My take aways from the book:
Full-time pastors are ideal, but we live in the world as it is.
Because of changes in working/living situations and technology, mobility trumps that traditional “office” orient model of being a pastor. This makes part-time calls more feasible.
Protestants especially shouldn’t be afraid of making changes to how we do ministry.
Lay-folk can do a lot, if the “professional” minister empowers them to do so/gets out of their way.
Bivocational Ministers are more likely to interact with the wider community.
Also, they likely empathize with parishioners better than monovocational Pastors because they too are going to church meetings after a long day at another job.
The relationship between pastor and church in a bivocational setting has to be done very intentionally.
Expectations have to be clear; all the cards have to be on the table.
There has to be a lot of trust.
Tasks, not time spent, have to be the pastor’s focus.
The Roman Catholic Permanent Deaconate is a model the Protestant church aught to look at when preparing clergy for part-time positions.
A lot of these insights would help a mono-vocational pastors too.
Also, LaRochelle works 65-80 hours a week between his two jobs and has a family. He’s a tougher dude than I.
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