Greg Ragland wasn’t looking for a job when he and his wife started attending Community Baptist Church in Maylene, Ala., about five years ago. Ragland had recently stepped down as youth pastor at a nearby church. He wanted to find a place to worship while deciding what to do next.

Community Baptist already had a youth minister in place, and Ragland hoped to be just an ordinary church member. A middle school math teacher for a decade, Ragland also had been in ministry for eight years. He hoped his next church call would be as a full-time pastor.

“I was in limbo, waiting to be called somewhere,” he says.

A few months after Ragland arrived at Community Baptist, the church’s youth minister stepped down. Ragland became the new youth minister — a 15-hour a week job he holds in addition to teaching.

In the beginning, things were rough. The church was small, only about 30 or 40 people when Ragland started. The youth group was small, as well.

“When I started, we had five kids,” he says. “Now we run about 70.”

Five years later, Ragland remains a youth pastor with a day job, also known as a bi-vocational minister. Ministers such as Ragland are common in the South, where most churches have fewer than 100 members and can’t afford to pay a full-time youth minister — or senior pastor.

Benefits and Challenges
The apostle Paul, who served as an evangelist, church leader and tent maker, was Christianity’s pioneering bi-vocational minister.

Today, being bi-vocational means youth workers can stay in ministry when a full-time post isn’t available. Hiring a bi-vocational youth minister also helps small churches maintain a healthy youth ministry despite financial constraints.

Being bi-vocational is not part-time work, says Rev. Bo Brown, the senior pastor of Community Baptist. Instead, it means ministers have two jobs.

Although Community Baptist has grown to about 350, the church staff remains bi-vocational, including Brown, also known as “Brother Bo.”

“It’s not something you do until your church gets bigger and you don’t have to do it anymore,” says Brown. “It’s not part-time, because you don’t work half as hard as any other minister.”

Brown sees several advantages to bi-vocational ministry: It allows a church to have a full range of ministries, no matter what its size; and it keeps the church’s pastors out in the community, where they interact with people outside the church.

As a schoolteacher, Ragland says he doesn’t mention faith in the classroom. Although, he can be an example for kids, he says. Word gets out about his other job.

“My kids at school, they know that I am a youth minister,” he says.

Bi-vocational ministers say they often get more volunteer help than full-time youth workers do. They can’t run the youth ministry on their own and have to recruit more volunteers to help. That’s good for the church because more people are involved in hands-on ministry.

“As a bi-vocational minister, you rely on the help of (volunteer) youth workers,” says Ragsdale. “I’ve got a couple of guys who are great friends — they both jump in and help, along with their wives.”

Organic Ministry
Dietrich “Deech” Kirk, who runs the Center for Youth Ministry Training in Brentwood, Tenn., says bi-vocational youth ministry works best when youth ministers are already an organic part of the churches they are called to serve.

That’s because they often have deep roots in the church community and see the kids they work with as part of an extended church family. As a result, they often put in additional unpaid hours, says Kirk.

“The reality is there is no such thing as part-time youth ministry,” he says.

Ginny Olson agrees. She’s the co-director of the Center for Youth Ministry Studies at North Park University in Chicago. Olson says she’s seen more demand for bi-vocational youth ministers, but finding candidates to fill that need is difficult.

“I believe more churches are looking to hire someone for 10-15 hours a week, but the reality is that if someone doesn’t already attend that church, they won’t be interested,” she says.

Olson says there are some advantages to bi-vocational youth ministry. It also allows people to stay in their home churches while still pursuing ministry. It also is a way to empower people who’ve got a track record of volunteer involvement.

“A (bi-vocational minister) is usually someone who’s a ‘super volunteer,'” she says. “They spend extraordinary amounts of time with the adolescents in the church. Being bi-vocational means they finally are recognized and rewarded by the church for their efforts.”

The Haven of Home
For Rev. Andy Goebel, pastor of youth ministry and worship at Community Covenant Church of Clear Lake, Wash., being bi-vocational was a way to get back home.

He’d been a schoolteacher in Clear Lake and member of a church in nearby Mt. Vernon, Wash., before going to seminary in Chicago. Once he was done with school, he wanted to go back to the Pacific Northwest. He felt called to minister in Clear Lake, a rural community of fewer than 1,000 people about an hour north of Seattle.

“In seminary, I would say, ‘God, I will go anywhere You call me,'” he says, “but deep down inside, I was thinking, ‘God, if You call me to Clear Lake it would be a good idea.'”

So in the fall of 2007, Goebel took a call as a half-time youth and worship pastor at Community Covenant, a congregation of about 150 people.
He also took a job as a part-time middle school English teacher, sharing the position with another teacher on staff.

“My dream was that if I am their teacher and they like me as a teacher, they will come and check out what I am doing at the church,” says Goebel. “It didn’t work.”

Goebel felt himself torn between his two responsibilities. On paper, both were paying him for 20 hours a week. In reality, both needed more time from him.

Unlike in the South, where schools and churches often are seen as allies, Goebel’s church and school were going in different directions.

“I had done all this preparation to teach school and all this preparation for ministry, and I felt torn between these two worlds that here in Washington don’t really cross paths,” he  says.

After two years of bi-vocational ministry, Goebel realized he had to choose between his two roles. After talking with church leaders, he became a full-time staff member at the church.

“We decided to take a leap of faith,” he says.

Is It Sustainable?
Goebel’s experience isn’t uncommon, says Kirk.

He doesn’t believe bi-vocational youth ministry is a sustainable model. He says it works in the short term; but after a few years, bi-vocational youth ministers can burn out.

A church can save money by having a part-time youth minister, Kirk believes; but they will pay the price in terms of quality of ministry and in staff turnover.

“So the church ends up hoping and wishing to find the magic youth director who’ll make their plan to save money work,” he says.

The other downside is that bi-vocational youth ministers get taken for granted, says Olson; and churches don’t realize they are getting close to full-time ministry for a part-time salary.

“The church doesn’t see the need for a full-time youth worker because their kids are being cared for by this person,” she says. “The church easily can take this person for granted and often does not compensate him or her adequately for his or her time or acknowledge he or she is working two jobs. A church will put a requirement of 15 hours a week in the job description, but the reality is they expect 25-30 hours or more.”

The bi-vocational question isn’t going away any time soon.

That’s especially true in denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention, where three quarters of churches draw fewer than 100 people; and half have bi-vocational senior pastors, not to mention youth ministers.

Get Ready!
Ray Gilder, bi-vocational ministries specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Convention, tells prospective ministers to prepare for bi-vocational ministry early.

“Make sure you have a marketable skill,” says Gilder.

Gilder runs an annual retreat for bi-vocational ministers in Tennessee. He also coaches bi-vocational ministers on time management and other skills needed to maintain healthy ministry, as well as reminds bi-vocational pastors they have to involve other church members to make ministry sustainable.
He points out that bi-vocational ministry dates back to the Bible. The apostle Peter was a fisherman before becoming a preacher. The apostle Paul, when he wasn’t writing most of the New Testament or starting new churches, made tents for a living.

“He was a pretty good preacher on the side,” Gilder says.

Olson and Kirks suggest that churches find alternative ways to compensate youth ministers, such as teaming up to share the costs of a youth minister and running combined youth groups.

“In some rural areas, churches are networking together to hire one full-time youth pastor to serve several congregations,” says Olson.

Short-Term Work, Long-Term Goals
Ragland says he will continue as a bi-vocational minister as long as God keeps him at Community Baptist. He admits that he would like to go full time as a senior pastor at some point but is content with his current calling.

He says the church is growing but the staff constantly is reminded the growth isn’t due to its efforts alone. He says that involving church members in the ministry is crucial as is giving their best effort.

That’s a message Brown repeats constantly.

“He tells us all the time, ‘We are working for God,’ says Ragland. ‘We are working hard, but God is bringing us the people.'”