The father of a friend of Youngest Daughter burned out as a Pentecostal pastor. Everybody in the family had some role--the church was getting a lot of mileage out of hiring a single person...
So we argued use cases at supper. We didn't come to a conclusion, but I asserted, on the basis of observing how much time Better Half spends keeping up with friends, that 2 hours a month of interaction would seem the right order of magnitude for a pastor to be able to effectively guide and encourage one of his flock. If this is a full-time task, then we're talking 160 hours a month or 80 people; maybe less if you include travel time and other things. If this is part-time because the person has a full-time job already, we're talking about maybe 25. Tops.
The "pastor" of a really big church has no possible way of becoming friends in more than a superficial sense with most of the members--he's a preacher or administrator or a "bishop." (I used that word at the informational meeting about our church's proposed remote site--got a gratifying deer-in-the-headlights look from the "administrative pastor.")
Our church is trying to fill in the gap here with "small groups," but AFAICT they're not designing them as pastoral bodies. Small groups get freighted with too many expectations--they're also expected to be teaching, outreach, and fellowship. A good teacher isn't necessarily a good pastor. Some churches use deacons for this; and if you select and train them well that should work.
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