No blog post can address all the problems and challenges faced by bivocational ministers. However, I do want to address one issue that two bivocational ministers talked to me about last week. The first minister called me from Missouri to talk about a problem he was having in his church. The other met me at a coffee shop in my community while he and his wife visited here over the weekend. The issue was the lack of discipleship in their churches.
What was interesting to me was that both were from different denominations. One was serving in his first church while the other was a more seasoned pastor. Yet, they were dealing with the same issue. The coffee shop conversation covered more than just the discipleship issue, but it was one of the topics we addressed.
How does a bivocational minister disciple people in his or her church in addition to all the other responsibilities he or she has? It is a challenge, but it is one we must meet. The Great Commission includes both evangelism and discipleship, and we must not ignore either one.
It is also a task that is very difficult because many Christians do not want to be discipled. They want to be saved and involved in the life of the church, but they are not interested in being discipled. Sunday morning worship is enough for these individuals, and that is not enough to disciple anyone.
What I told the individuals who talked to me last week about this issue is the same thing I've told countless pastors in conferences I've led around the US and Canada. You have to ride the horses that want to run. Whipping a dead horse won't make it go any faster, and trying to disciple someone who doesn't want to be discipled won't work. You may only have a handful in your church that want to grow deeper in their relationship with God, and these are the folks you need to invest your time in. You love everyone; you pastor everyone, but you invest yourself in those who want to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Doing this might bring you grief. You will be accused of having favorites in the church, of having a clique that you spend all your time with while ignoring rest of the congregation. Hopefully, you won't be ignoring anyone, but it will seem like it to some when they see you spending more time with others than with them. If the ones complaining are among the controllers in the church it can bring even more grief. They are used to causing problems for the pastor, and if they are in the role of controller it's because the church allows them to be in that role.
If you do find yourself accused of ignoring some while spending more time with others, invite them to attend your next discipleship event. If you are using small groups make sure they know they are always welcome to participate. Chances are they won't, but the next time they complain about you not spending more time with them you can remind them they were invited to meet with you and the others who they feel are getting all your attention.
Many smaller churches have a poor track record of discipling their members. The revolving-door pastorate that occurs in many of these churches is one reason. Another is that many of those attending these churches are older and may feel they've already been discipled even if they haven't. If the church has had a number of bivocational pastors who didn't feel they had to time to disciple anyone it's possible there has been no real discipleship done in the church in years. That's why it's so important to be very intentional about offering discipleship opportunities to everyone in the church and then providing it for those who want it.
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