5 Reasons to Ignore Multi-Vocational Ministry
Twenty-five years ago, it was impossible to think that most people, in their right mind, would consider the option of avoiding full-time employment in a professional position as a pastoral staff member. When an individual reached that point in their ministerial career, they had finally obtained what others were longing for, an opportunity to do ministry in the capacity God had ordained them to do; they were thrilled.
In this social contract, the “called” became the “caretakers” who managed the dirty work of ministry to protect the “comfortable” from difficult circumstances of spiritual warfare.
Unbeknownst to many of these newly established full-time leaders, they were quietly and secretly engaging in an unspoken social contract with those who voted them into their ministerial roles. The agreement disregarded genuine disciple-making in favor of weekly pseudo-religious production and teaching on the morals of Jesus with a splash of entertainment. In this social contract, the “called” became the “caretakers” who managed the dirty work of ministry to protect the “comfortable” from difficult circumstances of spiritual warfare. In most situations, religious leaders opted to “skip the saints” and do the ministry rather than “equip the saints” to build up the body of Christ.
Twenty-five years later, as the average age of pastors is climbing because most cannot afford to retire or feel guilty because there is no one equipped to step into their role, denominational and local leaders are wondering where the next generations of pastors and church leaders will come from. In combination with an underdeveloped leadership pipeline, many churches have exchanged the great commission with the great omission, and churches are declining at a precipitous rate. Now, churches that once had large crowds filling their worship centers and children’s programs are museums of some vestige of long ago where unseen ghosts fill the minds of those who still attend, making them believe they can grow back into what they were before instead of growing from where God has brought them today. Add to that reality that they don’t have the financial resources to employ a minister, if they can find one, in a full-time capacity, and you have a recipe for significant gospel deserts in thriving communities.
Churches that once had large crowds filling their worship centers and children’s programs are museums of some vestige of long ago where unseen ghosts fill the minds of those who still attend, making them believe they can grow back into what they were before instead of growing from where God has brought them today.
Cue the multi-vocational pastor. They are sometimes known as the bi-vocational leader, needing to work as a means to supplement their income while they do ministry, or co-vocational minister, choosing to work in an effort to infuse the gospel into their everyday lives and set the example for other believers. Rather than try and waffle back and forth between the two, let’s call them multi-vocational leaders.
Unfortunately, there is no place yet to quantify the significant impact of the multi-vocational ministry definitely, but what we know is that it is growing. As Rudy Gray points out in his article, the present statistics don’t show the complete picture because so many churches are not turning in their annual means for record-keeping, and those that do, don’t always check the “bi-vocational” box. In the same article, Aaron Coe, CEO of Future City Now, observes: “A big part of the conversation we’re trying to lead is that bi-vocational ministry is the new normal.”
The new normal. If it is the new normal, why are we still struggling to develop an effective means to engage this new wave of normal ministry? From the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with denominational and network leaders across the country, there is a leadership vacuum that isn’t being filled by seminaries, church leadership development pipelines, or denominational assessment processes. The reality is that the tide is shifting away from the traditional model of the ministry of the past 70 years, and if not careful, the network and denomination may be on the verge of getting pancaked.
In my book, Connecting the Network to the New Normal: Five Ways to Strengthen Multi-Vocational Leaders, I discuss the strengths that networks, associations, and denominations can bring to these leading-edge pastors. However, what’s important to note is that these leaders also have a great deal to offer the network. In a structure that sometimes appears to adore the status quo, below are five reasons to ignore multi-vocational ministry.
Innovation
Innovation is what these leaders do. These multi-vocational leaders have jobs to build relationships, families to lead, care and provide for, pastoral duties to shepherd, sermons to write, and leaders to train. They are juggling it all together because they feel a Holy calling to do more than before, and most are stepping into their future with decent clarity. Therefore, most often, they create innovative ways to accomplish their calling through non-traditional means.
Sammy Ortiz, a Director with the Tampa Underground Network, views his neighborhood as a parish and his neighbors as potential parishioners. Five years ago, knowing that fundraising is difficult while church planting, he started a business focusing on social entrepreneurship. His objective is to reach under-resourced and on the brink of gentrification communities by providing them with practical needs that lead to gospel conversations. It’s taken him 5-10 years to build trusting relationships in the community, but they are now seeing the fruit of faithfulness flourish in their context.
Multi-vocational leaders like Sammy are setting the pace for innovative ways to engage their entrenched communities with the gospel.
Collaboration
Multi-vocational leaders can’t function as autonomous silos because they have far too many things on their plate. These multi-lane pastors are intentionally looking for partnerships willing to cross over denominational lines for the purposes of the big-C church.
These multi-lane pastors are intentionally looking for partnerships willing to cross over denominational lines for the purposes of the big-C church.
In Columbia, a congregation caught a bigger vision of what God could do with their facilities if only they would be willing to relinquish their desire to “be the solution.” When they finally decided to step into their future story of missional ministry, God swung the doors wide and brought in a buyer for the dilapidated building. Now, almost a year later, four different churches and a Christian school are leveraging the same building for kingdom impact in their community context. It’s incredible what can happen when leaders view the kingdom of God as more significant than their individual visions.
Disciple-Making
In the 80s and 90s, the church movement was all about programs. From the early 2000s to 2010, it was all about being missional. Over the next 10-20 years, churches and denominations will focus on the reality that they need to develop genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. If you want to see how to develop disciples, then you need to sit down with a multi-vocational leader.
These leaders are getting out of their comfort zone and living among the people. They are not simply trying to get sheep from one pasture to transfer to another pasture. They’re wading into the deep dark waters of the lost and hauling bodies to the shore. They’re starting a disciple-making movement by engaging people where they live, work, and play.
Individual decisions set the congregational direction.
Individual decisions set the congregational direction. When a church sees its minister modeling disciple-making outside the four walls of the church by upholding the characteristics and competencies of Christ as the measures of successful disciple-making, they’re more likely to mimic that in their life.
Leadership Development
In a multi-vocational church, there is no space for a leader to hold on to all of the chips of position, influence, and responsibility. For that congregation to thrive, a leader must be discerning and able to discharge duties to others to do the work of ministry. In far too many traditional churches, the pastor and the church function in a sort of Spiritual Feudalism where the pastor is focused on building the church instead of making disciples of Christ.
The church allows him to do that because that is what they pay him to do, and it keeps them from having to do the work. As Chuck Breen states “The problem is, that when a church and pastor focus on building a church, they rarely develop disciples.” It is only when the interdependent parts of the body of Christ focus on making disciples that they build the church. It is only when they develop disciples that they adequately develop vibrant leadership.
Decentralized Structures
In many traditional models of ministry, the “work of the church” was expected to be accomplished within four walls of the church. If someone had a Bible study, it needed to be at the church. If there were an outreach opportunity, then someone would need to coordinate it through the church's ministries. But something strange has occurred in the multi-vocational movement in that there is an over-arching understanding of the unique disciple-making vision for that particular church; therefore, people are empowered to carry out that vision in ways that align with their giftedness.
Now, this isn’t to say that everyone is running a thousand different ministries; rather, many multi-vocational ministers have developed a process to empower their church body to step into complex situations for the sake of the ministry.
In one family of churches, they assist members who feel the unique call of God to carry out the church’s mission in a unique way by helping them develop a vision, their target community, a resource list, an education process, and a clear plan on how to gather together.
The Truth
The reality is that multi-vocational leaders are creatively developing today what more traditional churches will implement five to ten years from now. Suppose you want to maintain the status quo. In that case, I recommend you avoid engaging with these multi-vocational ministers because they are vibrant change agents who compel others to think differently about engaging people with the gospel.
However, if you want to see a significant impact in your church and community for the sake of the gospel, then gather a group of these multi-faceted leaders together, learn from them and love them well, for they are the future.