Hugh Halter, in his book BiVO: A Modern Day Guide For Bi-Vocational Saints paints a picture of bivocational ministry for Western church planters, pastors, and missionaries. Not only does he share examples from his real-life experience of doing this, but he also give us an inside picture of his church and how they operate as a ministry served and led by bivocational leaders.
For example, in one chapter, he actually outlines the bivocational lives of each of his leadership team members. Here are three out of the nine that he shares:
Hugh & Cheryl: As I did my first church plant in Portland, about one third of my income came from personal missionary support, while the other two-thirds came from house painting. Because of our son’s epilepsy, my wife Cheryl has never been able to work until about five years ago. Now, about nine years into the church life, I receive one third of my income from Adullam, one third from speaking and training other church leaders, and one third from Cheryl’s real-estate career. Over the nine years Adullam has been a church, I have averaged about twenty-five hours a week for the actual church leadership roles. The rest of my time has been spent on the road, training leaders or painting as it was in the early days.
Matt & Maren: Matt was my original partner with both the church and with our national ministry platform called Missio. Matt worked with FedEx one third of the time, worked at a golf course for five dollars an hour, and had another one third of his income come from missionary support. As the church grew, Matt replaced his FedEx job with a one-third time stipend from the church and pieced the rest of his income together between church, training, and coaching. Two years ago, Matt gave up his church stipend and set out to start a small but successful publishing company. He remains one of our “elders” and continues to give Adullam about fifteen hours a week as a volunteer. His wife Maren has decided to stay home and be a mom.
Greg & Becky: These two are book agents and writers but emerged as key lay leaders, pastoring almost one third of our congregation with marriage issues. They serve on our leadership council and continue to give about twenty hours a week to the pastoral needs of the congregation without any pay.
Halter’s main premise is to help church leaders understand that their two callings are to work to provide for themselves and their family, AND to see their “entire lives leveraged and in use for God’s kingdom purposes, to live intentionally as a missionary saint.” Living out these dual callings is what he terms as BiVO. After all, “if none of us got paid, God would still expect us to lead and serve the world.”
If you’re interested in bivocational ministry and would like to read through a tangible example of how it can be played out both in a leader’s life and in a church’s life, this book is for you. If you recognize that there may be a day in your lifetime where full-time paid clergy will be the exception and not the norm—like it is in most non-Western countries—then you need to read this book. And lastly, if you’re planting a church, reading this book is a non-negotiable!! I’m not saying that you have to plant bivocationally, but at least pray through and consider this model.
Here are my top 10 favorite quotes from the book:
- Full-time vocational ministry (American-style) is not normal (less than 200 years old) and there are exciting opportunities for ministry in bi-vocational or volunteer paradigms.
- If none of us got paid, God would still expect us to lead and serve the world.
- The goal of our calling isn’t to be bi-vocational, fully paid, or volunteer. The goal of our existence is to learn how to leverage everything God has given us.
- God has not abandoned ship, but is pulling us back for a serious retrofit. We need a new model of disciple making, a new model of doing church, a new vision for our lives and what our money and time can accomplish.
- Jesus is trying to set us free, which also means he is trying to free the church, but we must let him challenge us at the level of the wallet.
- We were sold a bill of goods that told us if we could preach well, organize staff, and run weekend programs, we would be honored, respected, followed, and provided for. But none of that is true. The skills that once gave us meaning have left us yearning for more. But where do we go to learn the new skills and the new way of life for God’s legitimate leaders?
- Making disciples is cheaper than making consumer Christians. Put another way, letting God build his church as we focus on the kingdom is much cheaper than trying to build church without the kingdom.
- If we view every person as a missionary and only pay those who spend the majority of their time modeling, equipping, and holding God’s people together in mission, then the most costly aspect of ministry is time.
- This is a good time to remind you again that bi-vocational shouldn’t be your end goal. It is a means to get to another desired end goal, and that should be about living as large and as free a life as you can.
- Find a job you enjoy and work it with joy. Find some friends and divvy up the work. This is where the kingdom always leads, so get back in the game, get ahead, and enjoy some good news yourself.
I rate BiVO a 5 out of 5, since it’s transparent, helpful, and a critical book on the subject.
Leonard Hjalmarson says
Thanks for the brief review – I may pick up this one. I know Hugh emphasizes the practical and local, but does he reference the Lausanne paper “The Local Church in Mission” (2004) at all? The paper was a reflection on missional congregations (part A) followed by a look at bivo ministry (part B)
Daniel Im says
Hey Leonard, Great point. Hugh doesn’t reference the paper, but I should take a look at that!
david manafo says
this gave me some ideas on how to help start our next neighborhood church and why looking for only full time ministry roles might not be the silver bullet…
on another note, some of what people call BiVO is really extended ministry outside the church (part time denominational work, counselling, coaching, writing, other ministry platforms) and don’t constitute pure biVO like a school teacher, painter, business, etc.
Daniel Im says
That’s awesome David! Let me know if I can help in anyway.
Also, that’s true and a very good point. I guess when you look at the purest sense of the word, it really means “two” vocations.