
All of us want to participate in something bigger than ourselves, to be connecte...
By: ECO Team
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. The economic realities of the church and church planting today are necessitating bi-vocational church planting. The Apostle Paul, of course, was the original tentmaker! In many ethnic churches and smaller churches, bi-vocational ministry has always been the norm rather than the exception. Today, there are even conferences for bivocational planters and pastors.
I am currently in the early stages of planting Missio Community Church in Pasadena, CA while working full-time at Fuller Seminary. This means that I am squeezing ministry-related meetings, phone calls, emails, and tasks into my lunch hours, after work, and on weekends. It won’t be this way for long, since this summer I will shift to a part-time role at Fuller, but even then I will remain bi-vocational.
Being bi-vocational is always about weighing a series of tradeoffs: less time for ministry vs. less financial burden on the church; more connections in your community vs. less time to focus on developing leaders; less ability to focus on doing one thing well vs. more freedom to do a variety of things. But overall I actually feel excited rather than limited by this arrangement, because I think being bi-vocational has at least four benefits. Bi-vovational ministry:
Alan Hirsch writes that in order for a spiritual movement to occur among God’s people, two things must happen: 1) There must an apostolic releasing – usually meaning a wave of apostolic church planters being sent out, and 2) There must also be a releasing of the whole people of God – meaning that lay people must be taught and equipped to rightfully reclaim their role being minister and missionaries in and through their work as well as their lay leadership roles in the church and community. By the power of the Holy Spirit, may those of us who are bi-vocational help unleash both aspects of a renewal movement!
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