Last week I had a great meeting with an individual who has served as a bivocational pastor of a larger church. He has currently stepped aside from pastoral ministry but is quite interested in finding ways to help develop bivocational pastors in his denomination. Although he lives several states away, he was in my area on business and wanted to meet me and discuss ways to provide training for those bivocational ministers who lack formal ministerial training.
One of his frustrations is that when training events are offered to bivocational ministers very few attend. Having been a bivocational pastor he understands the time constraints but still does not understand why more do not take advantage of the training opportunities provided them. I assured him it is a common problem across denominations, and no one has found a solution to it.
Part of the problem, I explained to him, is that many of us are used to being isolated in our ministries. As a bivocational pastor I seldom attended ministerial meetings. They were often held at times when I was at work, and even when they weren't I didn't feel I fit in with the fully-funded ministers who would be there. Their world was much different than mine, or at least that's what I thought at the time. I later learned that wasn't always true.
Some of that isolation is a learned response. For many, their denominations hardly know they exist. One bivocational minister I was coaching was seeking a new place to serve. I asked if he had talked to his judicatory leader about his interest in moving. He said he had been in his current church for five years, and his judicatory minister would not know him if he walked in his office. He had never met the man nor spoken to him. Unfortunately, that is not an unusual situation. When pastors do not believe they receive much support from their denominational leaders they are not likely to be interested in attending the denominational events either.
Because of my twenty years as a bivocational pastor, when I became a judicatory leader I was well received by the bivocational ministers in the area I served. They often attended events I hosted because "I was one of them." Once several bivocational ministers traveled nine hours one way to attend a seminar I led in Canada. I was astonished that anyone would make that commitment to attend my seminar. I was even more amazed the next year when I was invited to lead the same seminar in another province in Canada, and they showed up again.
Bivocational ministers need to attend such events, not just for the learning that is available, but for the fellowship and the relationships that can develop when we are with other like-minded people. Isolation is not a healthy thing. It can lead to great discouragement and even depression. When we isolate ourselves from others it allows the devil to begin speaking lies into our minds making us believe we are all alone. We can begin to feel like Elijah, that we alone are left doing the Lord's work.
Find one or two training events that seem to speak to your needs this year and attend them. Go to a local ministerial meeting or your denominational events. If nothing else, call some other bivocational ministers in your area and plan a time to get together. Just don't isolate yourself.
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