bivocational

Church Leader! The Gig Economy Matters and This is Why

January 28, 2020 By Daniel Im

The gig economy is the new normal and it’s changing everyday life.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can read last week’s article for context. But last week, I addressed seven ways the gig economy is affecting everyone in our culture today—especially those in your church.

In short, the gig economy is changing the way that we view ourselves—and it’s not for the better.

Here’s the thing though. The gig economy not only affects everyone in your church—whether they’re Christian or not—but it also affects your leaders and how you should approach leadership in the church.

Let’s start with your changing congregation.

On a practical level, since the gig economy is the new normal, this means that close to half of your congregation is probably working more than one job.

Close to half of your church is probably working more than one job.

Click To Tweet

So have you considered how this should affect:

Your approach to streaming your service?
Attendance patterns and measuring engagement in your church?
Preaching on and discipling your church on issues of faith and work?
When and how you offer leadership development and training?

On a side note, if you haven’t read chapter three of my book, No Silver Bullets, where I talk about the shift that we need to make “from being the sage on the stage to being the guide on the side,” you’re going to want to pick it up. In that chapter, I illustrate how you can flip the classroom and offer both a high tech and high touch approach to leadership development

There’s also the issue of money and multiplication.

If you’ve read anything on movements—particularly church planting movements—you’ll know that money and education are two massively stifling factors to movemental energy.

[Read more…]

Tomorrow’s Church Planting

April 15, 2016 By Daniel Im

tomorrow

Church planting today is not what it used to be.

Before, church planters were the ones who couldn’t get a “real ministry position” at a church, so they started their own. Albeit, there were those entrepreneurial few who defied all odds and started churches on their own, by and large, being a church planter wasn’t what it was today.

Now, being a church planter is the thing to do.

Church planting is getting the attention of the masses. In fact, many church planting conferences are now larger than typical pastoral conferences. This is surprising when, decades ago, there was no such thing as a church planting conference. For example, the recent SEND North America church planting conference in 2015, hosted by the North American Mission Board (an SBC entity), had two to three times the attendance than the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in 2015. That would not have happened 15 years ago. In addition, most seminaries now have certificates, tracks, and/or entire degree programs focusing on church planting. This too would not have been the case in yesteryear.

The evidence is clear. Church planting is exciting, it has momentum, and it is here to stay. But this article is not on today’s church planting, it’s on tomorrow’s church planting.

As I’ve been consulting with denominations, networks, and churches regarding their strategy to assess, train, coach, and fund church planters, there are a few trends that I’m beginning to notice. In fact, a few of these trends were the focus of Ed Stetzer’s and my writing in the newly updated edition of Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply. Not only did we overhaul every single chapter, but we also wrote several new ones. If you read the previous edition, it would be worth your time to take a look, since it’s practically a new book (over 50% new content). For this article though, I want to focus on three of the major trends that I’m beginning to notice for tomorrow’s church planting: Kingdom collaboration, bivocational ministry, and residencies and theological education.

Book Review and Best Quotes: BiVO by Hugh Halter

April 4, 2016 By Daniel Im

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.”