Bivocational ministry and education

When my first book was published a critic claimed that I, and the book, was anti-education.  Obviously, that was written by someone who doesn't know me or my story.  He based that comment on a section in the book that said that smaller churches are often much less interested in whether or not their pastor has a degree as they are in whether or not he or she can do the job.  I continue to believe that, and I've seen it played out in many churches.  Something else I believe is that the traditional ministerial education, a bachelor's degree followed by an MDiv, is not always the best route to take for someone who is going to serve a church.  At one time that was the primary degree offered by many seminaries, but there are other options available today that might be better for some people.

For those who do not know my story I will give you a brief history.  I began my pastoral ministry as the bivocational pastor of a small, rural church in southern Indiana.  I had no pastoral experience and no education beyond high school.  After several months I realized there was a lot about ministry I did not know so I began a search for a suitable place where I could get some education.  I found a two-year Bible school about one hour south of my home that seemed like it would meet my needs.  The problem was the I worked one hour north of my home.  Another problem was that the school only offered classes during the mornings, and I worked day shift.  I decided to transfer to third shift and enroll in school.  I would drive one hour north, work all night, and then drive two hours south to take classes.  I could only take about three classes a semester so it took me four years to complete that program, but I learned so much that I decided to begin my studies for a bachelor's degree.

I was able to transfer some of my credits to a university also located one hour south of my home so I began the process all over.  It took me seven years to earn my bachelor's degree, but I learned so much that benefited me and my ministry.  I completed that program in 1995 and stopped further studies until around 2002 when I decided to enroll in seminary.  By this time I had left pastoral ministry and was serving as a regional minister for our denomination.  The MDiv didn't appeal to me so I enrolled in a Master of Arts in Religion with an emphasis in Leadership.  Most of the classes I took through distance learning.  On my way home from graduating with that degree I felt the Lord encouraging me to enroll in the DMin program at that seminary, and in 2010 at the age of 62 I earned that degree.

The reason I share this is two-fold.  One, some who reads this blog may be struggling with a desire to further their education and believe it can't be done.  It can be done.  I did it while married with two children, working a full-time job, and serving in ministry.  You can do it!  I'm not saying it's easy, but you can do it.  I know that every class I took improved my ministry, even some of the college required classes that had nothing to do with ministry.  Can you serve a church without a formal education?  Yes, but I also believe you will enjoy a more productive ministry with an education.  You may not go as far as I did, but any education you complete will help you enjoy greater success.

The second reason I wanted to share my story is because many people think education is not affordable for them.  There is no question that education is expensive, but when you do it like I did most people can cash-flow it with little difficulty.  If money is tight you can always set out a semester and build up your reserves.  With so many schools offering distance learning options the expense is much less as well.  One often overlooked way of paying for school is through your employer.  My employer would pay the tuition for any course that had the potential of benefiting the company.  The company paid my tuition for nearly every course I took in college greatly limiting my costs.  Here is another advantage bivocational ministers can sometimes have over their fully-funded peers.  Not many churches will do this, but most large companies have some sort of program available to help fund their employees education.

A study I did in 2004 found a wide variety of educational levels among bivocational ministers.  Like me, many had no education beyond high school while a few had PhDs.  Most fell somewhere in between.  I'm not saying you need to go to school.  What I am trying to say in this post is that if you have felt led to do so you can do it.  Don't allow your doubts to prevent you from investing in yourself and your ministry.

Pastors must never stop growing

One of my professors worked for a number of years for Ford Motor Company.  He had worked in many departments, but for several years he was in Human Resources.  In our first or second class he said something that has always stuck with me.  He said when he was reviewing job applications he was not impressed with the degrees the person may or may not have had.  The only thing a college degree meant, according to him, was that the person was capable of learning.  He emphasized that Ford would teach a person everything he or she needed to be successful in the company as long as the person was capable of learning.  At the time that made a lot of sense to me, and it still does.

Some people believe that once they receive a degree they have learned everything they need.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I read recently that when one individual received his PhD  his mentor sent him a congratulatory card in which he wrote, "Now you can start learning."  What an insightful comment!  As important as formal education may be, we must always recognize that we must continue to learn and grow if we want to enjoy success in our ministries.

In his book How to Thrive as a Small-Church Pastor Steve Bierly writes, "If you are not trying to grow as a pastor, you won't be able to retain even the level of competence you have now."  As a regional minister I can say sadly that I sometimes meet pastors who have never grown beyond what they learned in seminary years earlier.  Such ministers leave a trail of destruction behind them everywhere they go and cannot understand why.  Every two or three years they change churches never realizing that their problems are not coming from their churches but from their own lack of personal growth.

What are some of the areas in which we need continual growth?

• Spiritual growth - A major risk that many ministers face at some point in their ministries is neglecting their own spiritual development.  We can become so busy doing things for God that we forget our own need to maintain a growing relationship with Him.  We cannot give out what we are not taking in.  The pastor who neglects his or her personal walk with God will eventually dry up and have nothing fresh to give.
• Relational skills - Everything in smaller churches is based on relationships.  The pastor who is weak in relational skills will never enjoy a successful ministry in a smaller church.  The good news is that this is an area in which anyone can grow.  One place to start growing in relational skills is by becoming a better listener.  Another is by spending time with people.
• Leadership skills - In the past several months I have worked with churches that asked their pastors to resign.  In every case the primary complaint was that the pastor failed to provide leadership to the congregation.  One of the problems faced by pastors is that many seminaries have not trained their students to be leaders.  They've taught them how to manage their churches, not lead them.  Churches that are serious about growing and serving their communities are looking for leaders, and if we are not growing in that area we will find ourselves limited to serving only those churches who are satisfied with the status quo.
• Communication skills - Pastors must be great communicators both in and out of the pulpit.  As far back as 1870 John A. Broadus wrote, "The record of Christian history has been that the strength of the church is directly related to the strength of the pulpit.  When the message from the pulpit has been uncertain and faltering, the church has been weak; when the pulpit has given a positive, declarative message, the church has been strong.  The need for effective preaching has never been greater."  I agree totally, and I also believe that ministers must be skilled at interpersonal communication.  Such communication is directly related to our ability to lead, and if we can't communicate with others we cannot lead them.
• Conflict resolution skills - Church conflict is a reality.  While it will never be entirely eliminated, it can be managed and even resolved.  The problem is that many of us in pastoral leadership have never been taught how to do that.  At a workshop I once led a pastor asked why so many pastors get stabbed in the back.  I responded that I wasn't sure that we get stabbed in the back as often as we shoot ourselves in the foot.  I've witnessed many pastors who made the conflict in their churches much worse by the steps they took to address it.  We must continually be learning ways to better handle conflict.

These are only five areas in which we need to continue to grow.  There are more, but these are a good place to start.  I cover each of these in much more detail in my book The Bivocational Pastor: Two Jobs, One Ministry.  I would certainly recommend you read that book and Bierly's book mentioned above for more information on the need for continual growth and some helpful steps you can take to experience that growth in your life.

Equipping the saints to do ministry

I apologize for not posting for a few days, but we've been visiting our son and his family in Pennsylvania and just returned home yesterday evening.  We had a great time with him and our grandchildren, but all good things must end so we had to return home and to work.

One of the positives about bivocational ministry is that people in bivocational churches often understand the pastor is not always available.  These people are often willing to take on more ministry responsibilities simply because they know their pastor has another job that prevents him or her from doing ministry at certain times.  However, just because they are willing doesn't mean they will step in and do things if they haven't been trained to do them.  That was a mistake I made early in my pastorate and one I had to correct if we wanted to see more of our members involved in ministry.  I see many pastors making the same mistake.  We may fuss about the lack of ministry involvement by the people in the churches we serve, but if we have never trained them we shouldn't expect them to be involved.

Actually, regardless of whether one serves in a bivocational church or is fully-funded, the biblical model is that the pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry (Eph.4).  The failure of many churches to follow that model is one reason so many churches are not living up to their ministry potential.  We have separated the roles of clergy and laity to the point that too many clergy persons do not trust the laity with ministry responsibilities, and many lay persons do not feel confident or called to do ministry.  We forget that Scripture teaches that the Spirit of God has given every believer at least one spiritual gift that is to be used for ministry and that one of the responsibilities God has given pastors is to train the people entrusted to him or her how to use those gifts.  If we could recapture that message we would soon find our churches serving in ways far beyond what we often see today.

The good news is that many churches are taking the Ephesians 4 model of ministry seriously and intentionally raising up disciples who are equipped to do ministry.  Greg Ogden, in his book Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God, notes that the first Reformation gave the Bible to the people, and the second Reformation will give the ministry to the people. This Reformation will not be easy for some churches because it will represent a major paradigm shift for both pastors and congregations.  It will require some pastors to learn new skills because many were never taught in seminary how to equip their church members for ministry.  It will also require a much higher level of discipleship that many people in some churches have ever known.  It will require a major restructuring of how churches are structured.  We cannot expect people to sit on a half-dozen boards and committees and also be engaged in ministry outside the church.  It will require pastors to learn how to delegate and trust others to do the ministry that they've often done themselves.  I'll stop here, but I hope you can see it will require a lot to make this change, but I cannot overemphasize how critical it is that this change happens in our churches.

I devote an entire chapter on this subject in my book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision and encourage you to read it as well as Ogden's book mentioned above.  When the church I pastored became serious about developing our lay people for ministry it revolutionized our church.  I believe it will do the same for your congregation.

Bivocationalism as guerrila warfare

This is a really great post on bivocational ministry that I wanted to share with my readers.  You should add the blog from which this article comes to your favorites list because you'll find some real good thoughts on ministry here.

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/?p=3811&cpage=1#comment-945885

The disconnect in many churches

Not once in my twelve years as a Resource Minister in our denomination have I had a church tell me they did not want to grow.  When I work with a pastor search committee they tell me every time they want a pastor who will grow their church.  Any time I assist a church in vision discernment they say they want to reach new people with the gospel.  Yet, in many of these churches their core values do not reflect that.  In the vast majority of cases, the core values of these churches focus on their own well-being.  They may say they want a pastor who will grow their church, but that is only if he or she doesn't neglect any of their needs and as long as it doesn't involve change or pain.

That is the disconnect in many of these churches.  What they say they want to see happen and what they value are two totally opposite things.  Recently, as I helped a church identify some of their bedrock beliefs, we got into a discussion about the purpose of the church.  They rightfully stated that the purpose of the church is to reach non-Christians in order to help lead them into a personal relationship with Christ.  I then pointed to the list of bedrock beliefs I had just written on a sheet of paper and asked which of those bedrock beliefs they had given me reflected what they said was the purpose of their church.  They were stunned as they realized that none of those beliefs connected with their stated purpose.  For years they have been saying the right things, but their practices were much different, and that was one reason the church has been divided and why it has been so difficult for them to attract and keep new people.

As I tell attendees to my workshops, your structure is perfectly designed for the results you are getting.  I continue that line of thought by stating that their church is exactly the size they had determined is best, and their church structure is designed to keep it there.  Churches often insist that they want to grow at which time I ask if they want to grow why are they not growing.  It is not for a lack of a mission field.  Some reports claim that 50-80 percent of the population in any county in the US  is unchurched so there is a great mission field available in every community.  The lack of growth in most churches is directly attributable to the way the church is structured and what they truly value as reflected by how the church relates to others.

If you want your church to grow or to develop new ministries or to change in the way it functions, you must first look at how your church is structured.  Many churches are structured to be maintenance-minded, not missional.  They are set up to care for the existing members and to perpetuate the traditions those members believe to be important.  While these may be important, they often do not allow room for ministry to those outside the church family.  When the vast majority of a church's resources (finances, time, and energy) are focused on maintaining what you already have there is precious little left for other ministry focuses.

A church that is committed to new ministries and reaching out to new people will have to determine what they are willing to give up.  Are there programs that need to go so new ministry opportunities can occur?  Do changes in service times or formats need to happen?  Should some roles or positions in the church be eliminated and new ones formed to better reflect a different ministry focus of the church?  Does exisiting ministry responsibilities need to be divided differently?  These, and similar, questions may not be easy to answer, but until they are answered the church will not be able to address potential structure changeds.  And, until the structure is changed it really doesn't matter what the church says is important.  The structure will determine what gets done, and that is what reflects what is truly important in the church.

Great questions can make ministry more effective

One of the things that church leaders need to learn is how to become more comfortable asking questions.  In recent months I've known pastors who found themselves in trouble with their churches, and one thing they all said to me was that they didn't realize things were as bad as they were.  That indicates to me that they were not very aware of what was happening in their churches and what people were saying.  One way to avoid that kind of surprise is by asking questions.  Ministers need to question their lay leaders, people in the pew, and even people in the community.  Although there is no single list of questions some that a minister may want to ask are

• What is your perception of how things are going here?
• What are the people saying?
• What are people in the community saying about our church?
• What are the areas of ministry I should improve?
• How effective do you believe me to as a leader?
• What do you wish I would do more of?
• What do you wish I would stop doing?

The only way asking such questions will be helpful is if you encourage people to be totally honest with you.  If they are, some of their answers may sting a little.  In fact, some of the answers may be quite painful, but if they can prevent you from being blindsided later they will spare you even greater pain later.  Once the pain eases you can begin to work on the areas that will help strengthen your ministry.

I can imagine some ministers refusing to do this out of fear that such questions will cause people to start talking and looking for areas of weakness.  Guess what...they're already talking about these things only they often aren't talking to the one person who can do something about it - you.  Believe me, they've known your weaknesses for some time.  They also have opinions about how things can improve in the church, but many of them won't share those opinions with you unless you ask.

If you're not used to asking these types of questions I would like to recommend a couple of books to help you see the value in doing so and to get some suggestions as to the type of questions you may want to ask.  One of the books has been around for a few years, but it continues to be a valuable resource: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life.  My son actually recommended this book to me a couple of years ago, and I found it to be a very helpful read.  The other book was released just a couple of months ago:   One Question: Life-Changing Answers from Today's Leading Voices by Ken Coleman.  I recently heard Coleman discuss this book on a EntreLeadership podcast and enjoyed the insights he shared from the book on that podcast.  I think you will find both of these very helpful as you begin to think about what questions might be most helpful for you to ask.

The time factor and bivocational ministry

I recently came across this blog post and thought it was helpful.  Anytime I speak to bivocational ministers and ask them for their #1 issue it is always the same: the problem of not enough time to do everything they need to do.  This post addresses this and gives people an opportunity to respond to the article and to one another.  If you follow the link you will find my response to the blog owner.

http://www.kevinscottwrites.com/2013/06/12/the-time-factor-real-talk-on-bi-vocational-ministry/