MILLERSBURG—The life of a bi-vocational pastor in Missouri can be a steady flow of work, Bible study, and discipline.
Dennis Peterson, pastor of Millersburg Baptist Church and a sign shop worker for the Missouri Department of Transportation, let The Pathway come inside his world Sept. 29 as he drove from his job in Jefferson City back home to Auxvasse, where his next step was sermon preparation for Oct. 2 worship.
Peterson, 48, said the tension that he feels more than anything is family time vs. study time. His wife, Tina, has observed more than once that even when they are watching TV, he still has a book on his lap. He said a good bi-vocational pastor will try to give his family as much of his time as he can.
“Family should actually come before church, and yet the family sometimes gets shortchanged,” he said.
Peterson gets up at 4 a.m. for his regular job. His commute is 45 minutes, and his sign shop work is not easy, although he is very thankful he no longer has to work a night shift job.
“It really burns you out, changes your attitude and everything,” he said. “It’s hard.
“I know a lot of pastors out there who are full-time and not working a job. They have a disconnect on what a work week is for the daily person. They can’t understand why they can’t make it to everything, but they might be working overtime, or doing other stuff. I have a connection with what it feels like to be worn out from the laboring work and then being able to still be committed to serving the church.”
There are a lot of Dennis Petersons in Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) life. About 75 percent of the 1,984 MBC churches average fewer than 70 in Sunday morning worship attendance. (Millersburg runs in the 40s.) Nearly all have bi-vocational pastors. On the average, maybe 180-200 of these churches right now do not have a pastor.
The need for these bi-vocational pastors to produce messages ranging from sermon to Bible study to Sunday School to sermon from Sunday through Wednesday and back to Sunday again never seems to end.
“You know how college kids are, they’re always cramming for the test?” Peterson said. “Well, I’m always cramming. I’m always cramming for the finished result, always cramming to be able to feed the flock.”
Far from being a complainer, Peterson grew bold when he was asked to speak directly to his fellow bi-vocational pastors. He said the best thing they can do is all become expository preachers. That means they should all preach the Bible verse by verse, book by book, line by line—even the hard parts. It is a discipline that he said will prove to be rewarding.
“Being a bi-vocational pastor does not give us an excuse not to put as much time into the Word as others,” he said. “We shouldn’t be cheating by trying to find sermons that are pre-done or anything like that, because we need to be fed also. If we’re not being fed, we’re not giving to the people from our overflow.
“Expository preaching is going to force them to grow, and it’s also going to force them to touch things which they may not normally touch from Holy Scripture. It’s a very important thing that we are growing, too, because if we’re not growing, then our people aren’t going to grow.”
Peterson said if he took vacation time to participate in more church activities, he would lose his job. His deacons are a considerable help. They are: Albert Cameron; Wesley Bird; Harold Backues; Tim Flint; and Brad Crane.
“You’ve got to rely on your deacons to be able to minister to people also,” Peterson said. n
ALLEN PALMERI/associate editor
apalmeri@mobaptist.org