Educational Return on Investment

I have been considering over the last several years the value of education, and what might be termed the 'return on investment' it might provide. I read an article yesterday that dealt with the overwhelming cost of obtaining a law degree and the crippling effect it has on graduates. I can see this in my own daughter; she just completed a year in law school and I know what debt she carries. The article made the point that in most cases the debt is likely to take many years to get rid of, if at all. There is an overabundance of lawyers and the field is shrinking.

Then there are the theology majors. The so-called 'entry-level' degree is a Masters of Divinity. A traditional MDiv will take 3 years of full-time study and cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000. The typical graduate will join a field of graduates all vying for pastoral positions which pay in the vicinity of $25,000 in salary (other benefits MAY be included, but no guarantee). As a matter of fact, the average church in the United States has 75 people and the pastor is likely to be bi-vocational. Return on investment? I would say that there is very little.

This raises a question in my mind. If the return of investment is so low, why do it? Especially for a minister who is already ordained, what's the point? There are only a couple reasons to pursue an advanced degree in ministry. One is to advance your skills or keep your skills sharp. Another is for the 'prestige' of an advanced degree. A third reason would be to allow the recipient to teach in a more formal setting (at a District educational center, for instance). A fourth reason, at least in our denomination, is that there is a requirement for ordained elders to participate in continuing education.

A better option might be to take advantage of free or low-cost educational opportunities according to a plan of education you draw up yourself. There are free courses available online from places like Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Covenant Theological Seminary. Low cost courses are available from Nazarene Bible College and others. Why not look at a Master's level program from a legitimate school and see if you can duplicate it, or come close to it, by using these kinds of resources? If you honestly pursue the plan and meet your goals, at the end you could even print yourself a certificate and hang it on your wall.

The typical response by many in our field is that this is simply not the same as earning an advanced degree from an accredited institution. Yet, if it brings the knowledge and skills that you need, who cares? Abraham Lincoln did not seem to find his self-education in law a problem either when practicing law or as a politician. Maybe we are becoming too caught up in the formalities to recognize what the end goal should be...ministry.

Bivo-traps

This posting may come as a surprise to many who have known me over the years, in my career as a minister and as a churchplanter, but it concerns a topic that is at the forefront of ministry today.

In the last thirty years or so there has been an increase in the number of bivocational ministers in many, if not all, faith traditions and the Church of the Nazarene is no different. “Bivocational” is defined as follows: An assigned minister holding one or more secular, non-church-related jobs. I have been a champion of the bivocational minister for many years…at one time I was “quad-vocational”, holding down three secular positions totaling about 70 hours a week in addition to my ministry position.

Many times, but not always, a minister is bivocational because the church is too small to fully fund the minister’s salary and benefits. In other cases a church may have gotten into this mode of dealing with their pastors because they see it as being good stewardship, or simply started out this way and now have grown, but don’t want to devote additional funds to a pastor’s salary and benefits. At the time of this writing a family health insurance policy will be about $1,200 a month in Vermont. The number of pastors in this situation does not take into account the number of pastors who are not fully-funded, but who have a working spouse who provides additional salary and benefits. Many newer churches do not provide a parsonage, either, which increases the burden on the pastor.

Granted, there are many pastors who see this as a preferred mode of ministry, giving the pastor unprecedented independence and access to the world of secular work. You can't intimidate a bivo pastor with threats on his paycheck by withdrawing your tithes!

Data quoted by Richard Houseal from the 1993 Annual Reports indicates that at that time there 39% of Nazarene churches reporting 50 or less in average worship attendance and paying salaries below the poverty level. (source: http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/Picture%20of%20Bivocational%20Pastors%20in%20the%20Church%20of%20the%20Nazarene.pdf) In another report by Ken Crow a survey of the churches in the US revealed that 29% of pastors are either part-time or have other employment outside the church. (source: http://www.nazarene.org/files/docs/factnazarenereport_2005.pdf)

The numbers speak for themselves. What doesn’t appear in the statistics though are the difficulties that being a bivocational pastor present. Our own District is struggling with a number of these issues. For instance, consider the following.

• Denominational or District events and programs scheduled during the work week will not be well attended by bivos.
• Secular work time is prime ministry time (for instance, afterschool programs, Mom’s Bible Studies, etc..)
• Secular work allows limited time off; required ministry events during the year may leave no vacation time for the pastor’s family.
• Secular work and ministry may take up so much time in combination that family life could suffer.
• Secular work schedules may interfere with essential ministry time…for instance, retail work may insist on occasional holiday or weekend work.
• Denominational and District board seats are often not offered to bivocationals because of their real or perceived schedules and many meetings are scheduled during weekday working hours.
• Breaking away from bivocational ministry and into fully-funded ministry can be an economic leap for a church.
• And the final straw for many is that even though the church as a whole has bought into the bivocational model, there are still residual feelings that bivocational ministers are not ‘real’ clergy (by both laity and fully-funded clergy).

To quote Dennis Bickers, "Along with our family and church responsibilities, we have a second job that requires a certain amount of our time. The churches we lead are often smaller churches with few resources. Bivocational ministry is looked at by some as 'second-class' ministry performed by people who don't have the gifts to serve a larger church." (source: http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/h2ol/articleDisplay.jsp?mediaId=2365220)

Whether or not the church manages to deal effectively with these issues in relation to bivocationals will largely determine the shape of the church in the future. I am now firmly of the opinion that a local church should have at least one fully-funded pastoral position and the bivocational mode should be employed only out of necessity and transitioned into fully-funded as quickly as possible.

Solutions are available, we just need to be creative. In the past, and in some congregations even now (especially ethnic congregations), pastoral sharing is done with a fully-funded pastor handling two or more small congregations. This is only one solution, but at the very least we need to be aware of the special needs, limitations and schedules of our bivocational ministers.