Dual Employment

Disclaimer: The following could be considered a little rant and may be more for those church folk that read.

Ya know I was reminded this week why we are so intentional about being bi-vocational/dually employed, whatever you would want to call it. I had a friend tell me about another church plant that has disbanded and the different groups of people have gone their separate ways. Hear me now and don't forget that I said this.
The Lord can realign passions, change paths, direct people in different directions. Here is what I am saying: it is often that a change of direction is accompanied by a change in a money situation. Once again, this is not an indictment, but a severe flaw in the way we do things. Being a leader in the Church is so tied to a full time vocation and there are flaws to that line of thinking. I spoke to a pastor friend of mine that was telling me about a time in his pastoral ministry where his church couldn't pay him, in fact he told them not to pay him but rather concentrate on the bills and they would figure it out later. Now the Lord worked through it and brought the funds needed to pay him and pay the bills and it turns out to be a tremendous story of the Lord working in situations. (Some members who had moved away were led by the Lord to give an offering to their former church as a way of continuing to show faithfulness to those who had loved them)
But think about this: when a church comes to the point of deciding between paying the pastor or keeping the lights on, that is a tough spot to be in and the ministry of the Church is severely hurt. The first Church in question has been doing some great things, I have been in awe of the direction they are going and many of their ideas I have applied to what we are doing. So this hits me pretty hard because I have seen such camaraderie with this crew.

But we do what we do (being bi-vocational) for these reasons:

1. We meet and impact more people, hands down, this way rather than being full-time and trying to find ways to be with people.

2. Financially, it frees us up to be able to use funds raised to minister and not pay our bills.

3. When times are lean (like now) or people aren't giving then we can still continue on the task to starting Biblically faithful/culturally relevant churches in the Dakotas.

4. Whenever anyone asks me if I wish I could be full-time and supported by an agency to start churches, I emphatically say no. It is so un-natural to employ someone to connect with people who are not in church by employing them to be a full-time church person. I know for the Robinsons and for us, we are so thankful that we get to raise support from various sources: people and churches, our jobs, and a mission agency.

5. This is how I see it as the most helpful: Abby and I pay our bills, the mission agency equips us financially to do ministry and our supporters fund big projects and other on-going and future mission efforts.


So this isn't saying at all that we have THE WAY or we are totally correct but this is a convictional thing for us. We are totally understanding that the Lord changes directions etc, but at the same time we want that to be the Lord, and the Lord alone, and no other peripheral issues to be catalyst for changes.

Please hear that this is not a slam on anyone, rather it is an explanation from real life situations on why we are so intentional about the direction we are going. We are hopefully learning from the successes and mistakes of others that have gone before and to be totally honest are striving to be great examples of following Christ.