Comments on: Bi-vocational – or – go on staff at a large church: Suddenly bi-vocational ministry doesn’t look so bad?

By: dwilsonfl

dwilsonfl — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:17:03 +0000

Great discussion and lots of help. I'm a full time smaller church pastor always struggling to get resources and staff to help us grow. Been here ten years – first full time ministry job – and if I had it to do over again, I'd have stayed bivo. Now I'm even more convinced that the multi-bivo model can really help in a number of ways. What we need are seminaries that offer dual degrees in teaching, social work, or whatever that would provide stable and benefited employment.

I think I'll probably have to leave here and plant to see this happen. Do you know of any current multi-staff bivo churches? I'd love to talk to some of those involved to see how well they manage it.

When I was bivo, I was in sales and had a lot of flexibility. But those jobs are very few and far between now. So I'm looking at teacher certification or project management. maybe even paramedic.

Anyway, thanks for the help and I'll keep following.

By: Terry Dorsett

Terry Dorsett — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:22:22 +0000

I serve as the Director of Missions for Southern Baptists in Vermont. After 17 years of working with small churches served primarily by bivocational pastors, I have written a new book entitled Developing Leadership Teams in Bivocational Churches. It is published by Crossbooks, a division of Lifeway Christian Resources. I would love for you to share this resource with bivocational pastors in your association. There are so few current resources that have been developed just for them. You can read all about the book and purchase as copy at: http://www.crossbooks.com/BookStore/BookStoreBook... or you can go to www.terrydorsett.com and click on the picture of the book. Hope you find it helpful. Dr. Terry W. Dorsett, Director Green Mountain Baptist Association 30 Jones Brothers Way, Suite B Barre VT 05641 www.vermontbaptist.org

By: Bethel Leaton

Bethel Leaton — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:53:50 +0000

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By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:29:35 +0000

Hi,

I am a pastor of 30 years old and got married about 3 years ago. I helped plant a church about 4 years ago as a bi-vocational minister…being single it wasn’t so bad but being married with a child now and a home it is extremely difficult.

As a single having a 40 hr job + putting another 20-30 hrs into the church isn’t bad. It’s nearly impossible to do that as a married father also with a house to maintain. It strains the marriage and family life as well…

last year i got some funding to go full time and it has made a major difference in my personal life. It’s not so much the sunday planning that takes long – as that responsibility has already been split up between people – it’s the discipleship of new believer and time spent with people answering questions, helping them, etc…

i have learned that while i totally believe in getting everyone invovled – its a process to get new believers to that point of responsibility – and there is always someone somewhere that needs to take ultimate responsibility for things…

Can both be done – yes – but there is a cost to the personal life….something i’m not willing to sacrifice. I would rather not do ministry but have a good family life than have a bad family life and do ministry.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:33:55 +0000

I am way late here, but I love this blog, so I will weigh in on this one. I am currently a bi-vocational church planter. I must say, I hear a lot of talk about bi-vocational ministry from folks are not bi-vocational themselves. This is also true about people who critique the institution, but somewhere in their web of relationships, they are firmly embedded and benefiting from Christian institutions in a financial way. I bring this up because there needs to be some consistency here with folks who are calling for this method but are not living it out themselves. The whole notion that you go to seminary for 6 years, or even 2 or 4 years, amass huge debt, and then go out and work for minimum wage is ridiculous and those who are vying for this set up should take serious thought about what they are asling people to fall into in the name of being missional. Notice it is the folks in the seminaries that want you to come to them, get in debt, and leave with flaming glory of trying out some method that no one else in that institution is living out themselves. I hardly think professors in the seminary who are pastors qualify as bi-vocational either. Lets be real here. It is not apples and apples. Working at McDonalds and working in a seminary are two different worlds. Why not skip seminary, get a 4 year degree, enter the work force and church plant that way. Why go the route of seminary, get in debt, and then position yourself for financial hardship?

I am being a bit harsh and over generalizing here, but I think we have to look at this idea for what it is. Glamorizing the bi-vocational is not the key. I think, as had been stated by David I think, contextualization is the key. Time and resources help mobilize the mission. If bi-vocational is where you find yourself, then live into. But dont seek it out as if it is a higher calling. There is a bit of masochism going on around this discussion I think. As someone who has been bi-vocational for 4 years now, it is no walk in the park.

If anyone with a full time job who sees themselves as missionaries, they are “bi-vocational” are they not? The kink in all of this I think is the seminary peice. Lets talk about wther it is necessary for seminary, then we will be getting to the bottom of this I think.

By: Reclaiming the Mission » 8 Things You Should Notice At a Missional Sunday Gathering

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:27:05 +0000

[...] one dominant preacher. Leadership will be diffused. This pushes leadership outward. Read about it here. There will be a high percentage of people involved in various forms of [...]

By: Bill an anxious Anglican

Bill an anxious Anglican — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:49:29 +0000

Wonderful post. Sorry I am late to the conversation, but I was struck by something you wrote:

The gathering on Sunday instead must become an organic, living, liturgically driven encounter with the living God and His mission sending us outward. It must become something done out of the regular rythms of our lives. This kind of gathering takes less work because the ’slick’ factor is off the table.

I think this point needs to be reinforced, particularly in folks coming at this question from a mega-church/program church environment: a liturgically-driven encounter with the living God that takes the “slick” factor off the table. Part of the objection to bi-vo pastors seems to be that they cannot possibly do all that gets done in a “normal” (esp program-level) church. My reply is that is a good thing – not every church has to look like Saddleback et al. Why not just use a historically validated liturgy like Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, use a lectionary to guide your readings, limit your sermon to a homily, and just use the time together to worship God rather than wrestle with “program envy”?

By: Reclaiming the Mission » Tim Keller’s “Country Parson”: A Neo-Anabaptist Missional Perspective

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:31:27 +0000

[...] who live bi-vocationally so as to spend time and money in the neighborhood context (see this post here). I recommend these small urban/suburban dying congregations as places for “new” ministry [...]

By: Linkworthy – 10/18/09 | MattCleaver.com

Linkworthy – 10/18/09 | MattCleaver.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:03:01 +0000

[...] Are we getting to the point when we need to choose bi-vocational ministry over large church ministry? [...]

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:00:30 +0000

I’m part of a group of four families that have relocated over the course of the past 18 months and are now laying the foundation for a new missional community. Our team includes three bi-vocational pastors (although none of us are actually paid by the church).

In addition to the advantages that you mentioned, David, we’ve noticed several other advantages to having a plurality of bi-vocational pastors. To name a few:

1. Pastoral ministry is shared so that it is not dependent on the charismatic gifts of a single leader. No superstars required.

2. As a team, we have greater flexibility, depth, and strength than any of us would have independently.

3. It is a financially responsible way of planting a church without investing huge sums of money or going into debt.

4. It reduces the pressure to grow a crowd quickly so that we can go “self-supporting.” We’ve paid our own bills from the beginning.

5. It requires us to equip and empower others to do ministry rather than doing it all ourselves.

6. It reminds us that planting a church is not dependent on flurries of energy and activity on our part, but on the movement of God.

We’ve also noticed that people struggle to comprehend it when we tell them there is no senior pastor, only a team of pastors. So that’s fun.

As far as anti-intellectualism, we have two seminary grads and a Bible College grad among us, so I don’t think we’re cheating anyone in that department. We were drawn to the opportunity to work together as a highly committed team to develop a missional community.

We believe there will be others who will do the same, so we look forward to launching other missional communities in the future.