanted to take the survey home to complete it were given until the next Sunday, February 3rd, to return it.

The Transition Team also recruited ten Wesleyan pastors to complete the page of the survey that contained the estimated hours worked per week on the various pastoral tasks. National research on the average work week for pastors was also secured and will be shared with the congregation.

The following was the congregational ranking for the most important pastoral tasks (percentage that ranked this task as most important):
Preaching / Teaching 28.8%
Leadership / Vision 27.3%
Evangelism 12.9%
Prayer / Intercession 11.4%
Discipling Believers 4.5%
Counseling 2.3%
Leadership Dev. >1%
Visitation >1%
Administration >1%
Planning >1%

The following chart gives the average estimate of hours spent per week on each task by our congregation and by the ten Wesleyan pastors:
Congregation
Preaching / Teaching 8.0
Leadership / Vision 4.2
Evangelism 5.8
Prayer / Intercession 6.1
Discipling Believers 4.7
Counseling 4.4
Leadership Dev. 5.2
Visitation 5.4
Administration 4.0
Planning 2.1

Pastors
Preaching / Teaching 16.5
Leadership / Vision 2.4
Evangelism 3.0
Prayer / Intercession 5.4
Discipling Believers 2.5
Counseling 3.3
Leadership Dev. 2.9
Visitation 5.1
Administration 9.6
Planning 2.2

Observations:
1) Pastors spend twice the amount of time in Bible study and sermon preparation than the average church attender realizes. The 16.5 hours per week reported by the Wesleyan pastors is close to the average found in our national research. The good news is that the task that received the highest ranking of importance by our congregation is the task that pastors usually spend the most time doing each week.

2) One of the tasks that received the lowest ranking of importance by our congregation is the task that takes the second most amount of time each week for pastors. Again, national research agrees with what the Wesleyan pastors reported. My sense, from talking with pastors, is that most of them doing like doing administration any more than church members want them doing it. But reality for most churches with less than 25o members is that pastoral administration is a "necessary evil". Somebody has to do it - and the pastor usually winds up being that somebody.

The next planned posting will be a report of the Transition Team's "HOT, HOT, HOT" Gathering on Sunday night, February 10th, when they share what the "survey says" with the congregation.