4000 words=NZD$17,000

Dear Pastors

That’s how much a year’s worth of sermons cost on average for every church in NZ. I don’t know if you are surprised when you read that or even shocked or whether you think ‘wow, that’s such good value for money’.

Let me detail this:-

• On average people speak about 130 words a minute. So for a 30 minute sermon we are talking about 3,900 words. Let’s round it up to 4000 words for easy reckoning.
• Sermon preparation time. I am working on a 10-12 hr a week average that you and most pastors spend in ‘hands on’¹ sermon preparation. So that’s 25-30% of your working week of 40 hours a week. Let’s assume that you preach 40-44 times a year including special occasions. The other Sunday’s are special events, guest preachers, holidays etc. So on that basis I have estimated that about 25% (10 hours) of a pastors time each week on average is taken up in sermon preparation.
• The batting average of salary’s and direct expenses for pastors in NZ is about $70,000.
• So 25% (4000 words) of $70,000 = $17,000.00 per year.
• On a national scale that looks around $42,500,000. [Let’s say 2500 churches x $17k = $42.5m each and every year].
• And finally, on a national scale the number of words spoken in sermons (on behalf of God) every week is 4000 words per sermon x 2500 churches = 10,000,000. Yes you saw that right 10 million each and every week.

So this raises a few questions for me…..just a few.

• How effective are all these words we speak every week? Is the Kingdom of God being advanced every 4000 words? Are our people more in love with God and more committed to following Jesus after we have spoken our 4000 words? Do they want to come back next week to hear more? Is spiritual formation really happening as a result of our preaching/teaching every week?
• For those amongst us for whom the preaching and teaching task is hard work and deep down we know we aren’t that good at it, is there a better way to ‘skin this cat’. For example have most of the preaching done by a neighbouring pastor who is a good preacher either by direct ‘live feed’ or DVD/USB one week later. What about going on-line regularly and watching John Ortberg or Andy Stanley or……………These days you can have world class preaching beamed right into your auditorium for a fraction of this cost².
• Could the $17,000 per year be spent differently so that our people are still fed but the money is used for top class children’s and/or youth ministry or even investing more in ‘live’ music and singing together not to say anything about creative arts or helping the poor?
  And I could go on.

Now I am not a mind reader nor do I have a word of knowledge right now but my guess is that some of you reading this are saying this is rubbish. How can anyone in their right mind analyse and quantify this holy thing we call sermons and suggest that this spiritual activity called preaching God’s word be done differently to the way we have always done it? You can’t put a price on God’s work. I get that objection and I have heard it a lot but I beg to differ. And further I have a major concern underneath all this.

I think we all know there is a problem in the pew. Growing levels of boredom and apathy amongst Christians, consumeristic Christianity has become our raison d’etre it seems and busyness our new mantra. It seems to me that all our preaching is not producing ‘on fire’ Christians who really believe that Jesus is the answer for the world today and therefore want to change the world. And I know that is a generalisation! But hopefully some food for thought none the less.

Blessings

Alan

¹ By ‘hands on’ I mean actual study, research, writing, preparing power points, prayer etc. Thinking time happens for preachers all the time. It’s an occupational hazard!

² Take the church in South Korea. They have been using video based preaching since the 1980’s. I preached at a 15,000 member church in 2003 and most of that congregation watch the sermon by the Senior Pastor on the big screen every week. The rule of thumb was the same sermon spoken about 8 times every Sunday in 2 different locations but ‘live’ only twice maybe 3 times. Should have seen the size of the studio at the broadcast site. Mind boggling to me at that time. Since then I have seen a few others and I continue to be impressed at the innovation and the ‘matter of fact’ attitude these churches have adopted toward the use of technology at church.

Mental Health and the Church. These one-day conferences ARE going ahead. Our theme this year is ‘childhood and teenage anxiety’. Our keynote speakers are Dr Andrew Darby (Psychiatrist) and Kathryn Berkett (Educational Psychologist). We will be in Auckland on 2nd August, Hamilton on 7th August, and Wellington on 9th August. All details and registration facility will be on our website very soon.

Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.