Doing what you trained for

Per Jim’s comment, I’ve seen the same thing of a bifurcated view of ministry. I don’t know that it’s intentional, but even if not, it’s one of those “aiyees” that all of us ought to take seriously. A young man I discipled in college noted that at his church, you had to be on the pastor track or else the girls would ignore you.

And the comments made by the other tentmakers on this forum are greatly appreciated and encouraging.

Since we’re sharing experiences…. After 30 years in “full-time ministry” I find myself for the past 5 years working in a field considered “related” but not with previous specific training. Those 30 years I was salaried by a church or supported by churches as a missionary. In many ways full-time ministry was easier or at least more flexible (and more vacation!) than what I’m doing now. My wife and I moved back into Philadelphia (after a brief return to Paris, France 200—2008) to see if God would use us to plant churches. My brother and his wife left their church in Queens, NY to do the same.

Now I work as a certified addictions therapist with drug addicts most of whom are ex-cons. After a couple years in and even more training I am now dual certified as both an addiction therapist and criminal justice professional having worked three of those years in the Philly Prison System. My two masters and earned doctorate didn’t provide all the content knowledge I needed for what I’m now doing but certainly contributed to who I am today and how I do it (and a masters level addiction certification). And they did give me a foot in the door since counseling is a big part of what I do. So I do not regret the years of education.

I imagine it’s more frustrating for younger men who have all this training and can’t find a church or don’t have the gifts/desire to plant a church. All I can say is ask the Lord to teach you to be content and follow the advice from the title of the book “Just Do Something.” I never saw myself doing what I’m doing but God did. I don’t always like what I’m doing, am frustrated at times, but it has its own rewards and opportunities to witness in a place and to people that I never had when in “full-time ministry.” I have a caseload of men that spend 9 hours of week with me in group therapy plus individual sessions. Where I work is broadly faith-based so I have great freedom in what I say and do. (We start our sessions with “Our Daily Bread).

I am less concerned with what I am doing to make a living than living life for the glory of God whether it fulfills my ambitions or not. If someone has training and can’t find a church then find someone planting a church, get a job doing something you weren’t trained for (even if it means more training) and then use what you were trained for in the church plant. We have had several families come and serve in the city, some for a short time, some still here who work a regular job but are a blessing to church plants.

I suppose if I wanted to pastor full-time with my experience and degrees there would probably be a church somewhere that might take me. Yet at this season of life I’ve learned (learning) to be content, rejoice in God’s good gifts, spend evenings with my wife (which didn’t happen as often when a full-time pastor).

So if you’re not sure what to do pray about coming to Philly. If you don’t like working in areas of great diversity, density, and depravity the city might not be for you. We are involved at different levels with three church plants and one future plant, Lord willing:

• North Philly - inner city, diverse, majority Hispanic and immigrants, whites in minority, economically challenging, nice facility we inherited, one Cameroonian elder (French and English speaking) and looking for someone who speaks Spanish and English to work with him, parsonage available.

• South Philly - west of Broad St. - majority African American but gentrifying quickly with young professionals who are priced out of Center city, bi-vocational church planter there who would love to have some co-workers.

• West Philly -where my wife and I live in a diverse, mostly gentrified island area with a mix of professionals, university students (Drexel, Univ. of Penn) surrounded by inner city urban blight and great needs.

• South Philly – church planter moving in May from NJ to East of Broad St. in area historically Italian now diverse. Seriously, if you are looking to serve the Lord in a church plant or know someone who is there is no lack of opportunity.

[Jim]

Were I a 40 year old seminary trained guy like Terry L. (the author of the blog post):

• I would find 3 other like guys AND
• plant a church in the urban area in the MSA where you live. A list

If you’ve got a few guys who are both qualified elders / capable for ministry, and gainfully employed, then you could start a church with little to no fundraising efforts, if you keep your ministry model lean and focused on the Word, discipleship, etc. For myself, I would like to go into teaching overseas…but I’ve often realized that my current employment could enable me to extend myself into new ministry opportunities without doing the fundraising circuit first. (By highlighting the lack of fundraising, I don’t want to imply the lack of church oversight, e.g., input and support from other local congregations.)

One objection that I’ve got to just planting a new church is that I don’t know that there are that many places in the country without Bible believing churches—so planting a new church where there are existing churches may be an implicit argument that the existing churches do not have qualified leadership in place, or that they hardly qualify as churches at all. Now maybe at times that is fair—I concur with Jay that I personally know guys in vocational ministry who really ought not dare to fill a pulpit—but at other times, I fear that by planting new churches where there already are existing churches of like precious faith is needlessly splitting God’s flock.

But that said, I’ve also seen clear cases where pastors (whether or not they are of the type Jay and I are talking of) simply don’t seem to know what to do when men of ability come into the building. They’re glad for the tithes, glad for the tuckii in seats, and the like, but it’s almost as if they’ve forgotten their responsibility to, just as Christ worked intimately with the Apostles to create leaders for the church (who in turn trained men on their own), work closely with other men who show the ability to lead people to Christ, shepherd them, and the like.

[Bert Perry] One objection that I’ve got to just planting a new church is that I don’t know that there are that many places in the country without Bible believing churches—so planting a new church where there are existing churches may be an implicit argument that the existing churches do not have qualified leadership in place, or that they hardly qualify as churches at all.

Full stop.

Read that bolded line again. Let it sink into your ears, readers.

Some of those (maybe most!) of those churches are failing (even as they grow) because they are not intentional about raising up leaders. I’m not talking about churches that can’t train leaders because the pastor actively suppresses that for the sake of his name and reputation, but about churches that are so busy keeping the spinning plates in place that they can’t disciple men to lead after they’re gone. Then when those leaders do leave (or die), the church falls apart because the emphasis was on keeping the plates spinning instead of everything else and now they have no one to lead or spin plates. That’s a real problem that I’ve seen over and over and over again. I don’t know why that is - if it’s because people are fond of ‘spinning plates’ ministries or because they think it’s all about providing programs or what it is, but it needs to stop. Now. Pastors, your responsibilities are simple - shepherd and disciple. Actively get rid of any other things in your way if you can.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, but when I’ve run into the guys I talked about in my previous post, I have found it interesting to see what they head to when they have the choice. If it’s study or administration, then that could be a warning sign that they really are a hireling and not a shepherd.

But that said, I’ve also seen clear cases where pastors (whether or not they are of the type Jay and I are talking of) simply don’t seem to know what to do when men of ability come into the building. They’re glad for the tithes, glad for the tuckii in seats, and the like, but it’s almost as if they’ve forgotten their responsibility to, just as Christ worked intimately with the Apostles to create leaders for the church (who in turn trained men on their own), work closely with other men who show the ability to lead people to Christ, shepherd them, and the like.

Sometimes I wonder if Diotrephes, who “liked to have the preeminence”, gets a bad rap. While it’s possible that he was insanely jealous of John and pushed him aside for that reason, I wonder if the real issue was that he didn’t want John - an outsider - coming into the church and screwing up everything that was going on in the church. I think that happens more than anyone would care to admit.

I found this interview thought provoking:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2012/12/13/rethinking-church-planting-a-conversation-with-jimmy-scroggins/

[M. Osborne]

I am paying cash for my classes. No loans. I’m in the business world and so can readily relate to other people in the congregation. Among other advantages. It wouldn’t be a bad way to start a ministry like a church plant, if the Lord were to ever lead in such a direction.

Those are some pretty significant advantages!
I earned a B.S. in Criminal Justice from BJU and took ministerial classes as electives. The only major difference between that and a Bible degree was that I was behind in Greek and Hebrew in seminary. I worked in private security and Army reserves during seminary so that I earned my M.Div. debt free and gained some significant life experience outside a Bible classroom. And since I wasn’t hampered by debt and had a job, I was able to take a 2.5 year unpaid internship at a smaller church, so my wife and I could both help out were we were needed and gain ministry experience.
Now I’m finishing an Ed.D from a state school (not entirely debt free, but not too bad) while serving as a missionary in Togo, West Africa.
So I agree, Debt-free degrees and “secular” life and learning experiences can be huge advantages in ministry.

It would be good at some point, perhaps not in this immediate thread, to consider how we might encourage our pastors to do more shepherding and less administration and the like. It’s a big deal IMO. Start by modeling it ourselves, of course, which is then one big way that the seminary trained can exercise their gifts even if they’re not getting a paycheck for doing so. Let the younger version of Larry watch on the bus and give feedback on who is really gifted. :^)

Regarding Diotrephes, I’d always considered that to be a case that he didn’t want to be hospitable to wandering pastors and the like—and that John was taking it up because he was one wandering shepherd that Diotrephes couldn’t get away with snubbing. I would guess that Diotrephes’ reason probably had something to do with wanting to run “his own show” without interference, but obviously I’m guessing here.

I don’t have my Hebrew references here, but per Jim’s comment the Hebrew word for “covet” is (if I remember correctly) the same word as the word for desire. The difference is simply whether the desire is lawful or not, more or less.

I’m a bi-vocational pastor in small church ministry. Since coming to know Christ, I’ve tried to be about doing whatever God wants. That means I’ve been a layman for many years as well. Right now, I’m in a ministry where I would like to find a young man who is willing to be bi-vocational to team with and have them ultimately be the pastor of this ministry.

Where do you find the young people with the right qualifications, etc. for this? I would love to have a disciple like that in our church. However, our economy is poor, so most end up moving on due to economics. My kids are just getting college age, so maybe they will be the answer to this question in the future, I don;t know, but I don’t know how many Bible College or seminary grads have the convictions to be bi-vocational today.

[Steve Newman]

I’m a bi-vocational pastor in small church ministry. Since coming to know Christ, I’ve tried to be about doing whatever God wants. That means I’ve been a layman for many years as well. Right now, I’m in a ministry where I would like to find a young man who is willing to be bi-vocational to team with and have them ultimately be the pastor of this ministry.

Where do you find the young people with the right qualifications, etc. for this? I would love to have a disciple like that in our church. However, our economy is poor, so most end up moving on due to economics. My kids are just getting college age, so maybe they will be the answer to this question in the future, I don;t know, but I don’t know how many Bible College or seminary grads have the convictions to be bi-vocational today.

Our Savior looked for guys going fishing. Might be able to find that among the near-Yoopers you’re workin’ with. :^) Seriously, it seems to me that Christ didn’t look for much in terms of qualifications beyond “willing to follow and learn.”