The Quirks of Being Bi-Vocational, part 4

(Read part 1, part 2, and part 3)

I found this interesting article a few weeks ago…and thought it applied well to our conversation. I’ll highlight some main points.

• A second job can be a good way to make a little bit of “extra” money. I think, if you can work a second job to help you save or pay above and beyond on your debt, that is the way to go. If you have to depend on your second job to buy groceries, it might be time to consider looking for a higher paying job.
• Find flexibility. This is especially important for ministers. My second job right now is very flexible. If I need to go to a hospital or funeral or out of town for a conference, it is very easy to do so. They understand where I am at…and that’s invaluable. It would be tough to serve two masters.
• Communicate well with your church. I have posted my “office hours” for my congregation in the weekly bulletin. My office hours change from week to week, and the church appreciates knowing when I will be available in the office. Talk with your elders or leaders; make sure they understand your situation and are on-board. If they aren’t, work out a solution.
• Here is a quote from the end of the article:

“Problems may arise if the extra hours you put in at the side job interfere with your main job. Say, you’re too tired to do your day job well because you were waiting tables until 1 a.m. the night before. Or you have to miss an important company retreat because you have other obligations. ‘While the extra pay is useful, the extra work does begin to wear you down physically and mentally,’ warns Randall Hansen, founder of QuintCareers.com, a career-development Web site.”

 

This is true. I have struggled with it. The physical and mental (and don’t forget spiritual) strain that you can feel from working two jobs can take its toll. Seek and find and maintain balance. This is not a warning to not work two jobs; as has been mentioned, it can be an amazing blessing. But, it is a call for balance.

The Quirks of Being Bi-Vocational, part 3

Read first:

Part 1
Part 2

When you are a bi-vocational minister, you find very quickly that you have less time available to you to do the things you normally would be doing as a minister with just one job.

For example, ask your minister what his typical work week consists of:

• Research, write and preach a good sermon
• Research, write and teach a good Sunday School lesson
• Research, write and teach a good midweek Bible study lesson
• Visit the 5 sick people in5 different hospitals at least once; probably multiple times
• Write 3 letters to the visitors from last Sunday
• Call 2 people who you haven’t seen in church for quite some time
• Go to, at least, 4 administrative meetings
• Email countless numbers of people

And that’s Monday.

When you are working two jobs, you feel as though you need to accomplish the same amount of tasks, but you now have 20 or so less hours per week in which to do so. If you are normal, you probably are going to steal that time from somewhere else: specifically, your family.

You may stay up late 2 or 3 hours a night to do some sermon preparation. You may cheat on your “day off” and do some work instead of playing with your kids. You may not do some of the pastoral stuff you need to do so that you can make sure your sermon is on target.

It’s a reality of bi-vocational ministry. Craig Groeschel, of LifeChurch.tv, is blogging a series of posts called “Don’t Do It All” and it’s great. [Read part 1, part 2 and part 3]. What he has found is that any minister, even non-bi-vocational ones cannot do it all.

In a smaller church, where you find many bi-vocational ministers, a lot of pressure is put on the minister to do it all. When I arrived at my church, it was expected that I do all the teaching, all the preaching, all the calling, all the administrative functions, all of the everything. And I know I’m not the only one.

But we can’t do everything. Here are a few ideas for bi-vocational ministers to accomplish what they need to accomplish without sacrificing their families, their health, or their ministries along the way:

• Rely on your elders, or other shepherd-type people to do some of the pastoral work. If you have someone sick or in the hospital, go visit them once per week. But have the other various elders visit with them the remainder of the week. You don’t need to go everyday.
• Get some administrative help. If you have a secretary, make sure you keep her busy.
• Guard, vigilantly, a day off. Another post about this is forthcoming.
• Train other teachers. This will help you in the long run. If you can spend some extra time training a Bible study leader now, then later you will be released from teaching it yourself, thus freeing up several hours per week.

Any other ideas from you?

The Quirks of Being Bi-Vocational, part 2

The other day, I posted part 1. You can read it here.

One of the coolest things about being bi-vocational is your chance to mix and mingle with a lot of people who don’t know Christ at your “other” job.

A lot of ministers whose one and only job is ministry have a really hard time getting out into their community to meet people. They can’t find the time to attend a book club or go to a community meeting or participate in an activity outside of the church building where they get the chance to meet, and really know, non-Christians.
Bi-vocational ministers, assuming their other job is not a part-time ministry gig, have built-in opportunities to meet and know people outside of their church. They have a great chance to invest in a whole pile of non-Christians, former Christians, and ex-Christians. And they are afforded this opportunity simply because they are working a second job.

My second job is at a hotel reservation call center. A couple of months ago, I had a week-long training there that consumed the entire week; from 8-5 each day, Monday through Friday. During the training, I got a neat chance to tell the trainer that I was a minister, that this was a second job for me, and things like this. He asked where my church was and I told him. He mentioned he would like to visit, as he no longer attended church anywhere. He has yet to come, but the seed was planted.

I have a friend there who is a non-Christian, but is studying Christian theology at a local university.

I have another friend there who plans on getting married in about a year, and he mentioned that he would like for me to perform their wedding.

A lot of neat opportunities that I may not have had were it not for being bi-vocational, and forced into a spot to interact with a whole community of people we as ministers are called out to reach.

The Quirks of Being Bi-Vocational, part 1

One of the interesting places that I have found myself in this last year is the place of being a bi-vocational minister. This is my third located ministry, but the first time where I have found myself working two jobs: one at the church, and the other in the marketplace.

Why am I bi-vocational? Well, the short answer right now is “because I have to.” I pastor a small church. And often times in smaller churches, you have smaller salaries. In a large city, like Omaha, the cost of living is greater than the salary that the small church can offer.

Being bi-vocational brings about interesting challenges. I would like to spend some time over the next few weeks discussing what those challenges are.

But first, a couple of disclaimers:

• This is not a gripe session about my church. I love where I am serving.
• This is not a cry for financial help.
• All of these posts will not be negative…in fact, there are a couple of very positive “quirks” that have come from being bi-vocational. I will share those as well.

So…without further ado…

Being Between the Proverbial Rock and Hard Place

Smaller churches often have smaller salaries to offer their ministers because they have a smaller amount of income through the tithes and offerings of the church. In order for a minister’s salary to increase, a lot of times what needs to happen is that the church grows numerically so that the tithes and offerings can grow proportionally, thus resulting in more income in which the church can give the minister a raise.

But I am caught, as are many bi-vocational ministers, between the rock and the hard place. I want our church to grow; I want the tithes and offerings to grow; and in those hopes, it would be neat to see my salary grow and I would be able to abandon the part-time job. The rock.

But the hard place is that I have devote one-half of my work week to that part-time job in order to get the bills paid. Do you see the Catch-22?

The church is small and offers a small salary. To get a great salary, it needs to grow. For it to grow, it needs a minister who can be present and focused all the time. To have a minister present and focused means he shouldn’t work two jobs. But he has to work two jobs so he can pay his bills. And because he has to work two jobs, he can’t be present and focused at the church. And because he can’t be present and focused at the church, it suffers slower growth. And because it suffers slower growth, so does the increase in his salary.

The rock and the hard place.

As I stated earlier, I don’t want these to be negative posts. I want them to be positive and constructive. So, a few thoughts…

1. We must be faithful with what God has entrusted us. The Bible shows us a principle that when we are found faithful with the few, God is compelled to entrust us with more. That doesn’t always translate for people or money, but it can.
2. We can pray. I have seen God provide for us financially in so many ways, that I was free to take extra time off of my second job and thus concentrate more on my church ministry for those few days.
3. It’s a challenge…and because the bi-vocational minister cannot feasibly have his hands in every facet of the church, he must depend upon the members of the church to do much of the ministry. This poses great challenges, but also reaps great rewards. This idea will keep popping up as I share about bi-vocational ministry.

Sunday is Coming…

This has been one of those weeks. I finished up a six week sermon series last weekend. I start a new three week series next weekend. That leaves this Sunday stuck in the middle all alone.

And that always means, at least for me, that I have a hard time deciding what to preach about. And this week’s difficulties have been compounded by an extraordinarily busy week. I have met with several people…multiple folks from the church each day this week. And I was scheduled to work 6 days in a row at my “part-time” job this week. Translation: 30 hours. Yuck.

So, it’s Friday night and I have finally have some thoughts on paper. I will preach this Sunday about “Disappointment with God.” It’s nice to finally have an idea and some direction from Him about what to say. I’m hoping to hack it all out tonight and be able to not have to work (so much) tomorrow.

Our Vocation

“The truth is not that God is finding us a place for our gifts but that God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing–and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there.”

–Os Guinness

Bi-Vo

Working two jobs is hard. I mean, I knew it would be, but I guess I didn’t realize how hard. This last week, I have been working my full-time ministry job and then going to training for my new job at the Worldwide Reservation Center for Carlson Hotels from 5:30-10:30pm.

The job is going to be great. Easy. Fun. Low stress. Good pay and benefits and stuff. Nice people. I am looking forward to getting to know some new folks who are outside of the church.

But I am learning how hard it will be to balance family, church, and hotels. It’s gotta happen. I have to make it happen. I jus am realizing how tough it will be.

In some neat news, we finally got the internet in our house. An attempt to be more efficient in working…up til this point, everything I have done online was at the church office. Now I can work more from home.

More neat news…my sister and brother-in-law will be in town this weekend.

My First Post of 2006

As I often do when I allowed time to interrupt my posts, I like to put out there for you all to read a collection of thoughts and events over the last few weeks:

• Christmas was nice. My kids are adorable and we had so much fun watching them.
• This was my first Christmas as a “Senior” Minister (whatever that means!) and it also happened to be the first time Christmas Day had fallen on a Sunday in many moons. Very stressful time for me…I can’t remember such a busy holiday season before.
• Keri and I went to bed at 11:30pm on New Year’s Eve. Isn’t that hilarious? It would be one thing if we went to be at 10pm or 9pm…but 11:30pm?? We might as well just have stayed up til midnight.
• A website I have developed called www.youngministers.com is up and live as of December 20something. There isn’t a ton of content up yet, but I am excited about it. More on this later.
• My anniversary and my birthday both are coming up.
• I got a new part-time job. I start Thursday working at Carlson Hotels “Worldwide Reservation Center.” When you call Carlson Hotels and wanna book a room…you may get to talk to me. I am pretty excited about it for a number of reason. Benefits, 401(k), new people, casual environment, and cheap hotel rooms and discounts at great restaurants, like TGIFriday’s.

Happy 2006. I will resolve to post again soon.

Hello Internet Life Forms

I am not a very good blogger. Please have mercy on me.

So…have you ever noticed that you get sick in the winter? It sucks. First Eden, then Jerah, then Brandon, and then Keri. Now Jerah and Brandon have expanded their horizons…from the flu to a nasty chest cold-cough-phlegmy-thing. Ick.

Have you also noticed that Christmas is creeping ever-so-close? I should start thinking about shopping soon.

I am in the process of finding part-time work. Have I said that already here? Sorry. In the Bible, the apostle Paul was a maker of tents…that is how he supported his ministry habit. I think I will do the same thing. Except instead of make tents, I will make hotel reservations or tax appointments or something.

PLEASE–if you haven’t yet voted for my poem, please do so. Time is running out. Click here.