How much time should a pastor spend each week preparing their sermon?

I have heard seminary professors say that you should spend an hour for every minute you preach. But by that logic, a 30-minute sermon would require 30 hours!

So how much time should you spend on sermon prep?

The short answer is: there’s no magic number.

There’s not a set time every pastor should spend on sermon prep because every pastor is different. What works for you and your church may not work for someone else.

• If you are bi-vocational, you have a lot less time to prepare a message every week.
• If you are a church planter, you likely need to focus on a lot more than just your sermon.
• If you are a pastor of a large church, you may have the luxury of more time because you can delegate other ministry responsibilities to your staff.

In an informal study, Thom Rainer found that the majority of pastors spend between 7-18 hours a week working on their sermon. But some pastors spend more time and others less.

Find a weekly sermon prep ritual that works for you.

In my book, Preaching Nuts & Bolts, I explain my 7-step sermon prep process and as well as some tactics to save time through advanced preparation.

If you use my steps, you may try something like this:

WEEKLY PREACHING SCHEDULE

Monday

1. Prayer (5–10 minutes)

You should pray every day, but spend at least 5-10 minutes specifically praying for your message.

2. Study (1–3 hours)

Start by reading the sermon text over and over again. Then do additional research using other resources. A tool like Logos will be super helpful to study more efficiently.

Tuesday

3. Focus (30 minutes – 1 hour)

Break the big idea of the entire passage of Scripture into a single, memorable sentence.

4. Illustrate  (1 hour)

Find stories, pictures, videos, or other elements that add to the message. If you have built an illustration archive, as I teach, you could reasonably do this in less than an hour.

Wednesday

5. Outline (1–2 hours)

Organize all of your best observations and illustrations into a detailed outline or manuscript.

Thursday

6. Edit (1–2 hours)

Look over your outline/manuscript with fresh eyes and make it better.

If you want feedback, consider sending your message to someone after step 5 so you can get their input before you edit.

Saturday Night

7. Practice (1–2 hours)

Rehearse your message, and make final changes as needed.

Total Sermon Prep Time: 6–11 hours

This routine work for you and it may not. Experiment with your schedule.

You may like your work spread out like in this example. You may want to combine the steps into one big day of sermon prep.

You may have more or less time. If so, change the numbers to reflect the time you can afford.

You may need more time to study or less time to outline. Find what works for you.

Bonus Tip: Schedule your sermon prep time as a recurring weekly appointment in your calendar to make it a priority.

DO MORE IN LESS TIME

Here’s the great news: If you follow my advice in the book to get ahead on sermon prep, you can get even more done in less time.

For example, if you follow my suggestion to write two sermons a week, you only need to take the second sermon (written for a future week) to step 5.

If you are having trouble getting ahead, see if you can take an entire week to focus just on getting ahead. Consider having someone cover the message on the weekend or even playing a video to free you up to work on future sermons.

Once you get ahead as far as you would like to be, each week you only need to write one sermon to step 5. Then, pick up the sermon you wrote for the current week and take it through steps 6 and 7.

Also, if you have an annual preaching calendar, you can cut time on some of these steps by already having Scripture selected, an idea of what the bottom line will be, and illustrations that you collect throughout the year.

Using this process, I once wrote three sermons in one 8-hour day.

That may sound crazy—and I don’t recommend it every week—but it is possible.

I planned my messages in advance, so I already had direction and material to work with long before I sat at my desk.

You can also compound study time if you are preaching a multiple week series through a single section or book of the Bible.

What works for you?