“TWO JOBS, ONE MINISTRY” – Don Matthews, Director Church Health and Revitalization Office and Bivocational Ministries Office.
In the book “Bivocational Church Planters”1, the author describes what might be called the first Bivocational Church Planter. He is most likely the most successful church planter to have ever taken on the role of Bivocational Ministries. He is the most quoted, was the most prolific writer, started a church planting movement, and in the process wrote 13 books. Of course his name was Paul (See I Cor. 11:23-28). From the beginning of the 1st century until now there has been a long line of lay church planting heroes of the faith who have carried the Gospel message to a lost world while supporting themselves in a vocational ministry such as “tent makers.”
The Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministries Association describes the Bivocational pastor as:
“Bivocational ministry is performed by an individual who is partially supported in a ministerial role by a church. Usually, the person described as Bivocational has at least two paying jobs concurrently. One or more of those is church-related. The non-church responsibility often provides the individual’s major income. The following scenarios are given for clarification:
• A person who works at a paid secular job from the home, or is a full time student and receives partial salary from church-related work is seen as Bivocational.
• A person such as a military, hospital, or institutional chaplain who carries a second non-church job for which there is remuneration is considered Bivocational.
• If a second source of income is from a denominational role, and partial salary is from church-related work, that person is seen as a Bivocational.
• If that second job is in a ministerial role within the same church, the person would not be considered Bivocational.
• Some financial support for the church-related responsibility constitutes Bivocational, as distinguished from volunteer.
• The person who has support from another source and serves in some paid church-related capacity is seen as Bivocational.
• The person who has support from another source and serves in some church-related capacity with no remuneration is seen as a volunteer.
• Some may call a minister who is not fully supported by a church “part-time,” but that is not usually accurate or fair.
• The Bivocational pastor who serves “full time” in both the ministerial role and working double time in secular work has a “dual ministry.”
http://www.sbbma.org/Bivocational%20Ministry.pdf
There is a direct correlation between Bivocational Pastors, Lay Church Planters and smaller church pastors. If fact, there are many pastors today that are “fully funded”, “full time” that also work at a part-time job to help ends meet. There are many others that have additional income that supports their ministries, in addition to what the church pays them. When you include pastors whose wife has to work a full time job so he can minister at a church, the number of “Bivocational Pastors” is perhaps the majority of Southern Baptist Churches. In 2006, the SBC statistics indicated that 36,677 churches out of the 44,223 SBC churches ran less than 125 in Sunday school. Many of these churches are “Bivocational”. Http://www.sbbma.org/SBC%20Stats.pdf
The South Carolina Baptist Convention is committed to recognizing the unique calling, equipping, and developing ministries necessary to meet the needs of Bivocational and Smaller Churches, Pastors and their families. For more information concerning Bivocational Ministries or ministries with Smaller Churches, please contact Don Matthews in the Vitalization Department, Bivocational Ministries Office. Website: www.scbaptist.org/bivocationalpastors. Email: donmatthews@scbaptist.org. Phone: 803-227-6015.
1. “Bivocational Church Planters, Uniquely Wired for Kingdom Growth”, NAMB, 2007, p1
