The future has to be bi-vocational. The future will be a place where hardly any Baptist ministers are based in a church full time and paid entirely by a church. Instead most Baptist ministers will be bi-vocational, working in a church for part of their working week and working in another job the rest of the time.

For the last eleven years I have been a full-time Baptist minister, working for some of the week with a small Baptist Church in Liverpool and most of time as a broadcast journalist in the BBC, bringing an evangelical Baptist voice into BBC Local Radio. Being a journalist and broadcaster has made me a more incisive preacher and a more understanding pastor. Having work outside the local church has enabled a small church in an urban setting to have an accredited minister serving them. When I started working for the BBC the church had to decide how they wanted me to use my limited time. The parameters of my job were defined and have been accepted by the church without any great problem, and others have undertaken roles I haven’t been able to fill.

In the future more and more Baptist churches won’t be able to afford a whole-time minister. But a bi-vocational minister who spends perhaps half of her or his time serving the church then spends the rest of the working week in another job could serve Christ in the church and continue to serve Christ in their chosen occupation. Most people going to our colleges go there from another profession, and they have the skills and the experience to work outside the church. By assuming that our ministers will give up work entirely to work in a church, we are robbing the world of our best Christian workers and letting the church eat them up.