How many hours a week should I work as a Vicar?

Like, "how long should I spend preparing my sermon" this is a tough question and it all depends.

I bet most clergy have no real idea how many hours a week they work or what exactly they count as work. Doing a timesheet might help, but of course it takes time!

Again, we must know our own temptations. I have heard that some people think there are lazy clergy in the world. I am yet to meet someone who admits it exactly. Even if they are not doing what I think they should be doing (like preparing their sermon and praying!) I think most clergy are busy: they might be on several governing bodies or chair the local NHS trust, for example! I think the days are probably gone when there were cooshy parishes where 30 people expected you to take the service for them at 10am on a Sunday and that was more or less it.

In my experience, most evangelical clergy are probably prone to overwork.

There is much misunderstanding about what a clergyman does and should do. Many people will say to you, "I know you're very busy..." but they don't really know what on earth you do! You will also hear the joke about you only working one day a week many times. Some people are only half joking! Remember that to some people if you don't get a sweat on it is not work! And yet you feel very much on show. Some of what you do and don't do will be noticed. You should assume that your churchwardens are recording when the Vicarage curtains are drawn or not - or maybe not!

You are not paid a salary. You get a meagre stipend to allow you to live. You are not paid to do anything very much. Canon law requires you to say Morning and Evening Prayer each day and to celebrate the Eucharist on Sundays and principal holy days. Various other duties were set out at your ordination (e.g. visit the sick, prepare people for baptism). The Diocese, parish, church and family have all sorts of expectations. And so do you. And so does God. But there's no agreed job description. Likely the Diocese got you to write your own role description, agree it with the Wardens and send it to the Archdeacon but heaven knows what that said or what difference it makes. It is open to debate what the impact of the Continually Assisted Review of Ministry process is.

Under God, your aim is to bring the gospel to all nations and disciple them. This is an impossible unending task. Unlike some professionals, you can never say that your work is finished and there is nothing more you could do.

If you worked 5 days a week, 9-5 with an hour for lunch that would be 7 hours a day x 5 days = 35 hours. It seems to me that if you work any less you have stolen your stipend.

But I think it is reasonable for your congregation to expect rather more.

You are available for work 6 days a week - and probably any time of any day or night if someone is dying. That does not mean you always have to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week or every hour God sends. In fact, if you worked 8am to 10pm for 3 days you would have more than "earned" your stipend and could take the rest of the week off - as long as you said morning and evening prayer!

 It seems to me that you should take your holidays. You will probably need a week off after Christmas and Easter as is customary, but this is a mixed bag as they are the quietest weeks of the year anyway!

If you have children who are at school, you will still need to work some Saturdays to take weddings and attend parish events, but you need not fill up the whole day. See your kids!

You encourage your congregation to take Sunday as the Lord's Day, a Christian Sabbath, but that feels rather different for you. You may have 3 or 4 services to take and there is pressure to accept meetings with wedding couples who work at the other end of the country in the week or with church members who are weekenders. Again, if you have any time or energy left on a Sunday, you need not fill it up. Sunday afternoon might feel like a good time to work out your expenses or fees but again it might be best to read a non-work related book or sit in the garden with your wife.

You generally work from home. Your commute to study takes less than 3 minutes even from the furthest corner of your modest new Rectory. Some of your congregation would commute for 1 - 2 hours each way on top of long days in the office. Is all your travel counted as work time?

And sometimes you go to things that you expect your people to go to after a full days work. If you start work at 8am you may resent being on the go constantly till the end of the PCC meeting at 10pm, but several round the table may have done just the same.

It is your job to pray and read the Bible, but you expect your congregation to do that on their own time.

 Every time you read a Christian book, is that work?

Every time you see a parishoner is that work? Are they your friends too?!

Is it work to go to the pub in your dog-colar on a work day?

I think we can set a minimum number of hours, but not a maximum. We can say that it is probably unwise to work more hours regularly than you can! You should take reasonable care of your physical and mental health and of your family and friends. You need a social life and a life outside of your work. You don't want to be so exhausted on your one day off that all you can do is lay in bed. You will be more effective in your work if you are a flourishing human being and this means a good work-life balance. 

I think you should also do something genuinely recreational each day. Don't have all your meals at your desk or in meetings. Spend half an hour each day reading a novel or walking the dog or playing a video game or listening to Vivaldi or whatever does it for you. If you are working in the evening it is okay to take some time off in the day.

There will be busier weeks and quieter weeks. If it can be afforded, you could probably take a couple of quiet away days for planning etc. and a couple of days a year for a retreat. You could probably go to one conference and one camp and maybe have a week for study. All this depends on the goodwill of your parishes and diocese and it not costing the earth.

You need to consider what it is important and urgent for you to do and when you need to do it. And indeed what could be done by someone else.

Your job or better vocation has its pros and cons. You are largely the master of your own time. You need to decide how many hours you are going to do and what you are going to do with them and there is little than anyone else can really do about it. However, you can also expect little help or guidance in this area. It is hard to get right and maybe few of us do.

You might feel hard done by, but remember that few men can have lunch with their wife most days. If you worked in the city and left the house at 6:50am and returned at 7:10pm you would only ever see the kids at the weekend.

It may also be worth reflecting on the possibke "spiritual" causes of under or over work. Tim Chester's The Busy Christian's Guide to Busyness suggests a number of possible underlying issues of busyness and how God might provide an antidote. 

Stephen Cherry's Beyond Busyness: Time Wisdom for Ministry and its exercises may be of interest.

I believe Justin Lewis-Anthony's If You Meet George Herbert on the Road Kill Him: Radically Re-thinking Priestly Ministry suggests adopting a Rule of Life which covers how many mornings, afternoons or evenings a week you are going to work and so on. I'm not sure I could get away with or stick to quite as much time off as I seem to recall he reccomends, but I could be misremembering the details.

It may also be possible to work more efficiently. Getting Things Done may help.