Tag Archive - Jon Sampson

Why Bivocational? 6 Reasons Why

April 24, 2009 in Ministry-Theology with 22 Comments

This is a guest post by John Sampson.

headshotJohn is a Residence Director who supports discipleship and missional work for  Oasis Church in Pasadena, CA.  He blogs on church mission, leadership, and life at Jon Sampson. Jon also Twitters at @jonsampson.

Rhett’s recent post on bivocational ministry caught my attention. I guess it makes sense. The bivocational thing is the life I’m living as a Resident Director on a college campus and a Life Group’s pastor at a local church.

For me (and I’m sure, a lot of others), bivocational ministry is not a short-term thing for someone who can’t get a full-time ministry job. It’s a choice of ministry style based on what it produces. I believe bivocational ministry can be healthier for both the pastor and the church. Not only that, but it instills some powerful values in the organizations where actions speak louder than words.

But before we dive in to some of the why, let me share a little of the context. The models we have today aren’t disappearing. I don’t think the bivocational thing is the only way. But if we want Christianity to thrive as a culture changes and resist marginalization, we have to be willing to try all sorts of models to connect with all sorts of people.

I believe the bivocational thing is one way this is going to happen. It allows ministries to grow slowly and keeps Christians outside of the church where they can connect with others. I’m still learning how to do this thing, but I believe that despite the challenges, it’s important.

I recently shared six reasons why I believe bivocational ministry makes a difference on my blog. Here they are with quick summaries and an additional thought.

  1. Why Bivocational?  Shared Responsibility: All Christians have a job to do.  We can’t leave the ‘ministry” side of life to the paid “sage on the stage.”

    2. Continue Reading…

How Much Time Do You Spend In Sermon Preparation?

February 20, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 7 Comments

Jon Sampson has a good post on what he is learning from other pastors. This particular topic is about what David Fitch says he wish he had done over the last several years of church planting. It’s a good read. I’m curious what you all think of David’s #1.

1. Spend less time writing sermons, more time listening and speaking truth relationally lovingly into people’s lives. My goal, when I am preaching, is to never spend more than twelve hours a week writing sermons. Preaching the Word is important. It takes skill and practice. Yet the sermon is for speaking truth over people’s lives, not for entertainment. Sometimes the “entertainment” piece takes too much extra work. The sermon proclaims the true reality as it is under the Lordship of Christ and calls people into Him. It is my opinion the reason why sermon prep takes so much time is that often pastors place too much self-importance into it. How many hours a week do you spend on sermon prep?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue recently. Let me outline it this way.

  1. To be honest…I don’t think I’m a great preacher. But I do my best.
  2. I spend less time on sermon prep now than when I used to, especially right out of seminary.
  3. I don’t spend less time because of laziness, but because of the demands of work.
  4. Either I spend 20-40 hours of prep on a sermon, or I actually do other things like hang out with students, counsel people, etc.
  5. Who ever came up with that rule that I have heard about 1 hour of sermon prep for every minute of sermon?
  6. And who are these pastors that have 20-40 hours a week to prepare a sermon?
  7. Most pastors I know have lots of responsibility, and don’t have the luxury of everyone doing the work for them while they sit in their office or library all week buried in books.
  8. How relevant (and I mean this in the best of terms), or grounded in the community can the sermon be if the pastor is holed up in his/her study all week?
  9. When it comes down to it, ministry places lots of demands on us, and we have to choose ultimately between very important things. In doing this, I always try and keep people first. If someone needs to meet and it will interrupt my sermon prep, then that person is first, not my sermon prep.
  10. Sermons sometimes seem to be an avenue for the pastor to put on a show or display their prowess. Not all, and hopefully not many, but I often feel like a pastor sometimes spends all that time in prep to impress with their knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

Full Disclosure: I should probably spend more time on sermon prep myself. But I don’t have a rule of thumb. Some weeks require more, and others require very little. Some weeks I am alone, looking through the Bible, commentaries and the language tools. Other weeks I’m just in prayer. And some weeks I have laid out my whole sermon in my head from my morning commute from Pasadena into work. We all have our methods and I think that is great. But to place a rule that every pastor should do this or that for a sermon is quite unrealistic.

There is a big difference between the pastor at a smaller church who preaches, counsels, does adminstrative tasks, vistis with people, etc., and the pastor at a large church whose only job is to preach. Sometimes I wonder that the large size of a church actually keeps us from putting our hand to the task of things that should be important and that keep us grounded in the daily realities of those we minister to.

Thoughts?