Picture a church of seventy people in a small town. They love Jesus and they love their neighbors, and every year at the budget meeting someone asks the same question: how long until we can afford a full-time pastor again?
It’s an honest question, but I think it may be the wrong one. When people ask me about the future of bi-vocational ministry, I tell them I don’t see it as a stopgap. It’s where the church is headed, and in many ways where it has always been.
The math most churches already know
The average church in America has roughly seventy people in attendance. Seventy people can barely keep the lights on, never mind fund a full-time salary with benefits.
At the same time, the culture keeps moving away from the church. The share of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has grown in every decade since the 1980s, and the trend shows no sign of reversing. Many growing churches are growing partly by drawing people from other churches, and the number of genuinely unchurched people being reached isn’t keeping up with the drift.
Most full-time pastoral positions sit in larger churches that mostly serve people who already believe. Meanwhile the rural congregation, the church in the post-industrial town, and the handful of new believers in a suburb with no gospel witness all need pastors that the current funding model can’t provide.
If we wait for the money to catch up, a lot of those places are going to wait a very long time.
This isn’t new. It’s normal.
What changed my thinking was realizing that the bi-vocational model is no second-class option. It’s the main way the gospel has always moved into new territory.
Paul made tents. In Corinth he moved in with Aquila and Priscilla, “and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath” (Acts 18:3–4).
So it was tents on weekdays and the synagogue on the Sabbath, and those weren’t competing activities. They were two expressions of one calling, to be present in the world as a worker, and to proclaim the gospel in the spaces that presence opened.
Across the world today, most ministry is done by volunteers or bi-vocational pastors. That’s the ordinary condition of the church in most places and through most of history, and nobody should call it a crisis. The fully funded, full-time model is historically unusual and concentrated in a few parts of the world.
Every square inch
Abraham Kuyper famously said there is not a square inch of all creation over which Christ does not say, “Mine.” That means every workplace and every neighborhood, every pub and garage and homeowners’ association meeting.
Full-time pastors can’t cover every square inch. Much of their week is spent in places many unreached people will never walk into. That’s not a criticism. It’s just geography.
A bi-vocational pastor goes where full-time pastors can’t, into the break room and the job site and the sales meeting and the Little League bleachers. Those ordinary places, where the gospel has not yet been heard, become part of the parish.
In the book I put it this way: “This is not a consolation prize. This is a strategic deployment.”
What this means for your church
If you’re part of a small church that’s been waiting for the budget to allow a full-time hire, here are a few questions to bring to your next leadership meeting:
- What are we actually waiting for? If the answer is “a pastor we can pay,” ask whether God may already have given you leaders who could shepherd you while they keep their jobs.
- Who among us is already doing pastoral work? Look for the people who visit the sick, open the Scriptures with others, and carry a burden for the neighborhood. Some of them may be called.
- What would we do with the money? A church that doesn’t carry a full salary can give extravagantly to its community. That generosity can open more doors than a sermon.
- How will we share the load? A bi-vocational pastor can’t do everything, so the congregation has to step up. That’s healthy, and it doesn’t mean anybody failed.
What this means for you
If you’re a believer with a job and a burden for people far from God, don’t assume the only real ministry is the paid kind. You may be exactly where God wants you, with access and credibility a full-time pastor doesn’t have.
So try this. Over the next week, keep a list of every person your job puts you in contact with who you’re fairly sure isn’t connected to a church. Just names is fine. At the end of the week, look at the list and ask, “Who else is going to reach these people?”
That list might be the beginning of a call. If it is, test it carefully. I wrote about three tests for a bi-vocational calling that can help.
The church that starts now
A church that waits until it can afford a full-time pastor before it reaches its community may be waiting for a day that never comes. The bi-vocational pastor who starts now, with what they have, in the community where they already live and work, is doing what Paul did, and that’s not settling for less.
I wrote Second Fiddle for pastors and couples who sense this kind of call and want to count the cost honestly. If that’s you, I’d be glad for you to read it together.
Enjoyed this article?