Gospel ministers looking for work

[dkicklig]

I think it may be time to start some kind of support group for unemployed/underemployed Gospel ministers. It amazes me how many of us are solid, conservative, reformed, knowledgable Bible trained, called of God me, yet we can't pay a church to employ us.

Much prayer needed for all.

 

[dkicklig]

Undergrad Bible dg wanting MDiv

For me I want more school, would love to serve a church, looking at the unemployment line coming in September, 3 kids, debt, and on and on.

I praise the Lord for what David Brainerd called "pleasing pain"

I know that these present sufferings are nothing compared to the glory which will be revealed in us.

[Edited on 4-29-2004 by dkicklig]

 

[pastorway]

Yep.

I have an undergrad degree in Bible and am 48 hours away from an MDiv. But I am bi-vocational, out of work in the "secular" market due to lay offs 2 years ago, have plenty of time for school but no $$$ to continue.

Our church is in the same kind of quandry in that most of the men in the congregation right now are also out of work.

Trying times indeed. Yet I am reminded that we must never allow our freedom (or our free time) to led to apathy or worse, laziness. There is work to be done for the kindgom!!

Phillip

[Edited on 4-29-04 by pastorway]

 

[Gregg]

I will keep you in prayer Pastor and David K.

God Bless,
Gregg

[Edited on 4-30-2004 by Gregg]

 

[lkjohnson]

I have an M.Div, and pastor a small, Spanish-speaking, Reformed Baptist congregation. I also work a full-time secular job. Furthermore, I probably would not have it any other way. In spite of its difficulties, I love being a bivocational pastor. Some of it's advantages include:

• 
  [*:8e2568d07c]My congregation simply does not have the money to support a full-time pastor. If I were not bivocational, the church would not exist, and there are precious few reformed churches in the Spanish-speaking world.
  [*:8e2568d07c]Because I am bivocational, my congregation works more efficiently than most. The pastor is not the only one who can minister and ministry is expected of all the members.
  [*:8e2568d07c]It is at times an advantage for my congregation to see me as a real person. I am not seen as someone who is special. I work a fifty-hour work week just like everyone else. I can do so and live by faith. So can they.
  [*:8e2568d07c]No one is more free than he who has nothing to lose. If I had been depending upon a church to support me, I would have had to give up the task set before me long ago. When we were a mission congregation our sponsor church threatened to fire me more than once unless I compromised. What they did not understand was that I had absolutely nothingn to lose except my integrity before God.
  [/list:8e2568d07c]
  
  I tell everyone I work at an electrical supply distributor in order to pay the bills. I pastor a church for fun. Even if God sends us a great blessing and the church grows beyond our wildest dreams, I would probably continue as a bivocational pastor. I love it. I cannot say I have no financial worries, but I can say that it has given me a freedom to serve God in a way most men never experience.
  
  The biggest obstacle most men must cross in order to be bivocational is pride. Our ideas of success are based on a worldly model instead of a biblical model. The world and other pastors will never see me as a success. For example, one of my college roommates told me to send him a resume and he would "find me a real church." What he did not understand was that I have a very real church in every sense of the term. It is not large. Most consider us a bit on the crazy side. It is, however, a living testimony to the grace of God. What more could I want? Another local pastor was overheard saying that if I were any good as a pastor I would have a larger church and that I must lack some of the skills necessary. I casually let him know that I could not only do everything he could do, but I do it in two languages simultaneously.
  
  The fact is that the church in America has all but abandonded the lower socio-economic people. Mostly because we are not willing to be missionaries in our own country or because we are so ethnocentric that we simply cannot bring ourselves to move outside our own little worlds to find the multitude of people who need the gospel. I am convinced that we must find a way to be God's people with less money. That means alternatives to dedicated church buildings and bivocational pastors.
  
  Paul was bivocational so that he could carry the gospel to those who most needed it. If it was good enough for Paul, it is good enough for our day as well.
  
  [Edited on 4-30-2004 by lkjohnson]

 

[pastorway]

I second everything Pastor Johnson has stated. My only regret about being bi-vocational is that I am not really bi-vocational until I get a new secular job!!

Phillip

 

[JonathonHunt]

What interests me is the American 'route' to ministry. It seems that you only rate a man if he has degrees in biblical studies - and preferably more than one! It seems that many view the 'batchelors, masters, doctorate' route as important and inevitable.

Over here in the UK, there are many pastors who have no formal education and yet they are sound and solid. They may be fairly simple, but there's no harm in that.

I would say overall that the most common 'pastor' type in the UK is someone who has a degree or formal education in secular subjects, and then undertakes a seminary course, leading to a certificate, diploma or sometimes a futher degree( hard to get these days if you are truly reformed. Universities who accredit courses aren't interested in biblical truth!)

Often these men take such courses several years after they have finished secular studies. It really comes down to $$$ (or £££ here!). I would love to study more but all that is affordable is a secular degree part-time, and a part-time seminary course (although it is the best reformed baptist course in the country!)

I would never deny the importance of education, but education without christian service and experience of hard work in the church makes useless pastors. Too many of them around these days.

:grad:

 

[lkjohnson]

You make some good points, Jonathan. I have to admit that my M.Div. is not so much an education as a union card. In the eyes of the "church" I am now qualified to pastor. (BTW, my real theological education came from my undergraduate work at Hardin-Simmons University rather from my M.Div.)

It was not always so. One of the reasons there are so many Baptists in Texas and the South is the bivocational minister, particularly in the days of the expanding frontier following the Civil War. The same man who plowed a field on Saturday would stand on a stump in that field on Sunday and preach the gospel. The denominations that required formal education for the ministers-Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, etc.-simply could not meet the demands of the expanding nation. The Methodists dealt with the problem with the circuit-riding minister.

Interestingly enough, in spite of the lack of formal educaiton among the pastors, they were generally doctrinally very sound. The move toward Arminianism did not start until the past 50 years or so when most pastors were and are formally trained. This illustrates the power of the Word of God and the potential danger of the writings of men. Many of those bivocational pastors read nothing but the Bible. Some may have had a few books, but not many. One of the great purposes of the local Baptist assocations in those days was for the older ministers to train the younger ministers. In our eyes this would be a system with a great potential for corruption. But, by the grace of God and the power of his Word, it was not. The corruption came with the formal education.

As stated earlier, the mainline church of nearly all denominations, with the exception of the Pentecostals, have abandoned the poor of our society. I firmly believe God will use bivocational ministers to carry the gospel to those people.

 

[sundoulos]

I presently am in a full-time pastoral position. I have done bi-vocational work most of my ministry career. My experience is that both ministry and work suffer -- or family suffers. There are not enough hours in the week to do everything that needs to be done.

My present church was without a pastor for four years. The people stepped up to the plate and this church is a people-ministry church.

I agree with Jonathan. I have neither a bachelor's nor a divinity degree. I would have like to have gone to seminary but, other than language studies, have not suffered for not having gone. Most people, unless I tell them, have no clue that I have no formal education.

I have also worked as a mechanical and as a structural engineer with no formal education in those areas. School just makes the acquisition of knowledge speedier.

I was an associate pastor under a man who graduated from D.T.S. He never studied and his sermons showed it. What good is a degree that isn't worth the paper it is printed on? We should be life-long students in and out of the classroom.