The small church pastor who struggles with spiritual disciplines is not usually struggling because of a lack of desire. They are struggling because of a lack of structure. When your schedule is unpredictable, your time is fragmented, and your energy is divided between two jobs and a congregation, willpower alone will not sustain a consistent devotional life.

Phil Tuttle, writing for RHMA, identifies this clearly: “Struggling with spiritual disciplines? The issue may not be busyness, but structure, and a misplaced focus on ministry over intimacy.” The pastor who is so focused on doing ministry that they neglect their own relationship with God is building on sand. (Source: rhma.org)

The Problem With Willpower-Based Approaches

Most advice about spiritual disciplines assumes that the primary obstacle is motivation. If you just wanted it badly enough, you would make time for it. This framing is both unhelpful and inaccurate.

Research on habit formation consistently shows that willpower is a limited resource that depletes with use. A pastor who is making dozens of decisions and managing multiple responsibilities every day has less willpower available for spiritual disciplines by the end of the day than they did at the beginning. This is not a character flaw. It is how human beings work.

The solution is not more willpower. It is better structure, systems that make spiritual disciplines happen automatically, without requiring a fresh act of will every time.

Building Structure for Spiritual Disciplines

Anchor to Existing Habits

The most reliable way to establish a new habit is to attach it to an existing one. If you already make coffee every morning, attach your Bible reading to that. If you already have a commute, attach prayer to that. If you already eat lunch alone, attach a brief devotional reading to that.

The goal is to make the spiritual discipline the natural next step after something you already do reliably, rather than a separate act of will that competes with everything else on your schedule.

Protect One Non-Negotiable Time

Rather than trying to maintain a complex spiritual disciplines schedule, identify one time that is non-negotiable, a specific time each day that belongs to your relationship with God, not to ministry. This might be 20 minutes in the morning before anyone else is awake, or 15 minutes at lunch, or a brief time before bed.

The length matters less than the consistency. A pastor who spends 15 minutes with God every day is in a better position than one who spends two hours once a week.

Separate Personal Bible Reading from Sermon Prep

One of the most common mistakes bi-vocational pastors make is allowing sermon preparation to crowd out personal Bible reading. When every encounter with Scripture is in service of a sermon, the pastor’s own soul goes unfed.

Protect time for reading Scripture as a disciple, not as a preacher. Read books of the Bible that you are not currently preaching through. Read slowly. Read for your own soul, not for content.

Use the Gaps

The bi-vocational pastor’s day is full of small gaps, the commute, the lunch break, the few minutes before a meeting. These gaps can be used for brief prayer, for listening to Scripture or a devotional podcast, or for a few minutes of reflection.

This is not a substitute for dedicated devotional time. But it keeps the spiritual dimension of your life present throughout the day rather than confined to a single block.

When the Structure Breaks Down

There will be weeks when the structure breaks down, when a pastoral crisis, a work emergency, or a family need disrupts everything. The response to these weeks is not guilt. It is a fresh start.

The pastor who responds to a disrupted week by returning to their structure the following week is practicing resilience. The pastor who responds with guilt and self-condemnation is practicing something that will eventually make them want to abandon the structure entirely.

Related Resources

• Bi-Vocational Ministry Hub
• Spiritual Survival and Soul Care
• Free Bi-Vocational Pastor Toolkit
• RHMA Resource Library