Do Pastors Work Other Jobs?

Do pastors have other jobs outside of the church? What other jobs do they do?

Tent Makers

At one point Paul “was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:3-4). Paul said “You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions” (20:34) saying “We work hard with our own hands” (1st Cor 4:2). Even though Paul was an apostle and also worked at times to support himself, he still believed that “If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ” (1st Cor 9:12) since “In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1st Cor 9:14). Paul’s point was since “I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me” (1st Cor 9:15a). This doesn’t mean that he isn’t worthy of his wages but to make a point “that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make full use of my rights as a preacher of the gospel” (1st Cor 9:18). Paul wanted them to not forget their “toil and hardship [where] we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you” (1st Thess 2:9) reminding them again that “we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you” (2nd Thess 3:8).

Bi-Vocational Pastors

I am a bi-vocational pastor or you could really call me a tri-vocational pastor. I have to work to support myself and my family and so I write for a living. The last I heard was that about 35% of pastors today are bi-vocational and must work a secular job to support their family. I worked as a janitor for a time and had to basically work two fulltime jobs while at the same time, going to seminary to complete a master’s degree. Being bi-vocational (or tri-vocational) is one of the most demanding positions that anyone could ever be in. The pastor may come home from his day job and then start working on his pastoral job. It takes diligent study and preparedness to present biblically sound messages each week. Besides a bi-vocational, pastors other job duties for the church include funerals, weddings, counseling, and sometimes be the office manager for the church because most bi-vocational pastors are at smaller churches and there are usually no support staff to perform the necessary functions at the church like maintenance, bill-paying, ordering, inventory, cleaning, mowing/yardwork, prison ministries, nursing home ministries, visitation of church members and widows/widowers, board meetings, community service projects, and such. It is a high-stress, high-demand job to be sure. Unlike most people who can come home and unwind after a hard day’s work, the bi-vocational pastor has to come home, only to go back to work. It truly is a 24/7 job.

Other Jobs

I know of pastors who work as police officers, firefighters, tax accountants, teachers, janitors (as I was for seven years), roofers, and just about any other job you can imagine. It isn’t unusual today to have a pastor work two or three different jobs while pastoring a church. The reasons are primarily financial as many churches don’t have the necessary funds to fully support a pastor and his family, thus the necessity for pastors to work outside of their home and the church. Some churches are so small that the pastor has to do most everything at the church too but God is not impressed by the size of a church’s parking lot or how full the pews are. He is no respecter of persons any more than He is a respecter of size. Most pastors spend at least 40 hours or more in performing the pastoral duties and then have to hold down another job (or more) since the average American gives something like 3% of their income to the church. It could be that the pastor is not giving enough responsibility to others but with smaller churches, sometimes there are not enough to pass on these other responsibilities too and so the pastor is forced to take any job that’s available, regardless of how difficult it is.

Conclusion

Most bi-vocational pastors would love nothing more than to work full time in the ministry but this is obviously not always possible so they must find other means to support their families and this means going out into the world to find gainful employment wherever they can find it. Today’s bi-vocational (or tri-vocational) pastor doesn’t have a lot of choice if he wants to remain in the ministry.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.