[1]
Pusey Losch is a painting contractor—owner/operator—starting his business thirty-two years ago after seeing opportunity while laboring as a carpenter. Losch, the founding pastor of Mountain View Community Church in Richfield, Pennsylvania, is one of thousands of bivocational pastors serving congregations across the Southern Baptist and Canadian National Baptist conventions. Photo by Ken Touchton.
Editor's Note: The International Celebration of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network (www.bivosmallchurch.net [2]) will meet at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, June 26–28, 2014, with the theme "Yes You Can!," and will feature national coordinator Ray Gilder, along with Jonathan Falwell, Johnny Hunt, and Charles Billingsley. Registration information can be accessed at www.liberty.edu/bivo [3].
Wesley Thompson would contend he's devoted to ministry. A student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he's pursuing a degree in church ministries, with an emphasis on students and families, to improve his ability to present the Gospel.
Wesley Thompson would also say he is devoted to being a better educator.
[4]A teacher at a small private school about twenty minutes from Southern's campus in Louisville, Kentucky, Thompson looks forward to returning to his native Tift County, Georgia, and entering the classroom full-time.
Neither calling is exclusive from the other, even if they did become apparent at different times, said the twenty-three-year-old Thompson, who calls Mount Zion Baptist in Chula, Georgia, his home church.
"My desire to be a teacher came first," Thompson said. "I love school and helping young people and teaching allows me to do that on a daily basis.
"My passion and calling in life is to mentor and assist students—especially middle school and high school age."
Although Tift County High School boasted a graduating class of approximately 500 in 2008, the year Thompson graduated, the surrounding area is typical of south Georgia and made up mostly of smaller communities.
Bivocational ministry is often found in such rural settings, but that picture is expanding, said Ray Gilder of the Bivocational Small Church Leadership Network, formerly the Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association.
Bivocation Nation
The Southern Baptist Convention is already predominately bivocational, though hard data can be difficult to find.
"Getting the exact figure is difficult, because many churches fail to check the box 'bivocational'" when they fill out their annual profile each year, Gilder said.
Gilder was a full-time pastor before becoming the Tennessee Baptist Convention's bivocational/small church specialist nearly twenty years ago. He has served various churches since that time in a bivocational role.
According to 2011 statistics found at the organization's website, http://www.bivosmallchurch.net [2], half of Southern Baptist churches had fewer than fifty in Sunday School. That points to at least half of SBC churches having bivocational pastors, Gilder said.
Now factor in the push for new churches. Some initial funding may help a pastor focus fully on his ministry responsibilities, but many of those financial commitments are for a limited time.
All told, it means that being an effective minister in the future may require mastery of a craft that isn't taught in seminary. Gaining credibility comes through knowing your business, inside and out, alongside your theology. And for a growing number of people, answering a call to ministry may refer to time around the water cooler with guys who have no interaction with church.
Finding What Matches
In contrast to Thompson, Georgia Baptist pastor Paul Reviere has a life's worth of perspective on bivocational ministry.
Don't make the mistake of referring to Reviere as "part-time." He will quickly correct that description and note that, considering hours worked, there's very little difference between full-time and bivocational ministry. Reviere should know. He's been the pastor at Tabor Baptist Church in Tignall, Georgia for thirty-eight years.
After graduating from Georgia Southern University in 1973, Reviere moved back to his hometown of Lincolnton. He had already answered a call to serve as pastor, but a part-time salary wasn't going to provide for himself and his wife, so he became a paraprofessional in the Lincoln County School System.
He enjoyed the work, and went back to school and earned a teaching degree. The result was a thirty-seven-year career teaching third grade at Lincoln Elementary School.
Through the years Reviere has preached many times at other churches for revivals. He's also turned down numerous opportunities to be considered for full-time positions.
"My philosophy is I don't need to be 'full-time,'" he said. "My calling is to supply my own needs as far as making a living is concerned so I can minister in a church where they otherwise can’t support a minister.
"Of course, there are circumstances that require a full-time minister. It's just not me."
As more churches move forward with bivocational positions, ministry responsibilities will fall more on the laity. That's far from being a bad thing, Reviere said. He points to the benefits of faith being a strong part of one’s identity in the workplace.
"Being in a full-time pastorate can isolate you from the community," he said. "When your job is part of that community, you get opportunities to support and pray for folks that aren't as likely to come to your church.
"You're already there with them and it becomes a simple matter of building trust. They begin to see you not as just the preacher down at the church but as a colleague."
A Growing Call
Matthew Hall, vice president for academic services at Southern Seminary, said, "The guys who come to us with a desire to be bivocational usually grew up in those churches and see the need. They have a clear sense of answering that call.
"I do think there's an upcoming renaissance of men seeking to be bivocational," he said. "Southern Baptists can't afford to forget about those churches."
Kenneth Cloud, director for Bowen Baptist Association in southwest Georgia, said, "About 65 percent of my churches are bivocational.
"It's becoming very difficult to find men who want to serve in them," he said. "Search committees can't fund full-time positions [in their budgets]. They think it's like they're backing up by going with a bivocational pastor, but I tell them to not think of it that way. It's regrouping.
"It's a different calling," Cloud said. "I believe God has called people to serve these smaller areas, but they're not answering the call. Who will go?"
Thompson had teachers and ministers who inspired him to pursue his calling. After high school he attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton to earn his associate's degree in education. He would go on to attain his bachelor's degree in that field through the University of Georgia.
"During my undergrad years at our campus BCM [Baptist Campus Ministry] I met a guy who was a youth pastor at a church who became a great friend of mine as well as mentor to me," Thompson said. "For a while I felt I would be doing God a disservice if I was not strictly doing 'church-ministry' 100 percent of the time. He was able to help me better sense my calling and understand it was okay to desire to be a bivocational pastor."
For the past four summers Thompson has worked with LifeWay Centrifuge camps. Those experiences, particularly pointed questions about theology from students, convinced him of the need for theological education. In 2012 he worked as a youth leader alongside a bivocational pastor at "a small country church." The model left a mark.
"I could see his heart for his congregation as well as his heart for the people that he worked with outside the church. It confirmed my desire to work with students in a church setting as well as in a real world environment such as a school classroom."
What Thompson remembers about his own teachers that inspired him could serve as a ministry statement of his own.
"These individuals knew how to help students in all aspects of life."