Today's Bivocational Pastor

Written by Dan Garland

Churches of all sizes and locations are dealing with the challenge of reaching and keeping young adults. What can your church do to attract, engage and keep young adults? The following are excerpts from Tools for an Essential Church by Dr. Thom S. Rainer, Sam S. Rainer III, and Dan Garland.

Reaching Young Adults

Tools for an Essential Church - Church Manual

To gain insight into ways to reach and keep young adults, LifeWay Research undertook a study of young adults. They used polling and one-on-one surveys to talk to over 500 (churched and unchurched combined, from interviews and polling data) young adults across the country in order to better understand their mindsets and value systems.

The research discovered this about reaching young adults:

1. Almost ninety percent of the unchurched 20 to 29 year olds said they would be willing to listen if someone wanted to tell them about Christianity.
2. Three of 5 younger unchurched respondents agreed they would be willing to study the Bible if a friend asked them to do so.
3. Over 60 percent said they would attend a church if it presented truth in an understandable and relevant way.

The Bad News: The younger unchurched believe the church is too critical about lifestyle issues, full of hypocrites, and not necessary for spiritual development.

The Good News: The younger unchurched clearly indicate they are willing to dialogue about Christianity and Jesus. (from Lost and Found)

These findings reinforce the truth that effective evangelism is done through building relationships.

Reach Young Adults by Getting Relational

What can your church do to help heighten the need for building intentional relationships with the unchurched and the dechurched?

• Preach/teach on the power of relationships and invitations. Nine out of ten of unchurched or dechurched young adults who come to church and get connected to Christ do so because a friend, co-worker, relative, neighbor invited them.
• Teach and model developing relationships with the dechurched and the unchurched. Use the testimonies of those who came to Christ as a result of someone developing a relationship with them. Powerful testimonies energize and encourage others to get involved in building authentic relationships with those who need Christ and His church.
• Find new ways, creative ways to connect believers with the dechurched and the unchurched. This will not happen by doing the same thing the same way.

Getting outside the walls of the church buildings and engaging people with the gospel is absolutely essential to reaching the unchurched and the dechurched. A novel approach is to get to know some people who are unchurched and ask them what it would take for them to come to church. This is always insightful. You might then actually begin to do some of the things the unchurched suggest.

If the unchurched come because of relationships, they stay because of new relationships. The questions the unchurched are asking is:

• Can I fit in here?
• Can I make friends?
• Will I be accepted?

Those in the church must be taught to build relationships with those who are new to the church.  To get a feel for this, send some of your church leaders out to visit other churches in the area and report how they were greeted. Or, ask for the honest feedback of those who visit your church. Learn from the responses and use these as teaching tools for your congregation.

Believers must be taught to develop relationships in their everyday paths of life and in their areas of passion and interests. The unchurched and dechurched are all around us and often invisible to us. Teach your people to open their eyes and begin to look for opportunities to talk about your church and what you are doing to make a difference in the community.

One key strategy of reaching young adults is the effort on reclaiming those who have dropped out of church – the dechurched.

The Key to reclaiming dechurched young adults: Friends and Family

“We interviewed 394 rechurched young adults to find out why they returned to church. One myth that could be easily dismissed is that they were too angry at the church to return. To the contrary, the rechurched told us in overwhelming numbers that anger at the church was not a factor in their departures. Apathy tended to always be the trump card over anger."

“So the dechurched often just needed a gentle nod to become the rechurched. And that gentle nod came most often from friends and family. Nearly four out ten (39%) rechurched told us that parents or other family members were instrumental in their return to church. Another two out of ten (21%) said that they returned church after friends or acquaintances encouraged them to attend.” (Pg  224, Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts by Thom Rainer and Sam Rainer)

The bottom line is that family and friends must be encouraged to continue to invite, pray for and lift up the dechurched young adults because there is power in the invitation.

Also, iIf you are looking for help in this area be sure to pre-order Essential Church or register online for the Essential Church Retreat featuring Thom and Sam Rainer (February 26-28, 2009 at the Ridgecrest Conference Center in Ridgecrest, North Carolina).

I look forward to working with you and providing information and insights in this newsletter that will both encourage and equip you to do the work of ministry.

Please call me at 615-251-3893 or email me at dan.garland@lifeway.com for help that you need.

Dan Garland
Director of Pastoral Ministries and Church Consulting
LifeWay Christian Resources

Developing Ministry Teams in Bivocational Ministry by Steve Echols
After twenty years of being a pastor who was fully funded, I entered the world of bivocational ministry somewhat unexpectedly. After answering a call to teach at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I began a bi-vocational pastorate. Now in my seventh year of bivocational ministry, I have learned that developing ministry teams is not an option but a necessity. Fortunately, I have discovered that bivocational ministers actually have some advantages in developing ministry teams. Read more...

SBBMA Bivocational Regional Resource Centers 
A Regional Bivocational Resource Center seeks throughout its geographical region to encourage, promote, connect, and service bivocational/smaller membership churches, ministers, and families for their effective service in God's kingdom.  Primarily within its role as an entity of a Baptist, Christian educational institution, each Resource Center will provide:

Center leadership, Training programs, A resource "lab", On-campus events, Regional events, SBBMA participation. learn more... 

Guidestone has recently released their 2007 Guidestone Financial Solutions for Bivocational Ministers and has given us permission to post it here. This 8-page guide is full of advice and help for pastors of churches with smaller budgets and limited resources.

Dowload it now: 2007 Guidestone Financial Solutions for Bivocational Ministers (2.5 MB PDF) 

Visit the GuideStone Financial Resources website for more help.

Be sure to visit the Southern Baptist Bivocational Ministers Association website along with other State Bivocational Ministry Websites:

Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas

Dan Garland is the Director of LifeWay's Pastoral Ministries and Church Consulting. Dan came to this position in August 2007. Dan has twenty-two years of pastoral experience in various size churches, mainly in Kentucky. He was also the Team Leader for Church Development and Evangelism for the Kentucky Baptist Convention for over seven years. In that capacity Dan worked with bivocational pastors and smaller membership churches.

You may contact Dan Garland at 615-251-3893 or email him at dan.garland@lifeway.com.