Double-duty pastors
Working full time and ministering to small churches takes a special vocation
BY CHRISTIE STORM, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Don't call the Rev. Tommy Thomason a part-time pastor. It's a label the minister finds misleading and sort of demeaning. “I assure you I'm full time,” said Thomason, who leads Grace Connection church while also serving as regional manager for Splash Superpools in Little Rock . Bivocational ministers often work full time in secular jobs while also struggling to lead, teach and minister to a congregation, he said. After working all day at their secular job, bivocational pastors somehow find time to study, prepare sermons, visit sick parishioners and even mow the church lawn. They also manage to find time for weddings, funerals and unexpected emergencies. Across America , tens of thousands of churches rely on bivocational ministers, including an estimated 18,000 Southern Baptist congregations. “Somewhere in the neighborhood of half the churches in the Southern Baptist Convention would not have a pastor if they left the scene,” said Ray Gilder, national coordinator for the Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association. Thomason and his co-pastor, Mike Montgomery, squeeze in 40 or more hours a week at their secular jobs and untold hours taking care of their church members at Grace Connection. Montgomery owns Office Furniture Service in Little Rock and has 25 employees to supervise. Most bivocational pastors lead small congregations with limited financial resources and receive part-time pay if any pay at all. Thomason and Montgomery take no salary from Grace Connection, preferring to save the church's income for ministry needs. They can do so because of their secular jobs, but that's not true of all bivocational ministers. Many need the salary provided by their churches. For Thomason and Montgomery, finding time for their jobs, their church and their families can be difficult. And personal time? It's rare, but both have unique ways of winding down. Montgomery loves to drag race while Thomason prefers the calm silence of scuba diving. The two men started Grace Connection five years ago with a third pastor who has since left. A rational person might have sized up the staggering workload and walked away, but not Thomason. “When you get called to do something, you don't think about it logically,” he said. The group started with 12 members and now has an average attendance of more than 100. Both men said they couldn't juggle all their responsibilities without the support of their families, each other and their congregation. They keep up the nonstop work because of the lives they see changed by Chris t, but they also admit that burnout is a real threat. “I'll admit we get down,” Thomason said. “Over the five years, if I get down Mike's up or when he's down I'm up. Only once were we both down and that was a really rough time, but I think about the lives that have been changed and that's what we use to pump each other up.” The logistics of juggling work, church and family are complicated. Thomason and Montgomery have a routine to help them try to accomplish the impossible.
FEW TIMEOUTS
Montgomery starts his workday at 7 a.m. By 8:30 his employees are on their way to various job sites, and he has a little quiet time to make phone calls to check on folks missing from church on Sunday. He also makes calls while driving to and from work, checking up on members, answering questions and offering advice. The two men alternate preaching duties, so every two weeks they get a break from sermon preparation and studying. But on the weeks he preaches, Montgomery said he reads about 40 hours in preparation for his sermon. “It may be 2 or 3 a.m. when I go to bed,” he said. “But Sunday, after church, is my rest day. Saturday, if I'm not teaching, it's family day.” Thomason travels 60 to 80 days a year with his job and uses the travel time as a refresher. Time management is crucial, he says. “There's a lot of hours involved in this,” he said. “Mike and I work seven days a week on this church. Somehow the Lord gives us the strength. “If you are really called you know God gives you the strength and the endurance,” he said. “I've tried to quit many times and [God] hasn't let me.”
THE RACING CLOCK
Gilder, the national coordinator of the Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association, expects bivocational ministers like Thomason and Montgomery to play an increasingly important role in churches in the future if memberships decline and donations dwindle, as some anticipate. Gilder's association serves as a resource for bivocational Southern Baptist ministers, offering support and training to ministers throughout the country. “We provide affirmation, which many of them need,” Gilder said. “They feel like the Lone Ranger. They don't have the opportunity to fellowship with other ministers, so we try our best to help them realize they need fellowship and encouragement.” Gilder said one of the biggest challenges for bivocational ministers is time management, simply finding time to take care of all aspects of their lives. “What usually gets shortchanged is the family,” he said, adding that the association provides retreats for ministers and their wives to help them find time to be alone and draw encouragement from their peers. Gilder said the wives of ministers also need encouragement. “A bivocational minister working another job is not available during the day, so his wife by default does a lot of pastoring and working on church issues.” The association helps pastors by teaching administrative skills, sermon writing and establishing ministry teams within the congregation so they have help with everyday tasks. “We remind them the Apostle Paul was bivocational, and it's not a competition between being full time or bivocational. The goal is to find out where God wants you and to do your best there,” he said. As for why these ministers shoulder such responsibility, Gilder said it's the call from God. “God has put this on their heart,” he said. “They try to quit, many of them, but they can't.” Rabbi Jacob Adler of Temple Shalom in Fayetteville also serves a bivocational role. He teaches philosophy at the University of Arkansas and serves as the spiritual leader for the more than 60 families of the congregation. For Adler, saying “I'm off the clock” is difficult. “The main thing is it's an expanding job,” he said. “But in a way it's a challenge for everyone, even full-time ministers ... it's not like when you are paid by the hour and you put in your time and go home.” Adler said juggling his responsibilities wouldn't be possible without the active support of the congregation. “You need active members to do things,” he said. With their help he is able to focus on meeting their needs, like being there in both good times and bad times.
30-YEAR GIG
The Rev. John King of Fayetteville has been a bivocational pastor for 30 years. The preaching gig at First Presbyterian Church in Prairie Grove was supposed to be for a couple of weeks. The weeks turned into months and now it's been 30 years. While serving the small congregation all these years he has also been a professor of social work at the University of Arkansas . He has taught at the university for 35 years but recently cut back to part time. King said the bivocational relationship has worked well at the church because the members take such an active role in leading programs and planning events. The minister usually spends Sundays and Wednesdays at the church, as well as a few Saturdays. King said he worries about not being there for the congregation in times of need because of his “day job” or when he's traveling, but so far he hasn't missed any weddings or funerals. He said the competing schedules are the biggest drawback. “I give the congregation the highest credit because they let me set the schedule on things that are optional,” he said. “I don't have full control of my schedule at the university.” King said the congregation hasn't had a full-time minister since the 1940s, but they hope to get one if growth continues. He says he's enjoyed being pastor. During those 30 years the church has grown from about 35 members to more than 90. King has baptized infants, watched them grow and return to the church for their weddings. He has also presided over funerals for family and friends. For King, it's all about the people. “They are the best part of this deal,” he said. “They could pay me a nickel and I'd be there.”
This article was published on page 39 and 41 of the Saturday, July 14, 2007 edition in the Religion section .
