This will give you maximum effectiveness in the structure of your week, and alignment with the primary aspects of your call as a pastor.

You’ll notice this post is in past tense, since I’ll be pulling on my 30 years of experience as a pastor. My current schedule reflects a different pace, as I do more consulting and coaching now.

One of the things I occasionally do when I’m consulting and coaching with pastors is, I’ll have a look at their diary, not what’s gone, but what’s coming.

If I find it vacant and empty, I know they’re not using the principles that I’m going to outline here of putting in what I called the “big rocks.” These “big rocks” are the key priorities and vital things that need to get done for you to fulfill your call.

It’s easy to be busy, fill your week up with anything, but I think there’s a huge win when you can structure your week for maximum effectiveness.

Pastoral Ministry is a Juggle, not a Balance

One little thought that does impact me here is to forget balance, think juggle when it comes to pastoral life.

If you want to achieve a balance of ministry, family, and personal life, I don’t think it’s possible, but you can juggle. Some weeks you’re going to have full-on nights out, a lot of appointments, and you feel like you’re really running hard, and your family’s feeling it is as well.

The next week, get a hold of your diary and schedule in a whole bundle of nights home. Church members ring up and say, are you available? Say, actually I’ve looked in my calendar and no, I’m not available.

You don’t have to tell your congregation what you’re doing every second of the day, you can just say, I’m not available that evening. Let’s go for the following week on that.

So, think of the juggle that you have to do to get things done in ministry and your personal life, rather than trying to balance it.

What did a typical day of my weekly schedule look like?

Mornings

Here’s how my week would pan out back when I was pastoring. Five to six mornings a week, I would prioritise my devotional time, Bible study and coffee. I rarely would do devotions on my day off. I’d have a total day off, even from devotions.

Five or six days a week, coffee, Bible study, prayer. I would set each day up with that right sort of stuff to keep me going strong through the week.

Tuesday – People Development

Tuesday was my develop others day. I was the senior pastor at a larger church, and therefore I had staff members, and team members, and so on. So, this was a day I’d do supervision, I do mentoring, I do coaching, I do development around either Tuesday or Wednesday. Not every week, but I would also run leaders meetings, leadership development meetings, and so on.

So I set aside Tuesday, which was my day to work with key people in my church. and you can juggle that as a small church pastor, or a medium church pastor, as long as you’ve got it in your diary every week.

I would always ask myself, what am I doing to develop, train, coach, and mentor key people around me?

Wednesday – Sermon Writing

Wednesday was my day I stayed at home, didn’t go into the office. I would just spend time with the Bible, preparing messages. I’d work on sermon preparations for Sunday’s sermon, leaders’ messages, all sorts of different messages that I was going to be preaching.

Wednesday, I’d give myself to sermon prep for the entire day, locking out other distractions. I found that extremely helpful by Wednesday night to have finished my Sunday sermon. I’d have it finished Wednesday night, leave it around there, and kind of mull over it for a few days before I preached it.

Although I still had a few days before Sunday, I’d always finish my sermon by the midweek. This gave me time to work on other things or rest at the end of the week and not feel pressure to complete my sermon.

Thursday – Projects and Reflection

Thursday was project time in a typical week. I’d block out time on this day to do projects that took more thought or effort.

Once every five to six weeks would be my reflection time, an hour or two of sitting down, mulling over leadership, my life, and my work week. So Thursday was a mixture of projects, reflection, and again, bits and pieces that you have to do.

No doubt, during that Monday to Thursday, I’d set aside time for pastoral connections as well, and I’d have locked in appointments around that, but they were “big rocks.”

Friday – Rest

Friday was a day off. I’d turn my phone off, email off, everything off. Just push that off button and take a day to rest.

I would not do any work on Fridays. Thursday night, through to Sunday morning was my time of the week to spend resting.

No work, don’t go near email or any of that. I was very strict about my day off, I think it protected me from burnout.

I think it allowed me to stay in pastoral ministry for 30 years, being very strict around the boundaries of my day off.

If you haven’t been able to have a day off as a pastor, talk to your staff, or elders if you don’t have a staff, and have them help you take a day off each week. It’s important.

Saturday – Family

Saturday when the kids were younger, was family day.

Going to do family activities, watching their sporting events, and things like that were also part of my weekly rhythm. Hang out a bit, play with them, do whatever with the family. As our children married and left, it became a family day for just Di and I.

I would also do various things like read the paper longer, hang out, and watch a bit of footy. I would have it as a day off too, unless I was doing a wedding or had a leaders meeting, which is unusual on a Saturday.

Unless I had an event that I had to go to, it was a day off and I used it. Friday and Saturday is a weekend off.

When I did my Masters, I’d use Saturday to do some study for my Masters as well. I’d also make sure on Friday and Saturday Di and I had connection moments too, of course.

You have a lot more space and time when your children leave home.

Sunday – Services

Sunday was, of course, full of services. Morning service, evening service, a full-on day. In the afternoon I napped and rested to get the energy up for Sunday night.

And that’s basically the “big rock” structure of my week that you’d find in my diary with recurring appointments.

Nights Out are Unavoidable as a Pastor

Monday to Saturday, I would plan to be out at least two nights during the week. Usually a minimum of two nights and a maximum of three.

So out of those six nights, I’d have three nights at home. Some weeks I’d have four nights at home, other weeks it might be five or six. Those were the weeks where you’d see in my diary that I’d been jammed up the week before with lots of nights out.

Generally, I found I was working a couple of nights a week, and I kind of kept that as a rhythm and a pace through my life. But any more than three nights out and I ended up grumpy.

Live out of your calendar

The key thing with building a schedule for maximum effectiveness is to put your priorities in your calendar, in your diary, as a recurring appointment. Honour and live out of your calendar. Those appointments, those key things you need to do regularly, keep on a rhythm.

Studying, or developing leaders, whatever is key in your world as a leader, should be in your calendar. Keep it recurring so you could look into the future and know where you are going and how you are tracking to fulfill what God’s given you to do.

There you go. That’s how I structured my week for maximum effectiveness and now you can too.

Drawing on over four decades of pastoral ministry and consulting, John equips you to create Sunday services where people encounter Christ and take meaningful next steps in their faith. Includes adaptation section for small churches PLUS a 90 day action plan for all size churches. Read or listen. On Amazon now or Listen on Spotify