{"id":738,"date":"2014-07-24T10:34:43","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T17:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/?p=738"},"modified":"2014-07-24T10:34:43","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T17:34:43","slug":"multisite-and-bivocational-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/multisite-and-bivocational-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Multisite and Bivocational Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the topics we discussed yesterday, when I was meeting with some local pastors, was the megachurch-and- branch-campus model used by churches like Saddleback<\/a> and North Point<\/a>. (This model is also important to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church<\/a>, as discerned by Christianity Today<\/a> but — curiously — not the PC(USA) in its own reporting<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

None of the pastors I met with were very enthusiastic about this model. We can look at a John Ortberg or an Andy Stanley and recognize what great preachers they are, but it’s hard to be enthusiastic about being a “campus pastor” with modest or minimal opportunities to preach. (This emphasis on sermonizing is reflected in the polity of the PC(USA), where pastors are “teaching elders” — and before that, “ministers of Word and sacrament.”)<\/p>\n

But the pastors I met with were all full time ministers. There are reasons to believe we are not the wave of the future. Rather, the church seems to be moving toward a model of bivocational pastors, as described last year in the Presbyterian Outlook<\/a>, where pastors have a day job to pay the bills, in addition to their vocation as a pastor. This week, the Atlantic<\/a> wondered about this trend:<\/p>\n

Working multiple jobs is nothing new to pastors of small, rural congregations. But many of those pastors never went to seminary and never expected to have a full-time ministerial job in the first place. What\u2019s new is the across-the-board increase in bi-vocational ministry in Protestant denominations both large and small, which has effectively shut down one pathway to a stable\u2014if humble\u2014middle-class career.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What happens when you combine this trend with the multi-campus, multi-venue model with the trend toward part-time ministry?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the topics we discussed yesterday, when I was meeting with some local pastors, was the megachurch-and- branch-campus model used by churches like Saddleback and North Point. (This model is also important to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, as discerned by Christianity Today but — curiously — not the PC(USA) in its own reporting.) None … Continue reading »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[606,15,605,236,45,683],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bivocational","tag-church","tag-future","tag-pastors","tag-presbyterian","tag-vocation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messofpottage.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}