How can bivocational ministers and the congregations they serve thrive? In this interview, 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: Kris, give a little bit of an insight into your book, Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers, and how you came to write it.
Kris Bentley: It came out of a conversation about what might be helpful to congregations, and so it’s a really congregation and minister-focused book. What led me to write it was when I began doing a research project in 2014 at LTS. All of the things I’d been learning through various conversations and surveys 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 is a great resource. 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 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 both in a congregation and elsewhere. But as time went on, and mostly through conversations with African-American pastors, I realized that some of the people who saw themselves as bivocational ministers, and who I considered bivocational, weren’t actually paid by their congregation. So, I had to rethink the congregation part. And so, for me it’s really about the employment outside of the congregation; it is that they are paid for 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: Given that, give us a little bit of a picture of who bivocational ministers are. What are some of the other things that they’re doing out in the world?
Kris Bentley: Well, I created a little chart in the book to help me sort through this. You have some ministers who are working 40 hours in a congregation but have some kind of side hustle going. They may be freelancing in some way, or have part-time employment, or do some kind of contract employment. That’s one group. Then another group would be those who are engaged in working with the congregation around 30 hours a week, and then outside of the church they have either a full-time or a part-time job. I think you also have a group who are working in the congregation, but they also have something like a paid ministry job outside. Some people think 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 work they do. Inside the congregation, they’re going to be lead pastors or solo pastors, or they might be on staff as a youth minister, a bivocational music minister, or an associate pastor. And then the employment outside is so many things, it’s hard to name. They could be teachers, work in their own family business, be 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 thrive. I’d like for us to unpack that a little bit today. Why don’t we start with what helps bivocational pastors thrive.
Kris Bentley: If you are a bivocational pastor in a congregation, one thing that would be helpful is for the church to know what it’s doing in terms of bivocational ministry. For pastors who are not serving as the first bivocational in a congregation, the congregation needs to have a really strong sense of partnership with the pastor, or to have this sense of shared ministry. It’s 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 give really a lot of thought about what are their possibilities for the job. They must assess the pastor’s 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.
The bivocational pastor also needs to do a lot of planning and invest in planning because they’re going to be able to make better use of their time, if they’ve thought about how they’re going to use their time. I think that can really help a congregation work better with them. I also think that they need really to reserve time for rest and renewal. I mean, a lot of times we talk about that as Sabbath. I think it needs to be a creative Sabbath for bivocational ministers because they’re not just balancing how they’re working with the congregation, but also their other employer. They need to really find ways to equip congregations, so that the congregation is better able to help see what needs to be done and to help pastors develop confidence in what they’re doing.
Jessica Anschutz: I know that there’s a wealth of information in your book and I really appreciate that. Let’s turn our attention 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: 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. They’ve had what we call full-time pastors, maybe for decades. And so, they need to really look at what it is that they expect this minister to do and how necessary is it for them to do that.
Then, 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 is what I call “Taking the pulse of the church body’s health,” and I’ve found myself really thinking that all congregations should do this if they’re going to have a pastor who has less time and different expectations for them than previous pastors. You need to have good structures inside that congregation for communicating with each other, 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 asking: “How well are we doing the things that we need to be doing?”
I think another important thing for these congregations is to adopt a perspective of sufficiency. I talk a little bit in the book about the full-time bias. Jeffrey MacDonald talks about it in his book: Part-Time is Plenty, and I think he’s so right. It’s that we have this idea that full-time pastors are better than either part-time or bivocational pastors. I think that’s because we live in a society where often “bigger” is seen as better or “more” is seen as better. 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…” It’s important to adopt practices of sufficiency and to maintain also that perspective, that attitude.
Another thing that’s important is to let your gratitude for the minister really show. Really find ways of letting that person know that we appreciate what they do and understand that it’s not their only call or only work. And to find ways of really supporting and expressing gratitude for that pastor.
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 also critical in looking at how bivocational pastors and their congregations can thrive. So, you mentioned “full-time bias.” And I have encountered that, as someone who served multiple congregations that were often 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 haven’t seen how successful churches with bivocational pastors or part-time pastors can be. That they are serving, that they’re in so many different places serving their communities, and I wanted to share stories. So, I think some of it is to familiarize yourself, to help church leaders understand and hear the stories of people who are doing things differently.
I’m currently serving as an interim bivocational pastor, and I’m serving a church that is trying to make this shift. They’ve had a full-time pastor for decades, and now they’re exploring having a part-time or 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 the idea that it’s not satisfying to have a part-time pastor.” And since then, we’ve talked about that a couple times. So, I think that’s one thing—having somebody who thinks part-time and bivocational ministry can work and does work to engage in conversations as they hear that bias.
Also, I think really helping congregation leaders and lay people 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, trying to engage 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 an 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: Cultural shifts like this are challenging on many levels. I want to go back a little bit to churches that are in this transition period, and I really appreciate your willingness to share of your own experience 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 looking to serve these congregations?
Kris Bentley: I think one of the things I’ve learned about myself, and I’ve heard it reflected in different conversations with ministers, is sometimes we must be willing to accept that we can only do so much. I mean, 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. I think we must 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 off and on through my ministry career. We just finished Holy Week and one of the things I tried 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 Easter Sunrise. 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, and to see that God is working in those parts too, not just your role as a pastor.
Pastor’s need to recognize 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, and to maybe partner with other congregations. I mean, a couple different ministers with whom I spoke 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.
I think also to develop some “plan Bs.” I heard a lot of ministers talk about plan Bs that they would develop. For example, if they’re a high school teacher and they knew that there were going be times when someone would call them during school and they could not pick up, they had somebody else from the congregation who would help them with emergency care. So, developing real teamwork and planning for “What will we do if this happens?”
I think the same thing goes with when you know you’re going to be away on vacation or something. Personally, I’ve heard too many stories of people leaving their vacation because an emergency came up. I think it’s important for bivocational ministers to make those plans, so they don’t have to do that; so that they don’t feel they have to do that. Because to get a vacation [schedule set and lined up]when you have more than one employer—or you have an employer and a church—takes a lot of energy … You should stick to it. You need it. If you’re going on a family vacation, they need time with you. You 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 and allows you to be more creative for them.
Jessica Anschutz: Thank you for those reminders. I think even pastors who are not in bivocational contexts can benefit from hearing those things because a lot of work goes 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. He had worked in a family business, and he talked about how his ability to bring some of that skillset into his pastoral role was important. 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 to the church’s ministry. 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, they really appreciated it. It showed them that they had a wider sense of their call, and it also helped them be more visible as a person who had real world experience. So, I think that it is important 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 work together.
Of course, saying that, you still must balance things. You still must be able to balance the competing needs and expectations, which is huge. I think—if you can help congregations do that—that’s an important facet. I think congregations need to see that the 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 work is taking time away for our pastor.”
There were really a lot of different views on that from lay people. So, if you’re a bivocational minister going into a new congregation, I think you need to assess: What is their attitude about that? Or what are their assumptions about that other work they might have?
Jessica Anschutz: Also, probably, what’s important in their relationship with the pastor? I love how you highlighted the integration of the beyond-the-church experience, and I would imagine that a pastor sharing in that way could really help laity make connections between their faith, their work experience, and their life beyond the church.
Kris Bentley: You’re reminding me of a little story with a pastor whom I call Pastor Arvel in the book. He works and has an hour and a half commute to the church. 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. As a result, they have changed 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 don’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 a gift to the community. The fact that he was bringing that in from another community—from a kind of work that’s different from what he does with his congregation—I thought that was a tremendous delight.
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, your book is Bivocational Ministry: Field Notes for Congregations and Ministers. As we draw to a close, I want to give you the opportunity to share your hope for bivocational ministry.
Kris Bentley: I probably have more than one hope. I hope more people see what bivocational ministry is already doing. That it is everywhere. That it is a significant part of the ministerial congregation. Also, to begin hearing more stories respecting that kind of ministry and to become more willing to really engage 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.
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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