Characteristics of a Healthy Bivocational Pastor

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Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey.

Dan Hurst:

Guys, we talk a lot about revitalizing pastors and replanting pastors, that sort of thing. And we have this assumption a lot of times, and we don’t intend it to be that way. This is somebody that’s just doing this full time. But there are a lot of bivocational guys that are involved in this too. A lot.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah. More than the vocational.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah. This is Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton.

Mark Clifton:

Thank you.

Dan Hurst:

Sitting right there. There’s Mark Hallock sitting right there.

Mark Hallock:

Hey guys.

Dan Hurst:

I’m Dan Hurst. We’ve all been bivocational pastors at some point.

Mark Clifton:

Well, you still are.

Dan Hurst:

I still am technically.

Mark Clifton:

And Matt, who does been doing our engineering last couple of days, bivocational pastor. I’ve been a bivocational pastor.

Dan Hurst:

And Matt put together some things about what are the characteristics of a healthy bivocational pastor? And we thought that’s something we need to address.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah, it is.

Dan Hurst:

And so just take off on that guys.

Mark Clifton:

Well, I will. But before we do that, we’re not going to do what we talked about, but we’re sitting here between sessions, we’re coming up with songs. We want to create a couple of songs that we can teach everybody.

Dan Hurst:

This is the scariest part of what I do. It’s like-

Mark Hallock:

Oh yeah, we got one heck of a jingle.

Mark Clifton:

We got a jingle coming up.

Mark Hallock:

We may bust it out. I don’t know. I mean, we can bust it out now. We can bust it out later.

Mark Clifton:

We’ll wait. Go ahead. You want to bust it out?

Mark Hallock:

No, we’ll wait. We’ll wait.

Dan Hurst:

Are we going to end the podcast with this?

Mark Hallock:

I don’t know, maybe.

Mark Clifton:

I don’t know. We’ll see.

Mark Hallock:

We’ll see where it goes.

Dan Hurst:

To get people to stay.

Mark Clifton:

But between podcasts, we were coming up with this song we were trying to write, this little cute kid song or whatever. And Dan said something like, “Okay, only the boys on this one.” And this is so true. I did this back maybe, I don’t know. It was Castleview. It was Castleview. So it was ’83, ’84. I was 23, 24 years old. And I just was, I don’t know. I thought it’d be funny. Instead of saying, “Okay, women only on this verse.” I said, “Women over 50 only on this verse.”

Mark Hallock:

Oh, no.

Dan Hurst:

At Castleview, we didn’t have very many. There was like three.

Mark Clifton:

But I wouldn’t suggest you do that.

Mark Hallock:

It’s a quick way to-

Mark Clifton:

Only the women only-

Mark Hallock:

Junior congregation.

Dan Hurst:

All left-handers.

Mark Clifton:

All left-handers. I don’t know.

Mark Hallock:

I can’t believe my pastor just said that.

Mark Clifton:

We used to do that. My dad would say, “Only the men on the chorus. Only the women on this verse.”

Mark Hallock:

Oh, really?

Mark Clifton:

Oh, you didn’t know that?

Mark Hallock:

No.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah. And invariably there’s somebody who didn’t hear it. And there’d be these women singing and two guys belting it out.

Mark Clifton:

That was the best part because they were hard to hear it anyway. So my dad would say, “Only women on this verse, some guy’d be out singing.” And we just cracked up. I have no idea what that means, but we are in bivocational ministry here. Number one, you got to abide with Jesus.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Dan Hurst:

You know what though? Let’s get into the technicality of that. That’s an intentional thing that you do and it’s daily.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah. You can’t do this in your flesh.

Mark Hallock:

No.

Mark Clifton:

You can’t work a 40-hour job or whatever and pastor a congregation and love your family. If you’re not abiding with Jesus, it is not going to happen.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Dan Hurst:

There is a thing. I got to jump in here real quick because being bilingual as I am, I grew up speaking Spanish and Spanish is just a natural language for me. And it’s really-

Mark Clifton:

Do you dream in Spanish?

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, sometimes. I really do.

Mark Clifton:

You really?

Dan Hurst:

Oh, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

Wow.

Dan Hurst:

And what’s worse is when I think in Spanish and try to talk in English. And then I began speaking with a little bit of an accent and it just drives me crazy. People say, “What is wrong with you?” But what happens is in the voiceover business, people say they’re bilingual and what you begin to realize in many, many cases is that Spanish is a second language for them. And what happens, I believe, with bivocational pastors is that sometimes pastoring or ministering is a second job or a second career, and it’s noticeable. Just like with the language, if English, for somebody, you know it, if English is a second language, you can tell they’ve got an accent. You know that’s their second language. This happens too with bivocational pastors who are not really focused on abiding in Christ and understanding that this is my ministry. My job is really my second job. My job, my ministry is the most important. Don’t let your bivocational ministry be your second job.

Mark Clifton:

That’s good. That’s really good.

Mark Hallock:

That’s good.

Mark Clifton:

Number two, strategically, he stewards his time and money well. Man, we should have done this yesterday when Matt was with us because he wrote this.

Mark Hallock:

I know.

Mark Clifton:

But the point is, as a bivocational pastor, those two things are very, very limited. The time you have and even your finances, obviously, because you’re trying to do both, and you just can’t risk doing it carelessly. You can’t risk not scheduling your time appropriately for your job, for your ministry, for your family, for your study. It’s going to require discipline to be able to schedule that time. You can’t just live in the moment like a lot of us want to, or you’ll be in a real mess. Same thing financially. I know even yesterday, Matt was talking about just as a bivocational pastor, retirement kind of thing because you got a part-time job and a part-time church. So financially, how am I going to survive my family later on? What’s my finances? What’s my insurance? All those kinds of things that many times vocational pastors don’t have to think as much about, although some of us do obviously, but strategically you got to be very much aware of your time and your finances and you’re going to have to organize that.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. Well, let’s talk about the time thing for a second. I mean, this is one of those… Man, if you’re a bivocational pastor, you’ve got to be very strategic obviously with your time. You also need to… I mean, I hate to say this. I think there’s two ditches, and this is true in ministry, but there’s two ditches to avoid in bivocational ministry. One is you are working too much and you are not showing yourself enough grace. You know what I mean? You set expectations on yourself to be a full-time pastor when quite frankly, you can’t because you’ve got another job. The other ditch is, well, I’m a bivocational pastor.

Mark Clifton:

I can’t do anything.

Mark Hallock:

I can’t do anything. Yeah. So the bar is so low. Well, I just threw something together this Sunday. And so these are two ditches to avoid, but a lot of that has to do with, okay, how are you strategically using your time in the best ways? And you may need people to help you figure that out. I mean, the truth is, and you know what I’m saying, there are a lot of pastors we meet who don’t know how to use their time well.

Mark Clifton:

I know.

Mark Hallock:

And so if you’re a bivo guy, it’s even more important that you steward your time really well. And that means you need a plan, you need discipline, you need accountability.

Mark Clifton:

And you may have to learn how to do your sermon preparation in a shorter time-

Mark Hallock:

In a shorter amount of time.

Mark Clifton:

… than a vocational pastor would. And you know what? You can.

Mark Hallock:

You can do it.

Mark Clifton:

You can do it. You really can. It’s a 30-minute sermon. There are a lot of resources on your laptop or your iPhone. You don’t have to go to the library. You and I both know if you can spend 12, 15, 20 hours on a sermon preparation if you want to. And frankly, it might be enjoyable. In fact, for some of you, it’s more enjoyable than doing hospital visitation or dealing with other issues in the church. So you feel like I’m using my time well because I’m spending 20 hours a week on a sermon preparation on a 30-minute sermon.

I mean, the reality of it is I don’t think you need to do that on a regular basis. I think as a bivocational pastor, learn how you can use the best amount of your time to do sermon preparation. Oh man, it might be helpful if you talk to your associational missionary and say, or if you already know some other bivocational pastors in your association, get him to get you connected to two or three others. Talk to two or three other pastors and say, “What are you guys preaching?” Maybe we could all preach the book of Mark together.

Mark Hallock:

That’s a good idea.

Mark Clifton:

And then maybe we can collaborate and help each other and do some collaborative sermon putting together those kinds of things.

Mark Hallock:

Being creative a little bit.

Mark Clifton:

Be creative a little bit.

Mark Hallock:

I like that.

Mark Clifton:

I’m going to get in all kind of trouble for this, but I’m so old now, don’t really care. There’s nothing wrong with taking some sermon commentaries as someone who’s already taken that passage and given three points to it. And you’re using those three points. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what they’re there for. As a bivocational pastor, I’m not telling you to plagiarize. Don’t get your hair in a bun. I’m not telling you to do that. But there are all kinds of great commentaries out there. Great biblical scholars who’ve taken… Guy gave me a set of biblical commentaries when I got ordained and the old pulpit commentaries. We’ve all seen them. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but there’s a lot of them there that are very helpful and that’s already got an outline there. And then you put your own meat to it and what the Lord would have you say. But I just think there are many tools you can use to help sermon preparation. As a bivocational pastor, you’ve got to do that.

Dan Hurst:

Let me tell you what I do. I preach series. I don’t preach thematics like one time, one-off sermons. There is a series going and usually when you combine that expository type style, you can preach and then stop and pick it up somewhere along the line. And what I always do, and this saves me a lot of time, but it’s so important for the congregation. I always review the beginning of the message, what I did the Sunday before. Okay, let’s just touch on where we were last Sunday.

Mark Clifton:

Absolutely.

Dan Hurst:

And now this is where we’re going to pick up. And so the first five to 10 minutes is review.

Mark Clifton:

But it’s important because they-

Dan Hurst:

And nobody ever complains about that.

Mark Clifton:

They need to hear it again.

Dan Hurst:

They do. And it’s like, oh, I caught it now. I got it.

Mark Clifton:

You’re looking at 20 minutes of a sermon.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, exactly.

Mark Clifton:

And if five minutes of that is concluding and wrapping up… We’re not telling you to do speed preaching here, but we are telling you, if you’re working 40, 50 hours a week, you got a family and you got to still do hospital visitation and other things like that, you’ve got to find good ways to be able to produce sermon preparation in a way that is effective and meaningful, but is time efficient.

Mark Hallock:

Well, I had a few episodes ago, we talked about consistency. Part of this is you’ve got to be consistent because you’re not being asked to preach one time.

Mark Clifton:

Oh, I know.

Mark Hallock:

Every week, man, there’s another one coming. So part of this is how do you make sure as best you can, given the time you have, that you can get in that pulpit every Sunday and preach a sermon. You not saying you got to hit a home run, but you need to get on base.

Mark Clifton:

Can I just… I’ve talked about this before. When I first started preaching really as a teenager, 18 years old, my dad gave me some books, Herschel Ford, Simple Sermon books, Simple Sermons on Sunday Night, Simple Sermons on the Special Occasions. And there was Simple Sermons on the Parables. As an 18, 19 year old kid, those were lifesavers for me. They taught me how to… I’m going to tell you, there’s nothing wrong with a book like that. And as a bivocational pastor, you find some of those and you didn’t write out the sermon, but he-

Mark Hallock:

You could make it your own.

Mark Clifton:

He had it outlined. And so the outline was there and it helped give me a structure and I made it my own. So yeah, absolutely. I’m getting too close to the point.

Dan Hurst:

Sometimes, yeah.

Mark Clifton:

I know. I get really excited.

Mark Hallock:

I love it. Okay. We got to keep rolling guys. We’re at number three.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah, number three. This is really an important one for bivocational.

Mark Hallock:

Yep. Oh, man. Intentionally develop and share leadership. Why is that so important specifically in bivocational ministry?

Mark Clifton:

Again, we talked about Castleview in 1983. That was my first full-time church as a church planter. When you’re the only full-time person, and it basically takes most of their income to pay your salary, that’s basically what they’re doing, you feel like I need to do everything, which you don’t, but you end up doing that. And sometimes they act like you should do everything because they’re paying you full-time, so why do you need to share all this leadership when we’re paying you full-time? But one of the benefits of being a bivocational pastor is your church has to realize you can’t do it all, and you know you can’t do it all.

And your ministry will be limited incredibly if you don’t learn how to develop and share leadership because you are limited in your timeframe that you have. And so I think you’re going to have to be very diligent in developing and sharing leadership. Guys, this is the important part of this. That takes time. It’s not a matter of just appointing somebody and say, “Go do this.” It’s hard to do that. It’s easier even still as a bivocational pastor to just do it yourself than teach someone else how to do it.

Mark Hallock:

Well, notice the two words, develop, that takes time, but also share. Some guys develop leaders, they don’t share leadership. Sharing leadership is where you actually take your hand off the wheel and you actually let others lead. You’re going to burn out as a bivocational pastor if you don’t share leadership.

Dan Hurst:

I’ll tell you what I do. I tell people right away, I just say, look, I said, “You’re in business. I’m in business. We understand the principles of leadership and shared leadership. I need to work with a leadership team. Are you willing to be a leader in this church and help us develop a leadership team?” And that immediately says, “We’re going to do something we haven’t done before or a way that we haven’t done before.” And it also says that, “I want to teach you. I want to share with you how you can best come beside me and lead this church to where we need to be.” And that gives them vision, that gives them a sense of mission, that gives them a strategy. I’ll tell you what, I find guys just jump… Well, women too, just jump at this idea of being part of something that is cohesive and has a strategy and a plan.

Mark Hallock:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dan Hurst:

So that’s a key part for them.

Mark Clifton:

Yeah. If you’re going to be a bivocational pastor, you’ve got to develop and share leadership.

Mark Hallock:

Absolutely. You’ve got to do it.

Mark Clifton:

There’s just no other way. You also have to set-

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, go for it.

Mark Clifton:

… and express realistic expectations and boundaries.

Mark Hallock:

And boundaries. Yes.

Mark Clifton:

Okay. First talk about realistic expectations, Mark.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah. Realistic expectations. Listen, you’re not the savior and you’re not superman. You are a servant of Christ. This is His church. Remember this, we say it often. Every pastor’s an interim pastor. So I say all that to encourage you because you’ve got to be real. You’re coming into a situation and man, I get it, you’re passionate, you’re a dreamer, you’re excited, you want to see the Lord, and that’s awesome, but you’ve got to be real with what you’re bringing to the table in terms of energy, time and resources.

And you’ve got to set realistic expectations of yourself. You need to allow them to… You got to be clear with expectations for the congregation on you from the very beginning. You are not a full-time guy. You cannot be doing the things that a full-time pastor does. And you got to be clear. The problem is if you’re deeply insecure and you live for the approval of people, you won’t be clear about that. And you will try to be the full-time guy. And your heart may be right. “Man, I would just want to honor the Lord. I want to be a good shepherd.” Listen, man, you can’t do it. It won’t be healthy. You’ll burn out. And so you’ve got to set realistic expectations.

Mark Clifton:

And in your weakness, he’s made strong. And frankly, sometimes as I go back to this example of a vocational pastor who is a single staff pastor in a church of hundred people, he feels like he’s got to do everything because he’s getting paid to do everything. And so sometimes he ends up doing everything, much of it in his flesh.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

Whereas if you’re a bivocational pastor, you cannot do everything, you really do have to say, “Lord, this is up to you. You’re going to have to find… I can do this much, but you’re going to have to take my little bit and expand it in a way that’s so supernatural.”

Mark Hallock:

Dude, you know what’s crazy is you and I could both name guys who are bivocational and their churches actually are flourishing. That’s why they’re growing versus a church where you have a full-time guy.

Mark Clifton:

And they’re declining.

Mark Hallock:

And they’re declining.

Mark Clifton:

And I think it has something to do with this.

Mark Hallock:

I think it totally does.

Mark Clifton:

I think the guy, the single staff guy is doing it in his flesh.

Mark Hallock:

Yep.

Mark Clifton:

But I think the bivocational guy knows this is my limit. The rest is up to Jesus.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, I can’t do it.

Mark Clifton:

I can’t do it.

Mark Hallock:

I think you’re totally right.

Mark Clifton:

I think you really have to look at those realistic expectations. Also, you got to set boundaries.

Mark Hallock:

Boundaries. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Clifton:

You’re always a pastor. I mean, guys, listen, as a bivocational pastor, you’re never not a pastor. You may be a plumber, you may be a high school coach, but you’re still, even when you’re coaching that game, you’re somebody’s pastor. Even when you’re fixing that drain pipe, you’re somebody’s pastor.

Mark Hallock:

I know. I know. It’s true.

Mark Clifton:

That’s still your block. It’s not like you clock out and you don’t clock back in until the next Friday. You’re always a pastor. And you’re always a dad and you’re always a spouse, a husband. You’re going to have to set some boundaries or you’re just going to lose it after a while.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly.

Mark Clifton:

I mean, you’re just going to realize I can’t do all of these things. So what’s it look like to set boundaries? Well, it looks like good calendaring for one thing.

Mark Hallock:

Yep, for sure.

Mark Clifton:

Coordinating your calendaring with your wife and your family so that you can attend games, you can have date nights with her. You can make sure if she needs you to do something and you have the time to do it, you put it on your schedule and you’ll do it and you will not let other things interfere with your family.

Mark Hallock:

And you let the church know your number one priority is your family.

Mark Clifton:

We’ll talk about that in the next one.

Mark Hallock:

Oh, I guess that’s right. Yep. Yep.

Mark Clifton:

And then also you set boundaries by, again, here’s what I got to do for my secular job. And they’re paying me. This is my deal. I cannot be at this meeting. I cannot do that. Again, you let the church know. And then you set boundaries, frankly, by saying, “You know what? I might like to go do stuff on Saturday, but I’m going to have to do some sermon preparation. Those are my boundaries. I’m going to have to stick with those.” You’re going to have to be disciplined.

Mark Hallock:

Yes.

Dan Hurst:

By the way, I share my calendar with my wife on our iPhone, and so I put everything on my calendar. I put everything that has to do with my business, everything that has to do with my ministry goes on my calendar. So at any time she can look and say, “Oh, you know what? So-and-so wants to come over at 2:00, but Dan’s going to be at so-and-so at 1:30.” She knows everything that’s on the calendar and what the plans are, and I think that’s critically important. It also helps her to understand when my free time is that we can count on as free time, which is important for point number five.

Mark Clifton:

You’re just going to have to calendar, and you’re going to set boundaries. It’s just going to be a train wreck. Number five is you’ve got to care for your family. If you’re not careful, your family’s not paying your salary and your family is not your church that’s going to complain if you don’t do something. They’ll end up being third. They really will. If you’re not intentional about them being first, they will end up being third, maybe second, but probably third, and then that’s a train wreck.

Dan Hurst:

It’s total train wreck.

Mark Clifton:

So you’ve got to make sure you’re attentively caring for your family by way we said, setting boundaries, having a good schedule. And then brothers, when you’re with your family, because your time is going to be limited as a bivocational pastor, because vocational pastors, we often talk about the fact that you should put your day into three sections. So if you know you’re going to have a Wednesday night group of meetings, then take Wednesday afternoon off if you can, be there when the kids get home from school, that kind of thing. We talk about that. Don’t work morning, afternoon, and evening if you keep from it. Take one of those three and spend time with your kids and your wife. If you’re bivocational, that’s not an option. It’s just not. So when you are with your family in the relatively somewhat limited time, be with your family.

Don’t be thinking your secular job. Don’t be on your phone doing stuff for the church. Don’t be doing your sermon preparation. Be with them. Be engaged with them. Play games with your kids, listen to their stories, look your wife in the eye, listen to her story, find out what she likes to do, do what she likes to do. It’s so important when you have limited time to truly be with them.

Mark Hallock:

Exactly.

Mark Clifton:

Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually and mentally in every other way.

Dan Hurst:

By the way, that’s coming from a couple of guys-

Mark Clifton:

Who don’t do that.

Dan Hurst:

Well, Clifton and I, as kids, as preacher kids, we learn that. I mean, my dad was so busy being a Christian that he didn’t have time to be a good father when I was young. Now that all changed later in life. But boy, for several years there, that just didn’t happen.

Mark Clifton:

I certainly had some of that too, where my dad was so busy being a pastor that even when he was with us, he wasn’t always with us.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

That’s true.

Dan Hurst:

Absolutely. All right. Let’s wrap it up with number six. We’re almost out of time anyway, and that is really obediently embracing the ministry that God has given you.

Mark Clifton:

Not wanting saying this is less than I just wish I had a full time.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah.

Mark Clifton:

But being content where God has placed you.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, this is the ministry God gave me. Being anywhere else would be the wrong thing to do.

Mark Hallock:

That’s right. That’s right.

Mark Clifton:

All right, man. Those are good words.

Dan Hurst:

Thank you.

Mark Clifton:

We love you, bivocational pastors.

Dan Hurst:

Oh, man, do we?

Mark Clifton:

We all identify with you. We’ve been there and we are there.

Dan Hurst:

Yeah. Yeah, we are.

Mark Clifton:

Man certainly is.

Dan Hurst:

I certainly am. Anyway, thank you so much for spending time with us. We love getting together. The three of us and Kyle when Kyle’s here, and Matt when Matt’s here, we really do love each other.

Mark Clifton:

We didn’t get our song though, did we?

Dan Hurst:

Shall we go out with a song?

Mark Clifton:

No, let’s wait.

Mark Hallock:

Yeah, we’ll wait. We got one coming. It’s brewing.

Mark Clifton:

Write a song.

Mark Hallock:

It’s brewing.

Dan Hurst:

Let me give you a word of advice, folks, that are listening. When you find out that the podcast is coming up, that they are going to sing on-

Mark Hallock:

That’s right.

Dan Hurst:

… don’t. Just don’t.

Mark Clifton:

Do you remember? I know we’re already 23 1/2 now, so we’re too late. But do you remember in bus ministry days, these songs? Maybe you don’t remember them, Hallock, but stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me. And you hold up a stop sign. Stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.

Mark Hallock:

Hey, I love it, man. Let’s bring it back.

Mark Clifton:

He forgave my sin.

Dan Hurst:

Fade out. Fade out the program. Fade out, editors. Fade it out.

Mark Clifton:

Stop. Let me tell you what the Lord has done for me. Go and tell the story of the Christ of Calvary.

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