Most churches are not asking pastors to do more—they are asking them to do the impossible.
The modern pastoral job description would require several full-time positions in any other organization.
William (Bill) Harrison is president of Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, former chair of the Saskatoon Theological Union Common Faculty, and the author of Leadership in a Shrinking Church. While I’d recommend his book for pastors and church leaders more broadly, Harrison clearly names dynamics of pastoral leadership that are often assumed without being explicitly named.
Specifically, he describes how the demands of the pastoral role have continued to expand over time, even going back hundreds of years. He writes:
“We have accumulated, in the lives of most [pastors] the following priorities: eucharistic leadership, building construction and maintenance, preaching and teaching, therapeutic level pastoral care, trained management, and numbers oriented mission…
We have placed very high expectations on the shoulders of presbyters. At the same time, we commonly offer small salaries and an assumption of mobility that tests personal relationships and family ties. This would be tough even in a growing church.” (p. 82)
How we got here
Notice what Harrison points out. Pastoral leadership began as Eucharistic leadership—word and sacrament.
With the construction of church buildings, even beginning in the Middle Ages, came responsibility for construction and maintenance. More recently, the pastor is expected to function as a counselor, corporate executive, and—since the COVID-19 pandemic—a digital outreach specialist.
These are, in themselves, full-time roles in larger organizations.
Yet within a church setting, a pastor is often expected—sometimes unwittingly—to fulfill all of them.
This is not a failure of effort. It is a failure of structure.
Doing less with less
So what do we do instead?
Harrison suggests that “there are some things that can be done about this situation.” First, he argues, churches must clarify what church leadership is about today.
At minimum, this means being explicit about what a church expects from its pastor—and what can reasonably be completed within the scope of pay and time.
“The second,” Harrison says, “is to foster a team that can pick up necessary work that clergy need to drop in order to do their primary work.”
“The third,” and likely the most underrated, “is to let go of tasks that do not contribute sufficiently to the work that needs to be done” (p. 82).
Harrison summarizes this posture as doing less with less.
Why this matters now
One of the recurring conversations in Substack Seminary is the decline of institutional Christianity. While there are many reasons to grieve this reality, there is also an opportunity embedded within it.
Decline creates permission to rewrite expectations.
Especially expectations around the role of the pastor or clergyperson.
This kind of work—naming misaligned expectations, reclaiming sustainable leadership, and reimagining ministry for a smaller, leaner church—is exactly what Substack Seminary exists to do.
Substack Seminary is not about doing church better by working harder. It’s about learning how to lead faithfully within real limits.
If you’re a pastor, church leader, or thoughtful practitioner navigating ministry with fewer resources and greater complexity, this is the conversation you belong in.
Join us.
This nails something so many church leaders feel but cant articulate. The reframe from 'doing more with less' to 'doing less with less' is exactly the permission structure pastors need but rarely get. Ive seen burnout happen when congregations expect their pastor to be therapist, CEO, and spiritual guide simultaneously. Your point about decline creating permission to rewrite expectations is powerful, dunno why more denominations arent embracing this kind of honest reckoning.
Excellent! We need to chance our expectation indeed. However, as a life long Episcopalian, I note how much many of our clergy have added to the Eucharist expectation of word and sacraments with expectations of being political and cultural change agents and gender diversity advocates. It may not be managing a building but it is still adding stress to our work. And it is contributing to the less you so accurately point out.