my take on bi-vocational ministry

Reality Check

A number of years ago I went from being a full time pastor/church planter to bi-vocational breakfast cook at a popular local diner and have learned so much about community and how people depend on that place as a vital connection point outside of their home and workplace. Five years later and I'm seen as more than the guy who cooks their eggs and pancakes, but have become a part of the scenery. Chatting daily with the customers, who are mostly regulars, has been a tremendous way for me to develop my own spiritual gifts in a real, every day place. This opportunity has also allowed me to utilize 25+ years of cooking experience in an effort to support my family.

I had reached a crisis point in my life and call to ministry and had been convicted of the reality of having to support my family, along with knowing at the core of my being that we (my family and me) are where God has called us to be. A second reality was the lack of support I had managed to attract to my own church planting/church restart venture. My wife and I had been called to restart a dying (dead but didn't know it) independent Baptist church and it was what appeared to be (to us and everyone else) a grim situation. But I believed back in 2005 and still believe today that God does not make mistakes. He calls and we follow. We go and he provides...simple as that, right? Well it's not always visibly clear, but if we remain faithful and obedient, and dig in deep, especially when it seems like there is no other way, the visible signs that will validate our call to ministry will become clearer. What will become even more obvious is the fact that God has not set us up for failure and in the end it is Him that will be glorified, and it is the people we are ministering to on a daily basis that will be the marks of our success. What better way to meet your neighbors than to work along side of some of them and serve them daily.

I say this not only to defend my own need to work outside of the church to support myself and my family, but to testify to those who are where I've been; it's okay, even to your advantage and for the success of your ministry, marriage and family life, to work outside of the church. Paul often worked as a tentmaker. Along with working in the community, might I suggest enrolling your children in the local public school? This gives you access to 90% of the families who live in  the community, and serving on school committees, PTA and other activities gets you involved in that community and says to your neighbors that you are there to serve with them. Involve your kids in local community activities; sports, scouting, 4H, etc. This has been such a boost to our success in ministry.

Mission From the Gospels:measuring success

I've been thinking about and discussing this very issue recently...and, what the marks of successful discipleship looks like...are we merely turning out religious zealots who are leading people in that familiar sinners prayer? or are they learning to be more loving, kindhearted and full of grace and truth as they interact daily in their own lives, within their own sphere of relationships? Are we merely leading them through the weekly motions of "church" or are we teaching how to worship God in spirit and in truth? I believe there is a proper balance that is gauged through faithful obedience to the mission and the community he has sent us to. I've gotten past the usual tools of church growth measurement; especially when there seems to be no single method or model agreed upon. So many differences yet the only common bond is the gospel. So maybe we should just start and stay there, allowing the Holy Spirit to shape our mission from the gospels, along with our measure of success in ways that will always point back to God and not to man. What would that look like on a practical. daily level?

How Long, LORD?

Psalm 13

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Within every person lies the potential to be good or evil, righteous or wicked, loving and merciful, or callous and uncaring, God's way or my way. David saw this truth within himself. So often he prayed for deliverance from his enemy and his foes. But who, really, is the enemy?

In the midst of great struggles it can seem like God is silent and distant. Our own pursuit of the wrong, sinful, selfish desires within can move us further and further away from God's light; like a flame being distanced from it's source of fuel. This journey called life is a constant battle. Every day there is a war raging within us...a fight for our own soul's survival. Every day we awake to new possibilities and a series of thoughts and decisions, conflicts and encounters with our own conscience. Temptations and trials never seem to end. This battle takes place within; at the core of our being--that place where our thoughts and emotions are birthed. Here is the place where the enemy seems to gain victory...when our own thoughts and emotions control us and our actions. When the truth becomes a lie. 

In verse 2 of this Psalm David asks, 

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 

So it becomes clear that his own thoughts can be his foes when he allows his thoughts to take control of him, and he sees the struggle and the potential of what can happen when he allows his thoughts to boss him around. Our thoughts and actions are guided either by our emotions and feelings, without much consideration, or we can pray for a heart of wisdom, giving our thoughts over to God, who in turn helps us to think things through; to weigh our decisions and be guided by a conscience that is turned over to God. When we allow our own thoughts and feelings to guide us, we're easy prey for the lies of this world. But when we pray, as David does here, God's light shines through our darkness and exposes the lies and allows us to see the truth and the potential of every decision, good or bad.

The real struggle, as Paul wrote in the new testament, is not with flesh and blood. It is a spiritual battle, fought in a spiritual kingdom. Therefore, I cannot fight my self-defeating thoughts and feelings in the flesh. This is why David turns to God as he retreats to his prayer closet. It is through prayer and confession that we draw closer to God and further away from the grip of the enemy who wants to control our hearts and minds so that we don't think about God or or anyone besides ourselves. Our foes, then, are those very thoughts and feelings that can deceive us and cause us to be blinded from reality, and to make split decisions without thinking things through, and to act upon what we think is right or best for us. Sometimes even the well meaning advice of others can be our "foes." 

Psalm 1:1 says, blessed are they that do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. That ungodly counsel can come from our own minds, shaped by a number of competing influences. 

Turning to God regularly in prayer can help us to discern what is best for us, and to proceed from there with the decisions we make 

Journey Towards Missional

 "The devil does not know what to do with a man who just won't give up."

One day I just woke up and decided to be "missional and incarnational." No...it didn't work that way! A decade of failure after failure after failure followed, and a heart and mind that had been broken of everything I had learned and had known. Sifted like wheat? Yeah...been there/done that! Went through a period of darkness, where I actually resented God. I started thinking that this whole church planting thing was just not for me and that I had somehow deceived myself into ...thinking otherwise. Well, we did manage to maintain a healthy youth ministry out of all of this...so that's what we focused on for a few years. There were so many times that I wanted to just go back to Schenectady...even had an offer to get my old job back at the rescue mission. But something just did not feel right. The Holy Spirit still tugging at me...that still small voice saying, "I'm not done with you yet." I remember shaking my fist at God. "How much more am I supposed to take?" And He began to reveal to me how wrong and self-centered I had been. It was never my job to build a church. It was not my responsibility to add to our numbers daily. What I thought had been failure was merely misguided direction.

My wife and I fought constantly. Our sons started hanging around with the inner-city kids we were reaching out to, and adopting some of their behaviors. Our finances and savings were just about dried up. God brought us to a point where we had absolutely nothing to rely on. But then he started to show us what faith and obedience really is and where it comes from. It's that inner tenacity...that drive...that fire inside that just won't go out.

I remember what an older, wiser pastor once told me, "The devil does not know what to do with a man who just won't give up." I almost did many times...but by the grace of God, I haven't yet!

Mission from the gospels...Being the hands and feet of Jesus

Ingredients for a successful church plant:Let Christ build His Church

It took 10 years for God to break me of the "church as usual." mindset...came right out of seminary and hit the ground running with an itch to plant a church because...that's why we go to seminary/bible college right? went to all of the church planting and church growth conferences...heard a lot of great leaders sharing their success (and failure) stories, and I came to the realization that everyone else's success story won't work for me. hundreds of stories, hundreds of models and methods of church planting exposed...but it was Ed Stetzer's message that hit me ...breaking the missional code...contextualizing the gospel to the unique cultural DNA that exists within your target community...and the journey towards missional community began. I remember telling our very small Baptist congregation that we should close the church, sell the building and just live in the community amongst our neighbors, as the sent, hands and feet of Jesus...preached a month of sermons on being missional/incarnational...salt and light...in the world/not of the world, and I lost every single one of them...April 1, 2009, we signed a usage agreement with another church who wanted to use our church building...My family and I just lived in the community, had youth group and small groups at our house (we had already been living in the community 4 years at that point) got involved with the local public school, boy scouts, little league baseball, community soccer league, etc...because our two sons were involved in these activities. We hooked up with a couple community ministries run by other local churches...a soup kitchen and a local rescue mission and just got busy serving. We did a number of block parties and outdoor/park worship services, working with other churches and ministries, and God started showing me a different path to church planting. Fast forward to summer 2014...we're still living in this community...the church that had been using the sixth ave baptist church building had closed and the pastor moved south...and here we are back in the old building again...but it's different this time..God has trained us up according to what he wants...so we'll continue to serve Him, serve this community, AND LET HIM BUILD HIS CHURCH!

Mission from the Gospels:the ingredients for successful mission

Hint: it's not about numbers...not about how many converts or baptisms you've accumulated. Jesus commandment to the church, known as the great commission, is about making disciples who will love Him and one another

The local church must engage the community around it, with all of its subcultures, in order to have a maximum impact in that community...the Baptist church we came to nearly ten years ago failed to do that and had dwindled down to almost non-existence. God brought me and my family to a struggling, under-resourced, inner-city community...gave us a century old building, no congregation, little to no funds, and we were almost to the point of giving up after the first few years. but God showed us over and over what he can do. It's not about what we, a local church can do, but all about what God can and will do when we are faithful and obedient in the midst of seemingly hopeless odds. We've learned the art of collaborating with other churches, not for profits, and local businesses, and in the wake of that process we now see God creating community; missional community out of the ashes of what we thought was doomed for failure...ten years later and we're still here, by the grace and provision of God; learning how to follow His provision and dwell in the land like Abraham. Church planting is a life calling...not something you can just try out, and if it doesn't work, move onto something else. The fruits of our labor cannot be measured by the number of converts and baptisms we've accumulated, but in ways that have stretched our hearts and minds. I can see that God is at work in the midst of our community, and when the single moms and street people, business owners and "church people," citizens and community leaders, learn to love one another and serve one another, out job is going well!

Mission from the Gospels:Three questions to ask

Matthew 8:28-34 English Standard Version (ESV)

Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons
²⁸ And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed^[ men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. ²⁹ And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” ³⁰ Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. ³¹ And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” ³² And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. ³³ The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. ³⁴ And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

1. What is the Mission?
2. Who is engaged in the mission?
3. Who is the recipient of the mission?

People matter to God more than buildings and programs; even more than the Sunday morning ministry menu we call "worship."We all meet people in our every day lives who need the love and healing touch of Jesus in their own lives.
Demon possession/oppression is a form of imprisonment. "When I was in prison, you came to visit me."
The mission we are called to is to be the hands and feet of Jesus to lost and hurting people. The Father sent the Son, the Son sends us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Fulfilling the mission Jesus sends us on and equips us to carry out will interrupt the daily lives of everyone involved; those who are engaged in the mission as well as the recipients of the that mission.
So our mission is not merely to open our church doors to the public and invite them in, but to go to wherever hurting people live there daily lives; even to the darkest corners of our communities.
Am I willing to go to those places?