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.”
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