Thom Rainer posted the results of an unscientific twitter survey he conducted on the amount of time pastors spend in sermon preparation. Rainer is Southern Baptist, so I would assume the vast majority of respondents are from his tribe. Nonetheless, the results are interesting, including his interpretation of the data. You can find the post BY CLICKING HERE. It would be interesting to see how other evangelical groups, including mainlines, would respond to the same question. Further, it would be interesting to see if the preacher’s style (topical, textual, expositional, et al) would influence the allocation.
For me, an average sermon takes 12-15 hours to prepare. That amount of time is most influenced by pastoral ministry events such as hospital visitation, weddings, and funerals.
