Dear Bi-Vocational Youth Minister,
Are you a part-time minister to students, serving the church of Jesus even as you hold down another full- or part-time job?
Before you answer that question, let me ask a different question. Was the apostle Paul a part-time apostle, since he served as a church-planting missionary while also being the sole proprietor of a tent-manufacturing business?
In candor, I have never heard anyone describe the apostle Paul as a part-time missionary just because he made tents for a living. Similarly, I am quite convinced that I have never met a part-time youth minister, even if he works one or more additional jobs.
If you are a bi-vocational minister to youth, sharing with students both the gospel of God and also your very self (1 Thess. 2.8), I want to encourage you in a fundamental reality of your calling: it is your life. You are nothing close to a part-time servant of God, even if you have a part-time employment arrangement with a local church.
Bi-Vocational by Choice
More than a dozen years ago, I felt called to voluntarily step outside of the familiar “full-time” or traditional model of ministry and to live out my calling as a tentmaker, which later morphed into a strategic bi-vocational life. I recall vividly the inordinate amount of wrestling and sleeplessness associated such a paradigm shift.
At the time, I was preparing to teach from 1 Corinthians 9. As I worked through this familiar text, the scribbles in my journal produced more than a teaching outline. I knew that the text pointed to the gospel reality that Jesus gave up his life—set aside his eternal glory—to suffer sin’s curse for our salvation. For my audience, the general argument for my preaching was that, just as Jesus died to himself, we who are in Christ must also deny our rights and become all things to all people, that by any means God would save them. However, for my own life, the application was radically acute. I firmly sensed a call to “give up my right” to the normal model of vocational ministry.
I was struck by how the apostle Paul chose to use his own vocational life as his example of giving up his rights. Winsomely, he articulates that it is a right—designed by God—for a minister of the gospel to receive material and financial support from those he serves. But just as he concludes the grounding of his argument, he acknowledges: “I have made no use of any of these rights—for I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting” (1 Cor. 9:15).
What a bold statement! Paul voluntarily gave up not only ministerial remuneration, but the “acceptable” or even desirable model of full-time ministry! He chose to make his living through the work of his hands, making tents (Acts 18:3). As he saw it, this did not dilute or defray the fulfillment of his apostolic calling in the “assigned sphere of influence” given to him by God (2 Cor. 10:13)—rather it advanced it! Paul chose to become a tentmaking missionary not by necessity or for the short term, but as a way of life.
Bi-Vocational in an Undivided Life
Paul made tents as he preached the gospel. He preached the gospel as he made tents.
Imagine his daily life as he moved in and out of the differing contexts of the synagogue, the local church, and the marketplace. Consider his vast connections among other apostles, disciples, vendors, suppliers, and former rabbinical colleagues. It was an adventurous, multifaceted vocational arrangement. It is no wonder to me that this uniquely passionate man could so comfortably declare the resurrected Christ with persuasion among the philosophers and skeptics in the marketplace (think Athens in Acts 17). Not only did he have the power and word of Christ within him, but he was already familiar with the chaos and culture and characters in that space—interacting with them as he marketed and sold his tents.
May this embolden you if you are bi-vocational youth minister. More than likely you are leading students who will one day work in “the marketplace” outside of the church—and whose current reality already includes their navigation of the chaos of this world. Share your experiences with them. Show them how God has positioned you with one foot inside of his Church and one foot in the world around it. Exude with the apostle Paul a boastful confidence in the Lord’s provision for you and for his church through this model! Seek to persuade the students whom you lead that we are all called to live a single, undivided life—even as we may feel pulled between our commitments and responsibilities inside and outside of the church.
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name. (Ps. 86:11)
Youth minister, your bi-vocational reality is a glorious gift. It is a means of God’s providing for you and your family, even as it is an outlet of strategic deployment for your calling and your gifts. The kingdom of this world has become the Kingdom of our Lord (Rev. 11:15)! Through your complex (and often exhausting) vocational arrangement, you get to be the aroma of Christ in places and ways that an exclusively church-employed youth minister is unable—modeling for your students a reality that one day will be recognizable to them in their own life, as they live as Christian adults who are in the world but are not of the world (John 17:14–16).
Bi-Vocational for the Sake of the Gospel
If you are a bi-vocational youth minister, you are nothing close to a part-time kingdom servant. Rather, God has positioned you to diversify your investment in his kingdom as you steward your time, talents, and treasure in variegated places—all in a single life that requires daily organization, sacrifice and a little bit of crazy. Even more, the next generation of disciples and kingdom servants are watching you and learning from you.
You are not alone, nor is your ministry model unsanctioned. Thanks be to God for his Word that informs us of this paradigm! Boast in the Lord for his unique calling on your life and for his provision for you through it. May no one—not even yourself— “deprive you” of your “ground for boasting” (1 Cor. 9:15) as you navigate a sacrificial, complex, and wonderful assignment from God.
Looking back over the past dozen years, bi-vocational ministry has undeniably changed everything—my family’s experience of God’s kingdom, my relationship with the congregation I serve, my role and reputation in the community where I live, the applicability of my preaching, and my trust in God’s provision. Bi-vocational youth minister, I pray the same for you! May you trust that your vocational arrangement can strategically and uniquely enable you to live a very full life of kingdom ministry—with two feet planted squarely in two different worlds.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”(1 Cor. 15:58).
Undivided,
Jim Powell
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