Bivocational is the new standard.
And not just in the church.
Gone are the days when a person entering the work force expected to get a full-time job with benefits. And it’s not just that they no longer expect full-time pay on their first job, it’s unlikely ever to happen for them.
A single job that will pay all their bills, let alone for an entire family? Unlikely. Working at one place (or in one career) until retirement? Almost unheard of. A livable pension? Forget about it.
Today’s workplace expectations are different than we’ve ever seen, and they’re changing constantly.
Enter, the side hustle.
For the uninitiated, a side hustle is the job you have in addition to your regular job. It’s often entrepreneurial, hopefully on your own schedule, and it’s not done so you can pile on the luxuries, but to pay the bills. For some, this means a side job like running your personal online store, driving for Uber or DoorDash, and so on. But for many, it’s more like two full-time jobs than a main and a side.
The Bivo/Covo Option
This has led to a massive rise in the number of bivocational pastors—an increase that will be getting much bigger in the next couple of decades.
A pre-pandemic survey from Lifeway found that 26 percent of pastors were bivo/covo. More recently (2022) Faith and Leadership put the number at 35 percent. The Lewis Center for Church Leadership noted some active speculation that “between 40 and 60 percent, and maybe as much as 80 percent” of one denomination’s churches had bivocational pastors.
These stats and speculations have given rise to a fairly new term, the covocational pastor. While many use bivocational and covocational interchangeably (and I’ll use the term bivo/covo when referring to both), most see bivo as someone who takes a second job until their pastoral work becomes full-time, while covo is a pastor who chooses to stay in the secular workplace as a strategic aspect of ministry—the permanent side hustle. I think that distinction is helpful.
There are also an increasing number of pastors who are intentionally working at a secular job not as a side hustle, but full time. Pastors with side hustles are no longer an anomaly. They’re not part-time pastors. They aren’t “waiting for something better.”
We must stop treating bivo/covo pastors as second-tier ministers. They are the future. And the future is now.
New Realities Need New Structures
Our church structures are way behind in catching up to this new reality.
Most of our churches and denominations were designed with the expectation of a full-time pastor as the norm. And it worked. For many generations it was possible for a church with just a few dozen people to support a full-time pastor. With a rent-free parsonage, low insurance rates, regular invitations to dinner, and so on, a pastor and their family could make ends meet (barely) in some very small churches.
Not anymore.
It’s not that today’s pastors are making unreasonable pay demands (a claim I keep hearing from my generation of boomers, which isn’t supported by the facts), it’s that the structure of the world we now live in—inside and outside the church—has shifted. A much larger giving base is now needed to pay the essential bills.
Here’s a starter list of eight adjustments that must be made by our institutions and our people if the church hopes to function well in this new reality:
1. Denominations: Support Bivo/Covo As Normative
In many, maybe most denominations, the entire structure is set up to train, support, and promote pastors for full-time church work. And most denominational officials serve in a full-time capacity as well.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But if denominations are to survive, thrive, and continue to provide their churches and pastors with the help they need, they must take bivo/covocationality much more seriously, seeing it as the norm, not the exception.
2. Seminaries: Train Pastors For A Side-Hustle Culture
As hard as it will be for most denominations to make the needed changes, it will be harder for our seminaries and Bible colleges. Most of our schools (which should be among our most resilient and adaptable institutions) are so static they’re brittle.
If we keep demanding post-graduate degrees before someone can be ordained, for instance, we will never have enough pastors to do the necessary work. These degrees cost too much, take too long, and have too little connection to real-world pastoring.
We need to think and act differently before it’s too late. In many cases, I’m afraid it may be.
3. Theologians: Study Bivo/Covo In The Early Church
The good news for our schools is that bivo/covocationality is not new to Christianity. The New Testament is filled with examples of it, and most of its letters were written from an intentionally covocational context.
We need theologians, historians, and practitioners who will help thrust us forward by pointing us back to that biblical foundation.
4. Congregations: Learn To Adjust Pastoral Expectations
Most congregations will not be able to afford a full-time pastor from now on. In many cases, the struggle to do so (along with the financial burden of an exclusive-use church building) will create an unsustainable future.
For most congregations it’s either adapt to a bivo/covo pastoral reality or cease to exist.
5. Church Staffing: Think More Creatively About Pastoral Schedules
Not only do young adults coming into the workforce not expect to work at only one place, there’s an entrepreneurial spirit that makes a side hustle very desirable for many of them. In addition to more income, it gives them a greater sense of autonomy and maybe even a creative outlet.
If we can make pastoral staff positions open to a wider variety of backgrounds, ideas, and schedules we can slow down the massive loss of available ministers we’re currently experiencing.
6. Church Planters: See Covocationality As A Strategic Option
There is a huge disconnect between the world and the church. Much of this should be there, of course, as followers of Jesus. But a lot of that disconnect is not because of holiness. Instead of being “in the world but not of the world” we’re viewing it from a safe (to us), judgmental (to them) distance.
Intentional covocationality can help bridge that gap. And the best place to start is with church plants that have a covocational strategy in their DNA from Day One.
7. Pastors: Change Expectations About Primary Income Source(s)
Over the next generation there will be more churches that can’t pay a pastor a full-time living wage than those that can. As we saw in the above statistics, it may already be the case.
If you are a young or future pastor it is highly unlikely that pastoral ministry will pay your bills. Plan accordingly.
8. Everyone: Embrace It, Or Lose It
I’m not idealizing the side hustle. Obviously, the need for it is not primarily driven by positive factors. But we need to stop seeing it as a problem to overcome, and more as a reality to adapt to.
If we don’t adapt we will lose a lot of good people and their gifts to the church.
(Photo by Daniel Hache | Flickr)
