A Pastor Again!

Today, I was voted in as a pastor at Sleater Kinney Road Baptist Church (“SKRBC”) in Olympia, WA. This is a GARBC church, affiliated with the Baptist Network Northwest. The church is now a dual-elder church. I remain bi-vocational , stay at my job and keep my salary and associated benefits, and the other pastor is a retired missionary who already has a steady retirement income. I am quite excited to embark on this adventure with my fellow pastor. My family has been attending there for two years, and I’ve been preaching and teaching there regularly during that time. The position is but the shortest step forward from what I was already doing. For a while now on SharperIron, I have been advocating for a paradigm shift on pastoral structure:


• Get rid of the “one pastor alone, against the world” model

• Do bi-vocational pastors, if at all possible

• Allow a secular employer to take the salary and health benefit load

• Use the funds the church would otherwise put towards pastoral compensation and funnel it back into ministry (or missions) at the local church

• Allow the pastors to take a small salary to supplement their outside income


This structure at SKRBC allows the other pastor and I to put this into action, and will allow the church to use its resources for ministry, not staff. To God be the glory. Ciao.