Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1

Bivocational Ministry Is Good for the Church

Chapter 2

Listening to Those Involved

Chapter 3

Wisdom for Congregations

Chapter 4

Wisdom for Ministers

Chapter 5

Money Matters: Finances and Supporting the Ministry

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

About the Author

Copyright ©2024 Kristen Plinke Bentley

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For my parents, Barbara A. Plinke

and

John F. Fritz Plinke

The publication of Bivocational Ministry is supported in part by a gift from Higher Education & Leadership Ministries (HELM) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). HELM recognizes congregational leadership takes many forms, including those who see ministry as a calling that lives alongside other employment in their lives. As a proud supporter of Bivocational Ministry, HELM is able to expand and continue its work of bringing students and resources together. To learn more about HELM and its mission, visit helmdisciples.org.

Acknowledgements

This book would not exist without the many people who have spoken with me about their experiences with bivocational ministry—either as ministers or church members. Many of them were eager to speak of their experiences being bivocational because they want to help others know more about a model of ministry that they have found valuable to them and their congregations. I am indebted to them for their willingness to talk with me about their personal experiences in ministry as well as their love for the congregations where they lead and worship.

Lilly Endowment Inc. has provided support for the bivocational ministry research at Lexington Theological Seminary since 2014. Their support included generous grant funding as well as experienced guidance through the coordination programs for their Economic Challenges Facing Future Ministers Initiative and Thriving in Ministry Initiative. This support and guidance provided many opportunities for engagement with theological educators, clergy, and laity interested in bivocational ministry and the economic challenges faced by clergy and congregations in North America.

Appreciation is due to many people who have supported the project of learning about bivocational ministry, including colleagues and students at Lexington Theological Seminary, where I have been privileged to work since 2014. Countless interactions have helped me learn about bivocational ministry and contributed to what is contained in the pages of this book. As partners in the LTS research project since its inception, the Christian Church in Kentucky provided significant support. I am grateful for those who have served as regional minister during this time, Greg Alexander, Dean Phelps and Donald K. Gillett, II, as well as for Lon Oliver and Rachel Nance Woehler, who both bring deep interest and experience in supporting bivocational ministers and the congregations they serve. I also am grateful for those who have provided helpful support in the process writing of this book. In May 2023 I joined the Writing Table program hosted by Eileen Campbell-Reed, and my participation in those weekday sessions, as well as coaching and advice from her, have helped strengthen my writing habits and skills. In addition, I am grateful to Sharyn Dowd and Carol Ruthven for their friendship and their willingness to provide feedback on what I have written and to engage in sustained conversation around ministry and the model of bivocational ministry. More than anyone else, I am grateful to Charisse L. Gillett, the president of LTS, for her role in hiring me to work at LTS on this research project and for relentlessly encouraging me to share what I was learning wherever I could, including writing this book.

I’m always grateful for my family members, their encourage­ment, and the many ways they have filled my life with love and adventure. I am grateful to my daughter, Kathryn Bentley Fetter, for her insights and feedback about early drafts of sections of this book. Most of all, I appreciate my husband, Perry Bentley, for his encouragement to get it done and for sharing insights from his expertise in accounting and law in connection with congregational ministry. Such insights from him have been helpful throughout my years of ministry, and their influence is seen in the content of chapter 5.

Great thanks go to the leadership and staff of Chalice Press for making this book possible. I especially appreciate the editorial staff and Brad Lyons, who helped cast a vision for the shape this book could take.

INTRODUCTION

Rev. Roberta Brown puts the car key in the ignition then sits back and takes a deep breath. Before driving away from the graveside, she looks down at the handwriting in the notebook on her lap—the words she has just prayed. She hopes they helped Gary Hill’s bereaved family. She looks out the window and notices that the family has already gone, that only the cemetery workers are left, re-filling the grave with earth.

Roberta is tired. Over the past few days she has spent hours in the hospital, met with the family to talk about the funeral, and grieved on her own when she was back home. Both his family and the congregation will miss Elder Gary Hill. He had been a lifelong servant of the church. That he was really gone is hard for her to imagine; recalling his habit of pulling his pencil and his to do list out of his shirt pocket, she whispers, Well done, good and faithful servant.

As Roberta prepares to leave the cemetery, the next few days loom in her mind. Her boss has been understanding and has given her time off from her other job for this funeral. But bright and early tomorrow morning she will hit the highway for a long-planned business trip. Mentally she ticks off what she needs to do next: pack her suitcase, review materials for the upcoming business meetings, and go over childcare plans with her mother for while she is gone. Startled to remember she’ll be back home only late on Saturday afternoon, she wonders, How in the world will I find time to finish the work on Sunday’s sermon?

Roberta Brown is one of thousands of ministers across the United States who pastor a congregation while also employed outside the church. Such bivocational ministry has long been practiced in the United States among Protestant churches, especially in rural areas and in African American congregations, as well as in other racial and ethnic communities and among immigrant and refugee communities. Furthermore, bivocational ministry remains a central strategy for planting new churches.

Since the economic downturn in 2008, increasing attention has focused on bivocational ministry as a viable financial strategy to support congregational ministry. Many churches cannot afford full compensation and benefits to support a minister. And many ministers cannot support themselves or their households on what congregations can afford to pay them. They need supplemental income. In the bivocational ministry model, ministers earn that supplemental income by working outside the church; this approach contributes to financial stability for both the ministers and the churches they serve.

How many ministers in the U.S. pastor while employed outside their congregations is unclear. One recent national survey estimated that one-third of congregations in the U.S. have lead ministers who also hold other employment.¹ In addition to those lead ministers, others are serving congregations in roles such as associate minister, youth minister, or music minister. Even without a definitive count, bivocational ministry is clearly a significant part of the current ministerial landscape. This model of ministry provides crucial help at a time when many congregations face economic challenges.

As a strategy for financial support for Christian ministry and mission, it has been around for millennia, with roots extending to the New Testament and the earliest days of the church. According to Acts 18:3, the apostle Paul supported himself as a tentmaker or leatherworker while he ministered in Corinth. Acts 20:34 quotes him as stating that he worked with his own hands to support himself and his coworkers. Paul confirmed this practice himself when he wrote to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 9:3–18), and he referred again to a practice of supporting himself and others when ministering at Thessalonica (1 Thess. 2:9) and at Ephesus (1 Cor. 4:12).

What Do We Mean by Bivocational Ministry?

I first encountered the term bivocational when I was a pastor of a small church. Though not bivocational myself at the time, I knew of ministers who were. I was serving in a church and was being paid for about twenty hours of work each week. I neither needed to get another job (because I had a working spouse who provided enough income—including health insurance— for our household), nor did I want another job (because we had school-aged children at home and my hands were full). I knew other ministers in the area who were pastoring while teaching or pastoring while running a farm or family business.

I became more familiar with the term in 2013 when Lexington Theological Seminary (LTS), my alma mater, invited me to lead a grant project that Lilly Endowment Inc. funded as part of its Economic Challenges Facing Future Ministers Initiative. The project’s goal was to address problems associated with mounting educational debt among people preparing for ministry within the Christian