Bivocational: Returning to the Roots of Ministry

by Mark Edington

Returning to the Roots of Ministry offers one answer to the pressing question of the future of congregational life in the mainline Protestant Church. The contention of the book is that the model of professional ministry we have received from the past century of congregational life is imposing unsustainable costs on most congregations and parishes. In consequence, these faith communities face stark choices for which there are no self-evident answers. Shall we close? Shall we merge with another congregation―a decision shaped by a primary value on maintaining a full-time professional in the role of ordained minister? Can we find someone who will do the job part-time? What will it mean for them―and for us?

Bivocational explores the impact on the ministry, on congregations, and on denominational polities of encouraging a way forward―one in which bivocational ordained professionals, ministers working simultaneously in the church and in secular life, come to leadership positions in the church. It explores the different sorts of gifts and preparation such ordained ministers need, and how a bivocational ethos looks when it characterizes not only the ordained minister, but all ministers of the congregation―lay and ordained alike.

144 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2018

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

To grow into this church, a church of greater openness, greater engagement, greater vulnerability--and, perhaps it should be said, less pretension--is not easy. It will mean setting aside some of the comforts and assurances that came with the understanding of the church's importance in the social and cultural scales of the secular world. It will mean, for the ordained members of our communities, setting aside the expectations of preferment and distinction that the old model of church raised us to believe were ours by right--the fruit of the idea that ordination somehow signaled and rewarded one's superior spiritual qualities. And it will mean, for the lay ministers of our congregations, an end to the comforting and transactional notion that the work of ministry was something we delegate to the minister of the community--the "hired Christian"--and embracing an understanding of ministry shared much more fully, and much more equally, on all those gifted in baptism by the spirit.

Mark Edington, a product of the Harvard Divinity School, argues that bivocational ministry is the panacea for the current woes of organized religion. He mentions that many small congregations opt for part-time ordained ministers because of economic hardships, of course, but he argues bivocational ministry--done right by people like him--furthers God's kingdom in a plethora of ways.

The problem with this short work is Edington posits a model of "ordained, full-time ministry" replete with qualities of pretension, cluelessness, spiritual bankruptcy which are inadequate to staunch the current bleeding of church membership in the 21st century. Why? Because, in my own words, they lack "street-cred." You see, bivocational priests must work in the community, so they are in touch with the secular world and when they preach or implore, they carry that "street-cred" vibe into the church. People jump up and throw themselves into ministry and the church's mission. It's very pie-in-the-sky rhetoric.

Edington tells the tale how his "grant-funded job in higher education" was coming to the end and how he told his congregation about how he was going to "need to be focusing time and energy into a search for a new position." A new job "came along," of course (did I mention he graduated from the Harvard Divinity School?), but the kicker was what a parishioner told Edington after he did a "middling sermon on Stewardship Sunday":

"You know, somehow it was different this year, listening to you. I knew--we all knew--you had a hard moment there about the job. A lot of us have been there. I don't know, maybe it made it easier to believe you or something. I get it that you have to earn a paycheck just like I do."

You see: Street-cred. Yes. We blue-collar folk in the pews appreciate that Edington had a brief moment where he lost one grant-funded position with the university before finding another. Jesus Christ--he's just like us, isn't he?

This is ludicrous. If you're hoping to connect with blue-collar people, Hahvard don't connect. You're be hard put to find any bivocational priests mentioned in this study which has a true blue-collar job. Why Edington believes he is more special than dedicated, full-time priests is puzzling. Some ordained minister dissed him sometime, because he really, really despises them (trust me) as the reason for the slow, painful demise of most churches.

There's interesting moments, but I assure you the best tidbits I culled from this work were quotes from people around Edington, not from Edington himself. He's hung out with some fascinating, provocative, spiritual people--I wish I was reading their book instead of his.

The book does not present a balanced viewpoint, does not even present a coherent platform. Edington has some ranting to do regarding ordained ministers and this is his forum. While he brings up concepts and situations worth mulling over, he's too general and distracted to provide a solid foundation upon which to build.

When my blushing face signaled my inability to respond, my boss offered me this bit of wisdom: "Nearly everyone who offers themselves to an ordination process is looking for something. They're looking for the attention, or for the respect, or for the love they didn't receive as a child. It doesn't really matter what it is you're looking for. But it does matter that you figure out what you're looking for--or else it will lead you around by the nose."

I left the office more than a little abashed. But in the nearly twenty years that have passed since that day, I've come to appreciate the wisdom of my boss's insight.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not at all sure why I wanted to read Mark Edington's new book on bivocational ministry; perhaps it was all of the gushing, pink-cheeked praise which was whirling around it, offered by people trying to find their way into new models of ordained ministry as the old ones crumble and dissolve. Edington is a very bright person: scholar, priest, lawyer, publisher, essayist, college chaplain, writer. It is not that there is anything wrong in what he says ... or not too much, anyway. He is wrong to connect the rigid, dying, structured, corporate, statelike church with a catholic-orthodox ecclesiology and the brave, new, wonderful, surviving, overcoming church of the New Age with a Low Church ecclesiology. That's just silly. He says the church must change because society has changed, and he is correct. But much of what he expresses about the coming bi-vocational church, as if new, are insights which were being widely discussed among those doing bivocational ministry in the early 1990s -- clergy and congregations alike. I do appreciate that he emphasizes that it is congregations, every bit as much as clergy and judicatories, who have to change mightily to adopt and adapt to a new style of mutual ministry. The idea that members of a congregation can simply "buy" some of this bivocational stuff ("twice the ministry for half the price") without doubling their own commitment to our Blessed Lord and the life of His Church is ludicrous. There is lots of good tonic for that sort of crazy-person thinking in here. The book reads rather like a thesis for the mid-life degree of Doctor of Ministry which the supervising professor urged the candidate to publish and, Mark Edington being well connected, Church Publishing (the publication arm of the Episcopal Church) did.

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly for a narrow audience, I found this book to be marvelous in both its affirmation of my own understanding and a challenge to deepen it. Rather than simply stopping with a description of this emerging style of ministry for ordained individuals, Edington goes on to describe the attributes of the new bivocational parishes as well. But Edington goes on to describe the impact this trend may have on both church polity as well as theology. It was very satisfying, is now filled with pencil markings, and can be a great focus for subsequent discussion.