JimBo Stewart: [00:00:00] Here we are, back at the boot camp, back at it again. Bob, I hope you’re ready for the next episode. I’m sitting here with the National Championship game on in the background. While we’re recording, Michigan’s currently winning 17 3. And you know, I’m not even that interested.

Bob Bickford: You know what Jimbo? I didn’t even know that was on tonight. Like who, so Michigan is playing Georgia. Is it her? Who are they

JimBo Stewart: Oh, Washington.

Bob Bickford: Washington. What? Like how did they get in? Washington?

JimBo Stewart: came in undefeated, like Florida State and so did Michigan. So they were number one and number two, and then one lost Alabama and one lost Texas got put in over Florida State. And it was huge drama, huge big deal. And both, they both, both Texas and Alabama lost their playoff games. And so now here we are Michigan versus Washington.

And it’s pretty heavy on the Michigan side [00:01:00] so far. Yeah,

Bob Bickford: collegiate football championship. So I think, you know, you, you and I, who are of the SEC, could care less about this. And so, you know, that’s why we’re recording a bootcamp podcast right now.

JimBo Stewart: absolutely. Hey, look, we both are winning at our hobbies though. You you got another year running as a Yelp elite. How many years in a row is that

Bob Bickford: Jimbo, this will be year number seven, number seven as a Yelp elite.

JimBo Stewart: now? Is it different now that you’re in Nashville? Did you have to go through a different process to get approved or?

Bob Bickford: I, well, I, I didn’t even know there was a process taking place Jimbo. I, I emailed my community manager and let them know that I was leaving St. Louis and she introduced me to Bailey. Who’s the Community manager of the Yelp elites here in Nashville. And as I’ve mentioned before, I think on the podcast, I live in foodie ville here in East Nashville, some great food fantastic stuff.

And. So I’ve written a couple of reviews since I’ve been here. [00:02:00] And not traveling as much, but man, I’m working long hours and just, you know, I thought, well, maybe I’ve, maybe I’ve made my run. Maybe I’ve planted my flag, left NAM, left replant. Maybe I’m not going to be a Yelp elite anymore. And Lo and behold, I wake up and then get a notification that I’m a Yelp elite.

Once again.

JimBo Stewart: There you go. All right, man. That’s pretty exciting. So for me got my first disc golf tournament victory over the, over this last weekend. Got first place in the lowest amateur division.

Bob Bickford: The lowest. So does that, is that in stature or is that just in experience level?

JimBo Stewart: It’s, yeah, it’s, well, it’s rankings. You have a rating and based on your rating decides which division you’re in. And so I was in the bottom dredges of the tournament, which all the terms I’ve played. I’ve been in the bottom dredges and the closest I’ve gotten before was fifth place. And so I got first place and it was an interesting tournament.

It’s [00:03:00] a Christian organization I’ve never heard of called Eagle’s Wings Disc Golf. That is a disc golf ministry. They do international ministry like in Zambia and Costa Rica sharing disc golf and Jesus. In other countries and then on the disc golf pro tour, they do chapel services for the disc golfers at every pro tour stop and two of mine and trips favorite pro disc golfers were playing in the same tournament.

And so we got to see them. That was really cool.

Bob Bickford: that is awesome. So you are the best of the least. So this is, that’s, that’s good. I think that’s kind of biblical. Didn’t Jesus say that whoever’s the least will be the best or something like that?

JimBo Stewart: so something like that. I don’t think it had anything to do with disc golf divisions, but it was, it was something, something along those lines.

Bob Bickford: Well, would, if there was a Frisbee back in Bible times, would Jesus have thrown a Frisbee? I think

JimBo Stewart: I think so. I think he probably would have. Yeah. I mean, Sandal wearing hippie. I mean, he probably,

Bob Bickford: yeah, pretty much. That’s what, when we think of you, that’s what we [00:04:00] think of a sandalware hippie.

JimBo Stewart: you know, there’s the Seinfeld episode with Frisbee golf, the summer of George where

Bob Bickford: Oh, I know. I didn’t know Frisbee golf was in that

JimBo Stewart: yeah, he, he, he’s talking about, he’s going to do the summer of George and the thing he wants to do is learn how to play Frisbee golf.

Bob Bickford: Man. Well, good times. Good times. I don’t think we’re going to be talking about like Yelp elites and Frisbee golf the whole time though, are

JimBo Stewart: No, we’re not. We gotta, we gotta move on.

Bob Bickford: Yeah, some good laughs though. Anyway, Hey Jimbo, I have I, I made a Facebook post a couple of days ago and it was about ministry funding for renewal pastors, church planters, that sort of thing.

And here’s what I basically said is I think we have to honestly have a conversation. about funding for ministry and we got to look at it because here’s what I’m hearing Jimbo in my role and you’re probably still hearing this and what you’re, you know, what you continue to do is there are a lot of pastors out there [00:05:00] that are just trying to figure out how do we continue to do meaningful ministry in the context that God has called us to and then how do we fund that?

Right. How do we, how do we meet our needs? Our basic income needs? How do we care for our families? Well, how do we, we survive? How do we buy groceries? All of those sorts of things. Right. And so I think that’s a question that I’m hearing even more than I’ve heard before.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. I mean, look, I, I’ve not been in ministry as long as you have, but I’ve been in ministry almost 20 years now. And you know, A full time salary 20 years ago in ministry, it looks nothing like what a full time salary is needed now to take care of a family. And churches have not, as a whole, you know, seen a ton of growth in the last 20 years.

And and so, just the financial realities of where we’re at, at this moment in history, in this [00:06:00]country, is A fully funded pastor is going to be less, you’re going to find that less frequently than a pastor that’s having to figure out some other way to get funding. Now there’s a lot of ways that can happen but just single, you know, single source income, the church pays your salary, that’s just not happening on the level that it used to.

Yeah.

Bob Bickford: it’s not, you know, I,

JimBo Stewart: Yeah.

Bob Bickford: just read through a lot of the comments and a lot of the respondents just basically said, that’s my story. I’m trying to figure that out too. We’ve struggled, I’ve got a family of this size and what we make is just not enough for us to, to make it these days. And, and so what I didn’t hear Jimbo was that they felt like they had to abandon their church, that they felt like they, they needed to leave the call.

But I heard, I heard the honest struggle of a, of a [00:07:00] pastor, of a father, of a husband, thinking this is what God’s called us to. And it’s our reality. We’ve got to find a way to make this work. And so I, what I wanted to do is, is maybe take this in a couple parts. And I don’t know if these are all going to be sequential Jimbo, but maybe we do kind of a part one now and then maybe another part two and part three later.

But I think this is worth us spending some time, at least introducing as a concept tonight and talking about how do you fund ministry? So I want to talk about. Three primary ways we fund ministry, look at some scriptures pull in some quotes and, and just kind of walk through this. So here’s the first way that, that most of us think about funding ministry.

And Jimbo, that is single source church based. You’re called to church and that church calls you as their pastor. Sometimes maybe you’re an associate staff pastor or you’re a youth pastor and they say, we want you to come and serve us in this way [00:08:00] and here’s the salary. And so a lot of times that can be here’s the, here’s the big number, here’s the total number that we we’re going to give you and we’re going to let you slice that pie however you want to slice it, but here’s the pie.

Right. And so it’s single source. And I think there’s, there’s obviously the biblical mandate for a church supporting those who lead and teach in that church. Right. And so we turn our minds to first Timothy chapter five, which says this, the elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching for the Scripture says do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain and the worker is worthy of his wages, right?

so this is the this is the one verse that the pastors hope that the Personnel committee and the finance committee read every year as they’re determining budget

JimBo Stewart: exegete.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. [00:09:00] Yeah. And so, you know, they, they, they hope that, that the church is able to compensate them well. And, and I think that Paul says, man, if a pastor is leading well and preaching well and, and teaching well and, and fulfilling his duties in the elder, he’s not just worth honor, but double honor.

And so that word biblical scholars tell us it’s, it’s, it’s a monetary word. It’s a value word, right? It’s, it’s. It’s support them as they do ministry. So the, there is this idea, idea, and I would also say Jimbo, this is probably the ideal way for a local church to take care of those who labor in in the ministry for the, the benefit of proclaiming the gospel and discipling the saints.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. I mean, but the hard reality, like we were saying, I mean, like the, the search committee could know this verse, they could rightly exegete it. They could understand the theological and practical implications of this verse, but they just don’t have enough money. Right. And [00:10:00]I remember and I called my former pastor when I realized this and apologized to him.

I remember when I was in new Orleans and, you know, we’d drawn the youth group. From, you know, a fairly small youth group to one of the larger youth groups in New Orleans. And you know, I wasn’t making very much money and my wife was having to work full time so that we could survive. And, you know, we had our third kid and we were thinking maybe we didn’t want her to work, have to work full time.

And I remember really putting a lot of pressure on my pastor to bring me on full time, to bring me to a full time livable wage. remember being frustrated that he couldn’t make it happen. And like, I think back and like, I mean, I mean, I think in my mind, like, I just thought like, it was just a decision, like he just needed to make the decision.

And if I was worth it, then, then he would pay me what I’m worth. And but then I became a lead pastor and had to manage the budget and had to deal, and I was like, Oh. [00:11:00] I don’t think it had anything to do with how much he valued me. He just didn’t have enough money. Like he just couldn’t, I mean, it wasn’t that I hadn’t earned it.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t worth it. I mean, the money wasn’t there.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that’s, especially when we’re younger That that is the case in the majority of churches. I think let’s say, I don’t know the majority, but a good number of churches really want to pay their staff as much as they can. And very few churches are, are really being tight fisted, but there are some that are, and, and that’s unfortunate.

But I, I think we just have to realize there’s a limited resource that’s available and studies show that especially those churches that are maybe starting out in their church plants, that if they’re reaching a lot of. Non churched un christian folks. It takes them a while to learn the principles of stewardship and they may be maybe finding themselves in need to do something so the first form of Support for a [00:12:00] pastor is the single source the church pays your salary now that can be challenging So number two another way that ministry is funded is missions and ministry support, right?

So this is those who hear about what you’re doing Those who believe in you, those who are generous with their resources and realize that churches need to help other churches. to support the gospel work in particular contexts and locations. And so we can think of multiple scriptures that talk about this.

One is I want to talk about in Philippians chapter four. And so this is Paul writing and he’s commending the, the Philippians. He says, and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into a partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only, even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once.

And again, not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. [00:13:00] I’m well supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. So here you have. A congregation in Philippi that says, we hear about what Paul’s doing.

We love him. We’ve received benefit from him. We know he’s engaged in ministry and gospel ministry in another context. We want to send money and support him. Right. And so Paul’s Paul’s thankful for that. Right. And, and so Jimbo, when you and I replanted, or at least when I replanted our church I had a group of folks that I just reached out to that said, Hey here’s what the church can pay me.

And it’s a, it’s a bit of a step down from where I was. And, you know, we, we are looking to, to raise support. And so would you consider supporting the work that we’re doing because we feel like it’s, it’s valid and it’s vital work that needs to be done on behalf of this church, right? We weren’t, we weren’t angry about it.

We weren’t frustrated about it. We did, but we just realized we’re going to have to ask for some help. And so by God’s grace over, you know, a [00:14:00] three to five year period time Jimbo, we raised. Almost to the dime. Exactly what we needed. To find a way to continue to meet our family’s needs and devote as much time as possible to the renewal work in that local church.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we had to do, we did what I did is the church ended up setting up my salary at what it needed to be. And that was set by our mother church before I was even brought on. So I wasn’t even part of that conversation. But what I realized then was by them paying my S my salary full time, we were pretty.

We were pretty limited in our ministry expenses. So I, I went, you know, this was before I knew anything about what replanting really is. And I just remember thinking, man, church planters fundraise all the time. Why can’t I fundraise? And so I just went and went after it, man. I found [00:15:00]mission partners, found people who were willing to give and, and helped get the church financially where it needed to be.

But that’s a, you know, that’s, that’s. a challenge for a lot of pastors to do. Like, not all pastors are very comfortable with fundraising. I don’t really like it necessarily even myself. And so I think it’s definitely I like, I like ministry models, especially where church, other churches are helping other churches.

And so, I mean, I just, I love the kingdom mindedness and the selflessness of that. So I think it’s a really valid model.

Bob Bickford: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we could do a whole episode on how you Develop a list and how you ask and how you share the need and how you receive and and report and do all those sorts of Things and there’s plenty of books that have been written about how to do all of that But I think what I want to highlight here is just this principle of you know What sometimes it’s important for you in a renewal pastor [00:16:00] engaging in the work To reach out to those who are in his circle or sister churches or places you’ve served before on staff or friends that you went to seminary with who are at churches who might be able to support you.

And just to simply say, Hey, here’s the need, here’s what we’re doing. And we’d love for you to consider being a partner here with us. And there’s nothing wrong with doing that.

JimBo Stewart: Yeah.

Bob Bickford: And, and and, and the Lord will bless that, I believe. Right. And so I just want to hold that out there is sometimes you. You are able to fund a ministry through missions and ministry support.

All right, here’s the third one. You

JimBo Stewart: Yeah. So what’s next?

Bob Bickford: All right, here’s the next one. Self funded, self funded, right? So if you win the lottery, you self fund your ministry.

JimBo Stewart: now do you have to report where the funds came from?

Bob Bickford: you know, I’m joking, of course, but self funded, what does that mean? Well, it means that you personally find a way to bring in resources. in [00:17:00] order that you’re able to stay and do ministry. And the location that God has called you and to, to ministry. Maybe you, you work, maybe your spouse works. And and so sometimes this is called bi vocational, co vocational.

We’ll kind of differentiate the two here in just a second. But one of the questions I thought about trying to find the answer for Was how many bi vocational pastors exist in North America? Now, I, I’m going to give you some statistics, but Jimbo, I don’t have a lot of confidence in these statistics in terms of just like, I think they’re older.

And I think this is a hard one to to, to figure out. So let me give you three statistics and then pick whichever one you feel like, you know, is the right statistic for you.

JimBo Stewart: There we go. All right.

Bob Bickford: Yeah, how many by vocation? How many pastors are bi vocational? one source that I found said about 60 to 80 percent right which I think that’s a lot.

[00:18:00] That’s a big range, right? So I would say probably that there’s there’s some truth in that one maybe on the higher end it just in terms of thinking through that, our good friend Oh, friends over at the founders blog said this today, it’s estimated that 60 to 65 percent of Southern Baptist churches are served by, by, by vocational pastors. And then the statistics man himself over at church answers. Tom Rainer said, though, we don’t have precise data. We estimate that there are over 1 million bi vocational pastors and church staff in North America alone. So he’s just going to broaden it to say pastors and staff. And so obviously that’s kind of bounced the number up there, but of all the churches in North America.

There’s an estimate there from church answers. It’s going to be about a million. So Jimbo, I would go ahead.

JimBo Stewart: I was trying to track this answer down myself for our team, you know, Matt McNaughton and Colin Pugh started working on some bi vocational co vocational strategy for our team, and so they were asking me about this. I, you know, emailed [00:19:00] help at NAMM. net, and who, who do I, who can I talk to who can help me get this answer?

And they connected with Brad Briscoe,

Bob Bickford: Yeah.

JimBo Stewart: who said, he said, look, I wish there was a good, I wish there was a good day to answer this question, but there simply isn’t. You’ll find a pretty broad range of responses, as you’ve already demonstrated to us, Bob. He says, one of the problems is getting accurate data in getting accurate data is the varying ways to define bivocational.

Is it any part time job, 10 hours a week in the marketplace, 20 hours a week? Within our own tribe, we have a pretty small number of planters who are actually fully funded. While guys might not consider themselves to be bivo, the vast majority of planters have some type of side hustle in order to make ends meet.

Sorry if this isn’t helpful, but when speaking bivo covo, he usually would say the bivo population is somewhere between 50 to 70. [00:20:00] Yeah,

Bob Bickford: or, you know, 60 to 80. So, I mean, we’re right in there. So, I mean, if we just said If you just, you know, kind of split the difference and said anywhere from 65 to 75% you’re probably striking the, the heart of the number there. So I, I think the key there is that it’s probably going to increase and that almost every pastor has some sort of side hustle that they’re doing. The majority do. So if you’re a full time pastor, well, Jimbo, honestly, I don’t know many full time pastors that have listened to us. I think Casey, the chin Williams probably listens to us. He’s full time. And he, he might be one of a handful of guys, but a lot of the guys that we are able to speak to man, they, they know what it, they know what it is to be bi vocational.

And I just want to say, man, we, we love you and we’re, we’re grateful for you. So, you know, here’s, here’s some simple definitions of bi vocobo. So bi vocational, this is two jobs. To support. So two jobs, meaning one, you work at the church and you get some [00:21:00] support from the church, and then you work another job as a way to support your role as the pastor of that church, not to overburden or unduly burden the church, right? That is a, a, a, a vocational choice. Based primarily on need co vocational is intentionally choosing to engage in a dual vocational role both for mission and for ministry support. So one bi vocational typically is out of need. Co vocational is, is more strategic and more intentional. You don’t have to, but you choose to, right?

And so I, I’ve known some, I know some churches that their whole staff was co vocational, right? Intentionally. And a long time ago we were doing a podcast and we did the bi vocational podcast. We were introduced to a pastor leader in Houston who worked at a hospital and was intentionally co vocational.

So, so I think that either way you approach it there’s merit in that. So we look at a couple of places in scripture where we can see this [00:22:00] lived out, right? And so Paul is the primary one that we look at and, and so it describes what Paul has done. And I want to be careful here. That, that a lot of these verses are descriptive, not prescriptive.

I would say. They describe what Paul was doing. They don’t prescribe a precise pattern for you to repeat, right? So they show you what, what Paul did, and they give you the idea that this is permissible if you need to do this, right? But it’s not required. So in Acts chapter 18, this is commentary on Paul. It says, And he, Paul, found a Jew named Aquila, A native of Pontus who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded that all the Jews leave Rome.

And he went to see them. And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked. For they were tent makers by trade. So this is acts 18, two and three. So this is what this tells us is Paul is, is on mission and he, here’s a Priscilla and Aquila, they’re leaders in the church. And so he’s going to find them, right?

See what [00:23:00] they’re doing. And all of a sudden, well, he finds them. What are they doing? Well, Jimbo, they’re setting up shop right there. They’re doing their trade and they’re doing ministry at the same time. And so Paul, because he was of the same trade, he’s going, you know what, I’m just going to work with them.

Right. And, and so that’s a description of something that he did now later, Paul writes and he talks about you know, why he chose to fund himself in ministry, the way he funded himself. Right. And so in part of this response in first Corinthians nine he, he is, he’s defending himself and he’s also being an advocate for the church supporting pastors and ministers.

And so here’s, here’s what he says in defense of, of his self. And he says this, or is it only Barnabas and me who have no right to refrain from working for a living? If we have sewn spiritual things among you, is it too much that we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do we not even more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this [00:24:00] right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. What is then my reward? That in my preaching, I may present the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. So what’s Paul saying here?

He’s, he’s basically saying a pastor, as a minister, as one who ministers, I certainly would have the right to ask that you all would support me in this, but I’m choosing to lay down that right. Require of you. And so I think of the time when I walked into our elders meeting and just basically said, look, the, the church is in a financial position where I’m going to cut my salary.

Right. And I did that like Jimbo. I started at like three quarter salary and Jimbo. I ended at like a very part time salary. Why? Why did that? So that I could stay at the church and continue to serve them and proclaim the gospel. And I did that. Okay. Willingly, right? And, and not under compulsion. And, and I, I chose to lay [00:25:00] down that right, so that I could pres present the gospel to them and, and serve that local church.

So I think some pastors, that’s their heart. That’s what they want to do. And, and that’s what they do. So you are well within your ability to, to, to ask the church to help support you or to voluntarily lay that right down,

JimBo Stewart: that’s a good word. I mean, I think you definitely have to ask questions about how you’re going to fund things, but ultimately, if you’re thoroughly convinced that God has called you to this church at this season and time Then you need to be willing to do that. And I mean, if, if you feel thoroughly convinced guys called you into vocational pastoral ministry, like statistically the odds are you’re going to figure out funding some other way.

I think you’ve presented Bob to us today. Some, some good options to consider on, on how to approach that.

Bob Bickford: right? Hey, let’s end with a Spurgeon quote, shall we?

JimBo Stewart: Let’s do it.

Bob Bickford: Jeff [00:26:00] Chang the, the professor at Kansas City has written a great blog over at NAMM and, and this is actually in the replanting series and he talks about bivocational ministry. So he, he shares this quote from Spurgeon about bivocational ministry.

So. Spurgeon’s looking at the landscape and he’s, he’s assessing it. And here’s what he says. The most practical remedy is to find volunteer labors who will not need maintenance from the people. admirable remedy is already largely used, but not so largely as it might be. We have among us numbers of brethren engaged in handicrafts and professions.

Who are endowed with gifts at least sufficient for the gathering of moderate congregations. And some of them display ability equal, if not superior to the average stipend stipendary pastors. It is exceedingly great gain to the community when these brethren addict themselves to the ministry of the saints.

Well, what’s he saying there? [00:27:00] It’s like, if you’re a bivocational pastor it doesn’t mean you’re less of a pastor. It just means that you’ve chosen in a right way. to serve the congregation as God has led you to make the sacrifice in what I love. What he says is this, this admirable remedy is already largely used, but not so largely as it might be.

In other words, Spurgeon’s looking at the landscape saying, we don’t need less of this. We need more of it.

JimBo Stewart: That’s a good word.