Multi-Vocational Ministry
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
Dear Readers,
Hello and welcome to my new series on Multi-Vocational Ministry for Church Anew!
You might be thinking “multi-vocational” - hm - what does that even mean?
Maybe you’ve heard the word “bi-vocational” thrown around. Maybe, like me, you heard that word spoken a little bit in seminary, likely as a way to supplement ministry salaries that have been decreasing for years and often aren’t enough to afford basic necessities.
Maybe you’ve heard “bi-vocational” ministry compared to the Acts 18 passage about the Apostle Paul also working as a tentmaker, suggesting that those who serve the Gospel must also have a trade in order to afford their lives.
That model may have worked better in the days before most churches required their ministers to have a graduate degree, and, for seminary grads over the past 20-30 years or so, a graduate degree that necessitated taking out student loans, which would then take out a chunk of that aforementioned-often-paltry church income.
Or maybe you’re reading this passage as a lay leader in a church, a church council member or elder, and you’ve spent years struggling to balance your budget around skyrocketing costs for clergy and family health insurance and benefits. Maybe you’ve thought about a model of bivocational ministry as one that might help your church survive, but you’re not sure what that might mean for the minister’s availability to serve your church.
I’ve heard the word “bivocational” tossed around as a solution in both of these situations, and still, as an ordained clergy member and also a former church council member looking to balance a small, rural church budget, I find “bivocational” ministry sorely lacking in its ability to address the current challenges facing both ministers and churches.
That’s why, in this semi-regular column for Church Anew, I’m hoping we can explore together the idea of Multi-Vocational Ministry.
One of the presuppositions I’d like to carry into this work is the reality that most ministers, and most people in general, are already living multi-vocational lives. Certainly, those of us who are parents and home caregivers already have another vocation in addition to our paid work. Naming and honoring this work as a vocation helps lay leaders to better relate to the multi-faceted lives lived by clergy, and it helps to recognize the major shift in clergy lives since the former reality of predominately white, male ministers who lived in parsonages and were married to women who did the primary work of raising children and taking care of tasks of cleaning, cooking, and running the home.
A necessary caveat here is probably that Roman Catholic priests are among the few religious leaders who still take a singular approach to vocation, eschewing marriage and family and taking vows of poverty to serve the church.
But parenting and care-giving is not the only other vocation many Christian leaders follow. “Multi-Vocational” ministry honors the reality of 21st Century American life, that the church is no longer at the center place in most communities. Therefore, clergy leaders must define their vocational calling not primarily as one to a particular parish or even denomination but rather - as in the Early Church - to the Gospel. I personally happen to think this is a healthy and necessary change in orientation, but it is one that has been stubbornly resisted by denominational leaders and church councils alike.
To be called to serve the Gospel means that ministers must use all of themselves to serve the Gospel, as Paul advises in 1 Corinthians 9:
“For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
Paul recommends flexibility for clergy and ministry leaders. This flexibility means clergy can embrace multiple vocations that honor their gifts and talents and time. I know ministers who operate craft and design shops on Etsy. Others work as substitute teachers and serve their local school boards. Others work in social advocacy organizations or serve as volunteers for shelters for people experiencing homelessness. Some ministers might use their math skills and financial acumen to help people establish a household budget. Some ministers might coach youth sports teams or play in a community band.
Maybe you’re wondering about me, and why I am the minister writing this column for you.
Well, I was the woman in seminary 13 years ago who thought bivocational ministry was a scam, set up so that churches could pay pastors less, and ministers could lower our expectations despite coming out of four years of post-bachelor’s education and a year of barely-above-minimum-wage pastoral internship.
I thought pastors should run our churches like CEOs, and we should make sure our churches functioned financially so that we could pay our bills and count on a middle-class existence.
Whew, was that woman wrong - and likely following a failed 1980s megachurch model for Corporate Church, a model that has since been complicit in the rise of white Christian Nationalism. While I do know there are some who might suggest bi-vocational ministry as an excuse for lowering clergy wages, uni-vocational ministry, especially for mainline Protestant pastors in modern-day America, is just naive and unrealistic, and it also fails to meet the needs of modern-day Americans and modern-day Christians.
Today, I am a fully bona fide multi-vocational minister who has not served a full-time parish call since May of 2017. Since that time I have served a below-50-percent part-time interim staff call at a large metro congregation, and I have also served a 3/4 time solo call to a small rural congregation. I have also spent periods of time officially “on leave from call,” which I am currently on now. During those periods, I continued to serve as a fill-in pastor and preacher, including for pastors on sabbatical or churches in a short-term clergy transition.
Throughout all this time, I have continued to serve my other vocations as a mother to two young children, and also as a writer, speaker, author, journalist, and teacher. My first book, Red State Christians, came out in 2019, and Broadleaf Books published an updated version in August 2022. I host a thrice-weekly newsletter on my Substack, I’m Listening, at https://angeladenker.substack.com. I have taught courses for seminaries and universities, served as a guest on countless podcasts, and even appeared as a news pundit on CNN, the BBC, and SkyNews in 2019 and during the 2020 Presidential Election. I give keynote addresses and talks on Christian Nationalism, and I often work with pastors to support them on ministering in a divided political world, where political and religious-based violence and rhetoric is on the rise. I also speak on racism and the part it plays in white Christian Nationalism in America, and about the role of women in the church.
To support these passions, I have also done a variety of side jobs. Occasionally, I serve as a substitute teacher for Southwest High School and Lake Harriet Community School in the Minneapolis Public School district. I serve on a board for an organization promoting education on domestic violence prevention in Minnesota schools, based in rural Minnesota. I write articles for websites and magazines, and I also get to partner with organizations like Church Anew - which has fostered the multi-vocational writing and speaking skills of ministry leaders for several years now. Other organizations such as Red Letter Christians and Sojourners have also been fruitful places in which to grow my multi-vocational work.
Still, this path is one that many of us are forging for the first time, and we often face stereotypes and misunderstanding. Many people think I’m “not working” since I left my most recent parish call, and in my denomination, our practice of placing multi-vocational ministers “on leave from call,” reinforces this misunderstanding.
I am encouraged by the pioneering work of some Lutheran synods, who have made room for calls to “public theology” or other ways to affirm the work of ministers serving outside traditional parish or seminary professor calls.
Perhaps the most challenging part of being a multi-vocational minister (and you don’t have to be an ordained person to fit in this category! I know several incredible multi-vocational ministers who are not ordained) is the loneliness and the anxiety. You’re never quite sure where your next paycheck is coming from, and you never really have coworkers in the traditional sense. You might also feel a wondering if you’re doing the right thing - or if God has affirmed your call - or if you’re letting the Church down.
I’m hoping this column can serve as a place for encouragement and growth for all of us exploring this uncharted path. As part of that work, I want to address your own particular questions and concerns and wonderings about multi-vocational ministry. I’d love for you to share your stories with me and with Church Anew, and with your permission, I’ll address your questions in my column. You can submit them to me here: https://www.angeladenker.com/contact.
We can talk about your practical questions, like, how do you handle multi-vocational income during tax season? How do you start a practice of writing or speaking? How do you handle your social media platforms as a multi-vocational minister?
We can also talk theologically, about expanding the Church’s view of vocation and how it can operate in modern-day America. And we can talk about your struggles, emotions, and joys when it comes to this work. I hope through this page that we can meet one another, support one another, and continue to gain a deeper experience of Christian community.
I’ll be back in a couple of months with another column - don’t forget to send along your thoughts and questions! I’m also planning profiles of multi-vocational ministers among us: so think about sharing your story!
Rev. Angela Denker
