{"id":32539,"date":"2022-09-10T16:13:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/second-shift-thriving-in-bivocational-ministry\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:13:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:13:31","slug":"second-shift-thriving-in-bivocational-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/second-shift-thriving-in-bivocational-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Shift: Thriving in Bivocational Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Gary Bistram\/Genesis Photos<\/div>\n

By Bob Smietana<\/em><\/p>\n

A few months ago, Jim Black found himself in a familiar spot. Black was associate pastor of a small church in Minnesota that had hit a rough patch. The senior pastor had resigned and money was tight.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t enough to pay the bills, including Black\u2019s salary, and the congregation feared the church would have to shut down.<\/p>\n

Black told them to have faith and assured them things would work out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them, \u2018You are going to see God provide for us,\u2019\u201d he says, during a break from painting a barn in rural Minnesota. \u201cThen I went home and wondered, Why did I say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, Black, who is 57, grabbed a paintbrush and got to work. So far, he\u2019s picked up nine jobs in the area, with hopes of more to come.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

When he\u2019s not painting, Black is helping restart the church, Catalyst Covenant Church, in Alexandria, Minnesota, with about 40 people. He\u2019s serving as a bivocational pastor.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod opened up the doors,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Black is an old pro at bivocational ministry, having held a second job for most of his three decades in ministry. He\u2019s part of a growing trend of pastors whose churches can\u2019t afford\u2014or have chosen not to have\u2014a fully supported pastor on staff.<\/p>\n

These days, megachurch pastors get most of the headlines. They write books on church leadership, speak at conferences, and shape the way many churches operate.<\/p>\n

But bivocational pastors\u2014such as real estate brokers, information technology professionals, house painters, teachers, and lawyers who work both in the church and in the secular world\u2014outnumber those big names.<\/p>\n

And their numbers are likely to grow in the future.<\/p>\n

Fewer than two-thirds (62.2 percent) of churches in the United States have a full-time pastor, according to the 2015 Faith Communities Today survey. That\u2019s down from 71.4 percent in 2010.<\/p>\n

Median Sunday attendance dropped from 105 people to 80 during the same time, and the median annual budget fell from $150,000 to $125,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of churches can\u2019t afford to take care of their pastor,\u201d says Ray Gilder of the Nashville-based Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network.<\/p>\n

In those churches, the pastor often has two options\u2014live on a very small salary or take a second job.<\/p>\n

Getting a job is often preferable, says Gilder. He suggests aspiring young pastors\u2014and those already in the pulpit\u2014develop marketable skills for the secular marketplace. That might mean putting a college major to use or applying skills developed in the church\u2014such as counseling, organizing people, or raising money\u2014to work in the outside world.<\/p>\n

In some cases, it might mean picking up a paintbrush and getting to work.<\/p>\n

Find the right \u2018second\u2019 job<\/p>\n

One of the biggest challenges bivocational pastors face is finding the right day job. For Black, at least, finding a second job was relatively simple.<\/p>\n

\u201cPainting is what I know,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Black learned painting from his dad, a schoolteacher who ran a painting business during the summer. He started working at age 5 and has painted ever since.<\/p>\n

Painting houses allowed him to work his way through seminary and support himself as a pastor. He prefers to work with paintbrushes and rollers, as opposed to spray painting, because he believes the finished job looks better. People hire Black because they trust him to get the job done right.<\/p>\n

Working by hand also gives him time to talk to his customers. Those relationships often endure, long after the job is done. In that way, ministry and painting go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cBivocational ministry is not about the money,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the mission you are on and finding a way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, bivocational pastors have to be careful to choose the right second job, says Chris DeBlaay, pastor of the Branch church, a 10-year-old congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take a job that\u2019s a bad fit for your ministry, he says\u2014one that pays poorly or takes up all a pastor\u2019s time and energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to choose something that\u2019s not going to drain you,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

DeBlaay first discovered bivocational ministry about 10 years ago, when he and a friend were thinking about planting the Branch. They wanted the church to be sustainable and didn\u2019t want to spend years planting the church only to burn out or see the Branch fail for lack of finances.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, he\u2019s glad to be a bivocational pastor.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me\u2014and I think for our church\u2014it still makes a lot of sense,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Still, being bivocational wasn\u2019t always easy. DeBlaay left a fully supported job at another church to plant the Branch. And it took him a bit of time to find the right second job.<\/p>\n

DeBlaay, who studied health science in college, began working at a corporate wellness company about the time the Branch launched. The job was fortuitous\u2014DeBlaay\u2019s wife worked at the company and introduced him to some colleagues, which eventually led to a job offer.<\/p>\n

That first job, however, meant he was often on-site with his company\u2019s clients, setting up programs and running seminars. He enjoyed the work, but it left him drained at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time I got to church stuff, I had so little left to give, because I was using all my skills, talents, and intellectual energy at work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He eventually switched to a job that wasn\u2019t hands-on with clients and left him a little more time to breathe.<\/p>\n

Be willing to share responsibility <\/p>\n

Having a bivocational pastor means congregation members need to take leadership roles. At the Branch, everyone has to be all in to make the church work, says DeBlaay.<\/p>\n

Being bivocational means everyone in the church is in the same boat, says Black.<\/p>\n

When he asks church members to handle a task at church, he knows the toll it can take.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just as tired as they are,\u201d he says. \u201cI know I have to depend on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randy Singer agrees.<\/p>\n

Singer, a lawyer by trade, has been a bivocational pastor at Trinity Church in Virginia Beach the past nine years. He also runs a law firm and writes novels on the side.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
See also  3 Practical Steps for Reaching the Mission Field in Your Neighborhood<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The church could afford to pay him full time, but Singer isn\u2019t interested. He believes bivocational ministry helps bridge the gap between professional staff and people in the pews.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing bivocational sends the message that we need all hands on deck,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Having a secular job also keeps him from being trapped in a church bubble, where his primary social contacts are with fellow Christians. Being in the courtroom and working at his law firm keeps him in touch with the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am no less a minister of the gospel when I\u2019m at my law firm than when I\u2019m at the church,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m on mission just as much at one place as I am at the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer believes bivocational pastors need to share leadership in order to be successful. At times, he says, pastors are afraid to give lay leaders control over essential parts of the ministry.<\/p>\n

His advice for bivocational pastors: Delegate as much as you can. Find and develop leaders who can run ministries at the church, and let them do their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to be a control freak and be a bivocational pastor,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Gary Mitchell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Chataignier, Louisiana, often tells young pastors to befriend an older church member, who can look out for them. Mitchell, a longtime bivocational pastor and consultant for small churches, learned that lesson early.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is building relationships with church members,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you can\u2019t build relationships, you\u2019re not going to last long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Use your time wisely<\/p>\n

Another key to bivocational ministry is setting clear expectations for both pastor and church. The first step is determining which tasks the pastor needs to do and which responsibilities lay people can take care of.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the church need me 40 or 50 hours a week?\u201d asks A.J. Jones, pastor of City of Hope Covenant Church, a 5-year-old multicultural church plant in Bolingbrook, Illinois.<\/p>\n

For Jones, a longtime IT professional who now runs a real estate business, bivocational ministry is part necessity and part design.<\/p>\n

The church has limited financial resources, and he\u2019d rather see money go into outreach ministry than salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing bivocational allowed me to make enough outside of the church that I was able to support my family. It also blessed the church because I wasn\u2019t drawing a salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a win-win, says Jones.<\/p>\n

Along the way, he\u2019s discovered some tricks of the trade to make the most of his time. Among them: Don\u2019t write your sermon by yourself.<\/p>\n

On Monday nights, Jones meets with about a dozen pastors for Bible study and sermon preparation. They all preach from the same text and do background research as a team.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a technique borrowed from pastors of larger churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the collective knowledge of 12 teaching pastors in a room,\u201d he says. \u201cWithin two hours of study, we do what would take me 10 hours on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t see himself as any less of a pastor than those who are paid full time at their churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI care for the people of my church\u2014I am very much involved,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t just show up on Sundays to preach.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Chris DeBlaay, being bivocational means focusing on the things he does best. That\u2019s a luxury fully supported pastors don\u2019t always have.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a full-time pastor, you\u2019re going to have to do things you either don\u2019t like or are not good at,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re getting paid, and someone has to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Singer, the central tasks for a bivocational pastor are preaching and pastoral care. He preaches about two-thirds of the Sunday services at Trinity and spends the rest of his pastoral time doing weddings, funerals, and hospital visits. He entrusts staffers with administration and running other ministries.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s become ruthless in asking himself about every task\u2014even answering emails\u2014Do I have time for this?<\/p>\n

\u201cTime is my most valuable commodity,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to be able to live with a low level of frustration that you can\u2019t get everything done.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Finny Kuruvilla, being bivocational means simplifying his life. He doesn\u2019t have a television, a Facebook account, or other social media.<\/p>\n

Still, his life is full, with six kids, a busy job as chief investment officer for an investment firm based in Boston, and his responsibilities as a church planter. He also teaches New Testament Greek and apologetics to college students on the weekends.<\/p>\n

His advice for bivocational pastors: Don\u2019t waste time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you cut away the extras, there is time,\u201d he says. \u201cI think a lot of people will look back and regret how much time they wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuruvilla has also learned to find joy in his work as a pastor. He loves studying and preaching, finding it refreshes his soul rather than draining him.<\/p>\n

Bivocational ministry values both the calling to a vocation and to pastoral ministry. But balancing the two requires commitment and reliance on God.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lesson Jim Black learned while in seminary. Feeling worn out from balancing his studies with his work as a painter, he went to see one of his teachers, a now-retired theology professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy does God make me do this?\u201d Black asked.<\/p>\n

The professor sat quietly for a minute and then gave him some advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cPray the paint strokes,\u201d he told Black.<\/p>\n

That advice has stuck with Black, turning his secular work into a time that nourishes his soul.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I paint, I have time to think and pray,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a really sweet time.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Bob Smietana<\/h2>\n

@bobsmietana<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Bob is the former senior writer for Lifeway Research. In September 2018, he joined Religion News Service, where he currently serves as a national writer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n