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How can bivocational ministers and the congregations they serve thrive? In this conversation, Kris Bentley redefines bivocational ministry beyond traditional models, emphasizing shared leadership, congregational adaptability, and spiritual sustainability. She encourages both pastors and congregations to embrace bivocational ministry as a thriving, collaborative model of God’s call, rooted in sufficiency, creativity, and community engagement.
Jessica Anschutz: Welcome to Leading Ideas Talks, a podcast featuring thought leaders and innovative practitioners. I’m Jessica Anschutz, the Interim Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, and I’m your host for this Leading Ideas Talk. Joining me is Kris Bentley, author of Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers. She’s also the Project Director of Lexington Theological Seminary’s Bivocational Ministry Research Project, and an ordained minister in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. Thank you, Kris, for joining me today to talk about bivocational ministry.
Kris Bentley: Thanks. I’m really happy to be here, Jessica.
Jessica Anschutz: As we start off, Kris, I want to invite you to give a little bit of an insight into your book for our listeners and how you came to write your book.
Kris Bentley: Okay, thanks. The book, I worked on the book a lot in 2024. And this particular book came out of a conversation about what might be helpful to congregations. So, it’s a really congregation and minister-focused book. Probably what led me to write it was just when I began doing the research project in, oh gosh, 2014 at LTS, and just all the things I’ve been learning through various conversations and surveys. They are a big part of this book. I mean, the bulk of the book is all the conversations and stories. But the fact that it became a congregational resource is really what came out of that conversation in late 2023.
Jessica Anschutz: I think it’s a great resource, and we’re seeing increasing numbers of bivocational ministers. And you acknowledge in the book that your definition of bivocational ministry has changed over time. What is bivocational ministry?
Kris Bentley: We spent some time at the beginning of the research project kind of getting different people’s views of what they thought bivocational ministry was. And when I started, I really thought of it as a minister who was employed by a congregation, who also had other employment outside. But as time went on, I realized that, and mostly through conversations with some African-American pastors, that some of the people who saw themselves as, as bivocational ministers, and who actually I considered bivocational, weren’t actually paid by their congregation. So, I had to rethink the congregation part, really. And so, for me it’s really about the employment outside of the congregation; that they’re employed, paid work outside of the congregation that allows them to be the person who is leading or on a ministry staff in a congregation.
Jessica Anschutz: So, given that, give us a little bit of a picture of who Bivocationals are. What are some of the other things that they’re doing out in the world?
Kris Bentley: Oh, well, I mean, I kind of created a little chart in the book to help me sort through this. And I do think that you have some ministers who are working 40-hours—they’re contracted and paid to work for 40 hours a week in a congregation—but they may have some kind of a side hustle going. They may have—they may be freelancing in some way, or have part-time employment, or do some contracted employment. That’s, that’s one group. Then another group would be that they’re engaged in working with the congregation probably 30 hours (or fewer hours) a week. And then outside of the church, they have either a full-time or a part-time job. And then, I think you also have a group who are working in the congregation, but they also have kind of like a paid ministry job outside. Some people think differently about that –that’s not really bivocational, but it is because for me it’s how you’re relating to the congregation and that paid employment outside the congregation.
So, those are the kinds of—but the kinds of work they do, inside the congregation, they’re gonna be lead pastors or solo pastors. Or they might be on staff, a youth minister or music minister, or an associate pastor. And then the employment outside is just … it’s so many things. It’s hard to name. They could be teachers, or have a work in their own family business, or Uber drivers. There’s just a wide variety of how that employment is shaped outside the church.
Jessica Anschutz: Thank you for that, Kris. One of your hopes for the book was for those who love the church to explore what helps congregations and ministers involved in bivocational ministry to thrive. And I’d like for us to unpack that a little bit today. And why don’t we start with what helps bivocational pastors thrive.
Kris Bentley: All right, so if you are a bivocational pastor in a congregation, one thing that would be helpful is that the church knows what it’s doing in terms of bivocational ministry. I mean, for pastors who are serving in a congregation and they’re not the absolute first bivocational minister they’ve ever had, is for them to have a really strong sense of partnership with a pastor, or to have this sense of shared ministry. I mean, that’s kind of a general way for them to—so that’s really important for the congregation to have a setting that really helps that minister. They can also have personal qualities that they need to develop or personal habits. I think one is they need to do… to do really a lot of thought about what are their possibilities for the job. They have to assess their time and what they’re capable of doing. And that has a lot to do with whether they have a full-time or a part-time job out outside of the church. Maybe they have more than one job even.
Also, to do a lot of planning to, to invest in planning because they’re gonna be able to make better use of their time. If they’ve kind of thought about how they’re gonna use their time, and I think that can really help a congregation work better with them too. I also think that they need to really reserve time for rest and renewal. I mean a lot of times we talk about that as Sabbath. I think it needs to be creative Sabbath for bivocational ministers because they’re not just balancing how they’re working with the congregation, but also their other employer. And to really find ways to equip congregations so that they’re better able to help see what needs to be done and to help them develop confidence in what they’re doing. Those are the ones that come to my mind right now.
Jessica Anschutz: I know that there’s a wealth of information in your book and I really appreciate that. So, let’s turn our attention a little bit to the congregation. What helps congregations with bivocational ministers thrive? You’ve touched on that a little bit, but let’s go a little deeper.
Kris Bentley: Right, I think one of the most important things is for congregations to really examine the expectations they have for a minister. And again, if a congregation has been involved with a bivocational minister for a long time, they probably have done this already. But there are a lot of congregations that are now doing it for the first time. You know, they’ve had full-time pastors, what we call full-time pastors, maybe for decades. And so they need to really look at what is it that they expect this minister to do, and how necessary is it for them to do that? And you know, we bring a lot of, if we’re people in the pews, which I’ve been before I went to seminary and even now, I’ve spent several years where I haven’t been pastoring, is what do we expect that minister to do? So, really looking at that and spending some time clarifying it.
And then, I think looking at how, if you’ve adjusted those expectations, how are lay people, going to fill in those spaces and recognize that shared responsibility for ministry in a congregation? One of the things I talk about in the book that, I think I call it “Taking the pulse of the church body’s health,” I think, and I’ve found myself really thinking that all congregations should do this, but if they’re gonna have a pastor who has less time and who has different expectations than maybe they used to have for their pastor, you need to have good structures inside that congregation for communicating with each other for, for taking care of each other, and you need to work on those things. So, I think a congregation that has a bivocational minister, whether it’s their first or not, needs to spend some time saying how well are we doing the things that we need to be doing?
To also, I think another big important thing for these congregations to do is really, adopt that perspective of sufficiency. You know, I talk a little bit in the book about the full-time bias. Jeffrey MacDonald actually talks about that in his book: Part-Time is Plenty, and I think he’s so right, is that we have kind of have this idea that full-time pastors are better than either part-time or bivocational pastors. And I think that’s because we live in a society where often “bigger” is seen as better or “more” is seen as better. And so, you need to look at what you have and see it as sufficient for what God is calling you to do instead of focusing on “Oh, if we only had this…” or “If we only had that…” I think that’s really important to do, to adopt practices of sufficiency and also that perspective, that attitude.
And then I think another thing that’s really important is to let your gratitude for the minister really show; to really find ways of letting that person know, we appreciate what you do for us, and we understand that it’s not your only call, or your only work. And to find ways of really supporting and expressing gratitude for that Pastor.
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Jessica Anschutz: I appreciate how you started off saying that some of this work is important for all churches, whether they’re served by a bivocational pastor or not, but really critical in looking at how bivocational pastors and their congregations can thrive. So, you just mentioned “full-time bias.” And I have encountered that, as someone who served multiple congregations, which were in many times in cases where they were going from a full-time pastor to what they perceived to be a part-time pastor because it was a shared ministry context. What have you seen that can help church leaders overcome the “full-time bias?”
Kris Bentley: Well, it’s one of the reasons why I put so many stories in the book. I think the first thing is for people who have been seduced by the “full-time bias,” a lot of times it’s because they just haven’t seen how successful churches with bivocational pastors or part-time pastors can be. They’re in so many different places serving their communities, and so I wanted to share stories. So, I think some of it is to help church leaders understand and hear the stories of people who are doing things differently.
I know, I’m currently serving as an interim by bivocational pastor, and I’m serving a church that is trying to make this shift. You’re talking about, they’ve had a full-time pastor for decades. Now they’re exploring having a part-time pastor or a bivocational pastor. And I remember in a meeting we were talking and one of the leaders said, “Well, I think as we look for our next pastor, we could call them and have them begin as part-time, but as our ministry grows, we could move them into full-time.” And I thought, “Oh that’s that idea that it’s not satisfying to have that part-time pastor.” And since then, we’ve talked about that a couple times. So, I think that’s one thing, is having somebody who thinks part-time and bivocational ministry can work and does work to kind of engage in conversations as they hear that bias.
And also, I think really helping congregation leaders and lay people just see all the things that they can do. And to help them discover the joy that they may have in doing some things that they previously thought only a pastor could do. So, kind of trying to engage in, in some of that re-envisioning of what ministry really is, which should be a partnership. Whether it’s a full-time pastor, part-time or bivocational pastor, we all should be engaged in ministry together. You know, you don’t hire a minister to do the church’s ministry for them, but to be equipping and leading.
Jessica Anschutz: It can be a really exciting opportunity to empower laity into new and different ways of engaging in ministry.
Kris Bentley: I agree. I think it’s very exciting. It’s also tiring because you’re kind of pushing a rock up the hill. But when several people get behind that rock, it might be a little bit easier to push it.
Jessica Anschutz: There you go. Cultural shifts like this are challenging on many levels. I want to go back a little bit to sort of churches that are in this transition period. And I really appreciate your willingness to share of your own experience in, in navigating this transition with a congregation. What have you learned from your experience in doing this work that may be helpful for others who are either in congregations that are anticipating that shift or who are pastors going into serve these congregations?
Kris Bentley: Yeah, I think one of the things I’ve learned about myself, and I’ve, I heard it reflected in different conversations with ministers, is sometimes we have to be willing to accept that we can only do so much. I mean, you know, if you’ve gone to seminary or you’ve been involved in theological education, or you’ve recently done some continuing education, and you’re all pumped up and excited about what you can do as a minister, sometimes we do too much. We have a great idea, and so we are excited about it, and we pursue it because we think of it as more than an idea. It’s ministry; it’s how we’re serving God. And I think we have to step back and say sometimes, “It’s better if I allow them to do it. It’s better if I can share some insights but let them pick up the ball and do it.”
I think that is crucially important, and it’s been a struggle for me, I think, off and on through my ministry career. I know we just finished Holy Week, and I know that one of the things I try to intentionally do in this congregation is help them re-envision what Holy Week could look like when you don’t have a minister who can do several nighttime services and Sunrise. And so, I think stepping back, recognizing that part of your call is not just to serve your congregation, but to be a full human being. To not neglect the other parts of your life, that God is working in those parts too, not just your role as a pastor. Oh gosh, I think I’ve forgotten what the question was.
Jessica Anschutz: It was about so of what, how pastors can make that shift, or how congregations need to make that shift from full-time to bivocational.
Kris Bentley: Right. And I think I was main mainly thinking of that from the pastor’s position. What I guess I was saying was that recognizing that you can’t do everything, and that some ministry isn’t going to be done. To see also that you need to allow yourself to partner, allow yourself to spend time with other ministers; if, and to maybe partner with other congregations. I mean that’s a… there were a couple different ministers I spoke to who talked about the ways they were partnering with other congregations in their local area to do some things that they used to try to do alone.
So, I think that that’s another thing. I think also to develop some “plan Bs.” I heard a lot of ministers talk about plan Bs that they would develop. Like, if they’re a, let’s say, they’re a high school teacher and they knew that there were gonna be times when someone would call them when they were in school and in class; maybe they couldn’t even answer their phone. So, they had to have somebody else at the congregation who would help them with emergency care. So, developing that real teamwork and “What will we do if we do this?”
And I think the same thing goes with when you know you’re gonna be away on vacation or something. I personally think too many of us ministers, I’ve heard too many stories of people leaving their vacation because an emergency came up. And I think it’s really important for bivocational ministers to make those plans, so they don’t have to do that; that they don’t feel that they have to do it. Because to get a vacation lined up when you have more than one employer, or you have an employer and a church, it takes a lot of energy to get that vacation schedule set, and you should stick to it. You need it. Your family, if you’re going on a family vacation, they need time with you. You just need to value that as much as the time you do work, and to help your congregation see that that’s important because it replenishes your energy as a pastor, but it also allows you to be more creative for them. I think that’s another important thing to do.
Jessica Anschutz: Thank you for those reminders. I think even pastors who are not in bivocational contexts can benefit from, from hearing those things because a lot of work does go into planning vacation, and they deserve it. When you think about bivocational pastors, are there particular skills that they really need to cultivate?
Kris Bentley: I remember interviewing one minister who had a lot of financial expertise. Okay. He had, and he worked in a family business, and he talked about his ability to bring some of that skillset into his role as the pastor was really important. And yet, sometimes congregations don’t expect that from pastors.
So, I think an ability to bring together the different parts of your life. Because that other work can often be a place that really brings some creativity and expansion of the church’s ministry, you know. In fact, some of the lay people I interviewed talked about how when the ministers brought in stories or experiences or insights that they developed in their other work, that they really appreciated it. It showed them that they had a wider sense of their call. And it also helped them connect more with what, well, I guess the lay people thought it helped them be more visible as a person who had real world experience. So, I think that’s an important thing is to be able to see, not your other work and your work in the church as competing or as taking away from each other, but as things that can pull them together.
And of course, saying that, you still have to balance things. You still have to be able to balance the competing needs and expectations, which is huge. And I think, if you can help congregations do that, I think that’s an important facet. I think congregations need to see that, that pastor who is bivocational, is balancing a lot of things. And to appreciate that; to see if there are ways they can help them with that instead of seeing it as, “Oh, that, that work is taking time away for our pastor.”
And there were really a lot of different views on that from lay people. So when you go into a… if you’re a bivocational minister going into a new congregation, I think you have to assess: what is their attitude about that? Or maybe: What are their assumptions about that other work they might have?
Jessica Anschutz: And also, probably, what are their expectations—what’s important to them in their relationship with the pastor? I love how you highlighted the integration of the beyond-the-church experience with the church experience, and I would imagine that a pastor sharing in that way could really help laity make connections between their faith and their work experience and their sort of life beyond the church.
Kris Bentley: I think so. In fact, you’re reminding me of a little story I included in the book with a pastor that I call Pastor Arvel. And he works; he has an hour and a half commute to the church. And the church has no children currently; It’s a more elderly congregation. But he works in a place that really focuses on children’s lives. And what he was sharing was that he has brought some stories and insights from his work with these youth and children in another town to his congregation. And as a result, they have increased the way they support children in their own community. And I love that story because I think a lot of times churches think, “Oh, we don’t have any children.” But the world has a lot of children, and if we can be congregations that doesn’t focus so much on whether our own children are there, but ways that we can help children in the community where we serve, I think that would be a gift all the way around. It would be a gift to the congregation to see themselves doing that, and also a gift to the community served. And the fact that he was bringing that in from another community, from a kind of work that’s really different from what he does with his congregation, I thought that was a tremendous delight, all the way around when I heard that story.
Jessica Anschutz: It’s a great example and a wonderful testimony to the possibilities for ministry, as we seek to build these bridges with our communities in different ways. Kris, I want to highlight again for our listeners that your book is Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers. I have really enjoyed our conversation today. Unfortunately, our time is rapidly drawing to a close, but I want to give you the opportunity to share what your hope is for bivocational ministry.
Kris Bentley: Oh. I probably have more than one hope. One is, I do hope that more people see what it is already doing, that it is everywhere. I mean, that it is a significant part of the ministerial congregation, and also to begin hearing more stories respecting the ministry and being more willing to really engage in it in a positive way, if it comes to your congregation and you’re unfamiliar with it. And for those who have been involved in bivocational ministry for a long time, I hope that they do feel heard and respected more as we move into the future. Because even though I think it’s already a significant part of the ministerial landscape, I do think it’s going to be seen more and more in the future.
Jessica Anschutz: Great. Thank you so much, Kris, for taking the time to join me today.
Kris Bentley: Thank you, Jessica.
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Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers is available for purchase via the publisher, Amazon, or Cokesbury.
Related Resources
- When Your Pastor Is Your Plumber by Lovett H. Weems Jr.
- “Bivocational by Choice” featuring Ben Connelly
- Congregations That Thrive without Full-Time Clergy by G. Jeffrey MacDonald
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