Task Force to Explore Bivocational Ministry
John Bolt leads the denomination’s Financial Shalom project, which has resources available to help pastors.
Karen Huttenga
An increasing number of Christian Reformed Church pastors are bivocational -- meaning they earn an income through another source of employment in addition to their role as pastor. Synod 2019 recognized this trend and appointed a task force to study the issue and consider how the denomination could best support these men and women.
This new taskforce will not be starting from scratch. An effort of the CRCNA, known as the Financial Shalom Project, has already begun some work in the area.
Financial Shalom is funded by the Lilly Endowment with a goal of alleviating some of the financial burdens facing CRC pastors. They hosted a conference for approximately 50 bivocational pastors in April 2018 to learn from them. Among other things, they learned that many pastors are choosing to be bivocational not out of financial hardship, but as a strategic part of their ministry outreach.
As a result, an ad hoc group worked over the past year to explore some the benefits and challenges of bivocational ministry and to make some recommendations to the Council of Delegates. Their complete “Bivocational Taskforce Report” is available in the 2019 Agenda Supplement.
“We believe [bivocational ministry] is biblically based and a tremendously effective way to expand and serve the church,” the group concluded in their report. “We also believe that the stresses of ministry itself, and the particular challenges of bivocationality, merit the attention of our church leadership and support structures.”
Synod 2019 asked for a new taskforce to be created to continue the work of this group. This new entity would be tasked with examining and providing guidelines for understanding what it means to be a pastor today. This includes clarifying terminology, exploring classical oversight, considering cultural differences, and asking questions about insurance and pension.
It also includes looking at CRC Church Order to see where it might need to be changed to reflect the reality of bivocational ministry.
The taskforce is slated to report in 2021.
For continuous coverage of Synod 2019 including the live webcast, news, video recordings, photos, liveblog, social media links, and more visit www.crcna.org/synod.
