There were some interesting responses to an article posted a couple of days ago about the need to identify bivocational ministers for the growing numbers of churches who need them. These responses came to my Facebook page so you may not have seen them. One of the comments addressed the problem that many persons entering bivocational ministry lack any kind of training for the ministry.
I agreed with the individual who made the comment and said that one of the biggest problems I encountered as a judicatory minister was the small church who would call the first person as their pastor who came down the road wearing a cross around his neck. These churches could not stand the idea that they did not have a pastor and would call the first person who showed any interest in serving in that position regardless of whether he was qualified and had any type of ministerial training. When the inevitable train wreck occurred they wanted me to somehow fix it.
For those who do not know my story I need to share some important aspects of my beginning as a bivocational minister. I began my ministry with no experience and no education beyond high school. I had served as a deacon in our church, a Sunday school teacher and had done some supply preaching, but I had zero training as a minister.
To make things even worse, the search committee of the church that called me did not ask me a single question of what I believed or my philosophy of ministry. They were just glad to find someone willing to serve as their pastor. This is the very scenario I am saying is ripe for disaster. Fortunately, in our case the disaster did not happen. After going to that church I did enroll in a Bible school and received some excellent training. I did this while pastoring the church and working a full-time job in a factory.
Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to pursue the education I did. In fact, I have met some bivocational ministers who ridiculed such education. These are often the same ones who leave train wrecks everywhere they go.
As we focus on identifying persons God might be calling to bivocational ministry we also need to identify ways to train them if they have not attended seminary. The Region from which I retired developed a program called the Church Leadership Institute which, although originally designed to train lay leaders, also became a great training opportunity for many of our bivocational ministers. It was never designed to take the place of seminary, but it offered much more training than I had when I began my ministry.
Many denominations and judicatories have such training opportunities, but the challenge is to get their bivocational ministers to take advantage of them. As stated above, some do not see the value in ministerial education. Some argue their schedule makes it impossible to attend the classes. Some have attempted the programs available to them and found the material offered did not meet their needs. For some, it's a problem of finances.
There may be many legitimate reasons why a bivocational minister doesn't take advantage of the training opportunities offered. We must find ways to overcome everyone of them if we want qualified persons leading our smaller churches. To me, this isn't something we need to do if we can find the time or the money. We must find the time and money to offer quality training to the folks who are going to be leading our smaller churches. It is imperative to do so if we want our smaller churches to be healthy places of ministry.
If we have a quality program, and if we have tried to remove as many obstacles as possible that prevent people from enrolling in the program, then we need to do everything in our power to encourage them to do so. I believe the United Methodist Church requires their bivocational ministers to complete the training they offer before they will assign them to a church. At least, this is what I was told by a DS several years ago. For those of us in denominations that do not place pastors we can still let our small churches and potential bivocational pastors know that we expect them to take advantage of the training opportunities we offer them. If they refuse, we should simply also refuse to assist them in further placement needs they might have.
More about this last comment tomorrow.
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