As much as one-third to one-half of the churches in many denominations are now being led by bivocational ministers. Virtually every denomination reports the number of bivocational ministers in their churches is increasing. The ones with whom I have spoken believe this trend will continue for the foreseeable future. All of this says that bivocational leadership is going to become even more important to many of our denominations in the near future. The question I have to ask is "What is your denomination doing to support this growing trend?" From my perspective, in most denominations the answer is not much.
Most of my readers know my story. I served as the bivocational pastor of one church for 20 years before moving into judicatory ministry. Even in that role I maintained outside employment as a business owner and author. I have published eight books, most of which focused on bivocational and small church ministry. I have led numerous conferences and workshops on the subject.
As I have met with hundreds of bivocational ministers in various denominations I have heard the same stories. Many of them feel abandoned by their denominations. They feel unappreciated and ignored. The vast majority of denominational and local events are held during the day when they are at work making their attendance impossible. There is little appreciation for the work they do. Denominational resources are developed for the larger churches, and they are expected to adapt it to meet their needs as if smaller churches were just miniature large churches. They feel like second class citizens. Since many of them do not have the right seminary degrees they sometimes find it difficult to be ordained. As a result of their feeling abandoned by their denomination they tend to be not very supportive of the denomination which shows up in their financial support, their failure to attend denominational events and their unwillingness to fill out denominational reports.
Frankly, some of these negative feelings towards our denominations are not valid. Sometimes our sense of isolation is our own doing and not the fault of our denomination or judicatory. During my stint as a pastor our Region had three Executive Ministers. All three came to preach in our small, rural church. When I was asked how I got them to come to our church I simply replied that I invited them.
However, in some cases, these are valid complaints, which takes me back to my original question: what is your denomination doing to support its bivocational ministers and churches? Is there any denomination that has an office or team specifically designed to strengthen bivocational ministry in its churches? I do not know of any. Some state conventions may have some person assigned to the task, but this responsibility is often passed around from one person to another with no permanent office or staff specifically created just to relate to its bivocational ministers.
How much time does your denomination spend planning regular training events specifically for its bivocational leadership and their churches? What is your denomination doing to identify those God is calling to this ministry? If they expect the numbers to increase I would think they would want to find ways to identify the persons who will fill those roles. What is your denomination doing to train and develop bivocational ministers? Many of these persons will never attend seminary, so it's up to the denominations to create some training for them.
Our bivocational ministers and their churches deserve to have their denominations become intentional about serving them, and if the denominations are not going to be intentional about meeting their needs, do not be surprised to find those churches ignoring you even more in the future.
If you are a bivocational minister, and you feel that you are not being well served by your denomination or judicatory, let them know. Send them this post and ask to meet with them as soon as possible to discuss what needs to be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment