Bi-vocation ministry: How might it work? – Transcript

Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. My name is Reverend Jim Latimer and I am your host today, and I have the pleasure of having with me Reverend Quentin Chin. Quentin has been in the interim space for a long time. I’m delighted that he will share some of his wisdom with us. Quentin, what would you like to share with us in this first segment?

Quentin Chin
Well, first, Jim, thank you for having me be with you this afternoon. I’d like to just take some time to talk about bi-vocational ministry. We’re in a situation now where so many of our congregations are moving from full-time to part-time ministry. And particularly for interims, this is actually a real concern because let’s face it, we have nothing. There’s nothing for us between our interim gigs, right? So in a very weird way bi-vocational ministry is a bit of a saving grace because we have a little bit of an income stream outside of church ministry.

Let’s look at what bi-vocational ministry might look like. From my experience, for most of the years I’ve been doing church ministry, I’ve been working part-time in churches. I’ve served, I don’t know, it’s something like seven churches, I think. Anyway, I’ve only had two full-time positions in all of that. So I’ve had to cobble and make do with other work. And I know that for some clergy, the idea of, “Well, what am I going to do?” Particularly as churches move to going from a full-time position to a part-time position, that pastor might be going, “What do I do? I’ve been doing full-time ministry for the last 20 years. What else is there?”

So currently, I’m serving half-time at the Southampton Congregational Church in Southampton, Massachusetts. I’ve also been a part-time hospice chaplain for Hospice Care in the Berkshires for 10 years at this point. So there is this other part of me that allows me to have some income coming in to supplement the church ministry as well to sustain me when I don’t have church work. So I’ve been doing hospice ministry. And it goes up and down depending upon patient load and all. I’m very fortunate that my agency gives me the flexibility to do church ministry as well.

There was also a four year period where I was serving a church part-time – this was the UCC church in Dalton, Massachusetts. I was still doing the hospice chaplaincy on a very part-time basis. And I was serving homeless veterans as well. And so basically three part-time positions. I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. Three part-time positions is really tough. But the point here is that as clergy we have skills that are transferable into other places. So clearly, chaplaincy is one option. And so it could be hospice chaplaincy, it could be campus ministry. I have colleagues who have done campus ministry while doing interim work. There may even be nursing homes or someplace like that. Right? I’ve also done other things, too. There was also a period for many years – eight years running – I did it every spring one night a week: I served as an instructor for local community college. I was teaching workforce ethics to inmates at the Berkshire County House of Corrections. These were 10 men who were on imminent release, and this was a program developed by Berkshire Community College, that would give them one college credit for successful completion. So I was one part of a package of instructors who came into the house of corrections once a week to teach. So the other thing is that there are teaching opportunities as well for bi-vocational pastors. Think about what we have learned – three years in seminary and all the seminary classes – there’s a lot more than just learning how to be ministers there. We learn church history, which could play into an adjunct faculty position at a college and to teach history, ancient history, or even to teach world religions.

What is helpful is doing an inventory of what is it that we do? What is it that we have learned? And then how does that translate into some sort of other position?

Jim Latimer
So what I’m hearing you say is that bi-vocational ministry is something that not only can be viable, but it’s something that. because of the changing environment, more and more of us are probably going to need to be doing and figure out how to do. And that you, Mr. or Ms. Interim Minister, who is listening here, you probably have more skills that someone would pay you to use than you are aware of. So get a conversation partner, whether it’s a Quentin Chin or someone else, to talk with so they can help you do an inventory: what are my skills? What are my possibilities? And things like that. And the other thing that comes up, and if you could say a word about it in this last part of this segment is this: If I started full-time, or maybe started three-quarter time, but it’s clear that it’s going to be less, or perhaps I’m just negotiating at the beginning, but I’m concerned that they should pay me justly, or I feel like the pay they’re giving me isn’t fair to me, what can I expect of the church in terms of taking care of me and being fair to me? That’s a huge question. Do you have any guidance? Like, “They’ve got money. They should be paying me more!”

Quentin Chin
That’s a great question. Let me put it this way. The church will pay what it wants to pay. This sounds idiotically glib, but it will pay what it wants to pay. The caution here for clergy is that there are guidelines that they need to adhere to. And those guidelines, at least here in Massachusetts, a church is no longer obligated to cover full-time. However, if you can’t do full-time, you cannot expect your pastor to work for full-time hours for less than full-time pay. The guidelines essentially say that you need to allow your pastor to earn enough to live in a manner consistent with the congregation he or she is serving. I’ve had a number of conversations with various congregations around their pastoral compensation package, and I tell them that look, What we mean by that is that if your congregation – if many of your members are taking vacations and going off to Europe or something like that – I’m not saying your pastor needs to earn enough to be going to Europe every year, but darn it, your pastor better not be taking staycations. Your pastor should be getting a decent vacation. And so if the congregation isn’t willing to do that, I think the problem will come: one, there will be resentment on the pastor over time; and two, don’t expect that pastor to stay very long. The grass will be greener in other places. And so if you don’t pay your pastor enough, if you overwork your pastor, that pastor in short time will probably say, “I’m going to get my profile together,” or maybe even has the profile always ready to go. And something opens up – maybe even a couple of towns away, so it’s not even going to be a big change. It’s like, “Hey, why am I staying here?”

Jim Latimer
So as we conclude here in the segment, what I’m hearing you say is the conference does have some guidelines in the United Church of Christ. Other denominations will have theirs. But for us in the UCC, the congregation doesn’t have to abide by the guidelines because we’ve got this thing called local church autonomy. So when we negotiate before taking a job, be clear about these things: for this amount of pay, this is how many hours of work. Be really clear and explicit about that so that you know what you’re getting into – both parties. Right?

Quentin Chin
Yeah. And particularly when it comes to part-time work, and this gets back to the bi-vocational and all. I think it’s also important for congregations to recognize that if you have a part-time pastor, there are certain things that you cannot expect your pastor to keep doing. The idea of a half-time pastor preaching four out of four Sundays – it’s kind of ridiculous. It sounds kind of heretical, particularly in our tradition where we value the sacrament of the Word. On the other hand, if you look at a half-time position, which might be anywhere from 17 and a half to 22 hours a week. When you look at how much time it takes to develop worship, write a sermon, which if we use Fred Craddock’s rule of thumb: one hour of prep for every minute of preaching, there’s not a whole lot of time left when we have the traditional length of sermons. In those cases, then, what else is the pastor doing for the church? It’s important for the congregation to recognize, “Hey, you know, Pastor won’t preach one or two Sundays a month, but the pastor will continue to work in those weeks doing other things, for instance, developing programs, doing visitations that have fallen behind…” All that stuff can be done and balanced out with a part-time minister, as long as we don’t overburden that pastor.

Jim Latimer
Great. Let’s wrap this one up, because those are some specifics that I’d love to get to in another Bit of Wisdom recording with you. Those details are really important. But anyway, thank you, Quentin. This has been great for an intro to bi-vocational ministry, and for helping both the interim ministers as well as the congregations to think about this. Thank you very much.

Quentin Chin
You’re welcome. Thank you.

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