Ciavarri (pictured) said the class was a gathering of those with a holy restlessness. The Minnesota resident shared her story of a dysfunctional first call that led her to become a certified trainer and author, while also serving 12 years as director of spiritual care at the Apple Valley Village in Apple Valley, Minnesota, and the spiritual life resilience facilitator for its parent company.<\/p>\n
Then others introduced themselves in the course: Sara Freudenburg, the pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Livonia, Michigan, left teaching for ministry but remains a certified parenting coach and founded the synod\u2019s first food truck ministry, FedUp. She met Linda Zastovnik, who pastored churches in North Carolina for 25 years before launching Wakening Ministry, which offers virtual Bible and book studies, confirmation classes, women\u2019s retreats, weddings, and personalized Holy Land pilgrimages. She met Keith Spencer, a naval lieutenant turned pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pembroke Pines, Florida. He hosts a podcast, fills a YouTube channel, and offers classes about faith, bread baking, and butterfly gardening.<\/p>\n
Nearly 40 other participants followed, all with callings as diverse as the creatures on Noah\u2019s ark. This crew is navigating bivocational ministry, which is also called multivocational, covocational, dual-career, partially funded, or tentmaking ministry. The term is not consistently defined in academic literature or popular usage, but to Ciavarri, a bivocational person is one who holds more than one job or serious volunteer commitment in addition to a congregational leadership role.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us are only just one thing, and the church needs to embrace and support this bivocational and multivocational existence to which many church leaders feel called,\u201d Ciavarri said. \u201cGod brought me here because God knows this combination best feeds my soul for the long haul, which means my years in ministry will be longer and more fruitful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Necessity and choice drive dual-career trend<\/h3>\n
Ciavarri is not alone, according to Kenneth Reynhout<\/strong>, director of institutional effectiveness, assessment, and research for Luther Seminary\u2019s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. According to an Association of Theological Schools survey of more than 5,000 seminary students, one-third of 2017 graduates planned to enter bivocational ministry, and almost 40% of seminary students intended to serve in contexts outside of the local church.<\/p>\n At Luther, nearly 20% of incoming students in Fall 2020 said they planned to hold multiple roles. Reynhout credits the lag behind national trends to Luther\u2019s competitive application process (thanks in large part to the Jubilee Scholarship\u2014see the feature story on the seminary’s new campaign<\/a>), but \u201cthe seminary\u2019s numbers are still on the rise,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe days where you could just go to seminary, get your M.Div., and know there is a pulpit out there waiting for you are over. There is also a lot of innovation around reframing church, and many of those roles are not full-time positions,\u201d Reynhout said. \u201cBivocational [ministry] is a reality. Now, is it good or bad? I think the answer is both. Ministers who also work outside the church are bringing the teachings of Jesus outside the church walls. On the negative side, anyone who has had to work more than one job can tell you it can erode you, slowly. It\u2019s psychologically and sometimes physically taxing to juggle multiple jobs and maintain the boundaries needed to do so. Some people, though, embrace the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Ciavarri feels that struggle to set boundaries, communicate expectations, and learn new platforms and practices (don\u2019t get her started on learning to build a website). But she believes the bivocational existence\u2014while not for everyone\u2014invites church leaders to be more authentic, relevant, and connected.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing bivocational by choice has made my life and ministry far more complex and unwieldy but also much more interesting and exciting,\u201d she said. \u201cGod\u2019s church needs leaders who are invigorated and hopeful, and the people I work with are living this beautiful cross-pollination of strategic business practices and faith-filled pursuits. They are breaking down barriers between the world and the church. They are not bystanders; they are church leaders who have their feet firmly planted in many different experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n “My financial security doesn\u2019t come from my employment at the church, which frees me up to be a different kind of leader.”<\/p>\n \u2014Brad Mills ’13 M.Div.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI am doing this work in the church because I want to be there. It is a choice. I don\u2019t have to do it to pay the mortgage or put food on the table, so I can advocate for and make decisions in a way that doesn\u2019t involve personal fears related to job security,\u201d said Mills, who earned an M.Div. from Luther and an M.A. from Bethel Seminary. \u201cMy financial security doesn\u2019t come from my employment at the church, which frees me up to be a different kind of leader.\u201d<\/p>\n Mills relates to working parents and those focused on balancing careers and church involvement in a way he wasn\u2019t able to when he previously held a full-time church role. But, he stresses, bivocational ministers must have support outside the church, and they need, at times, to remind church leaders and members that they have full-time commitments outside the church, too.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to find your peanut butter to go with your jelly,\u201d said Mills, who was ordained as a Minister of Word and Service in the ELCA in 2020. \u201cI have a boss who understands that sometimes I need to take a couple hours off in the middle of the day to have a church meeting or officiate a special service,\u201d Mills said. \u201cI\u2019ve found that it\u2019s less about the church being supportive and all about your spouse, family, and other jobs being supportive of your call.\u201d<\/p>\n Conversations about bivocational ministry are critical to the future of the church. According to a Faith Communities Today survey, only 62% of U.S. churches have a full-time pastor\u2014down from 71% in 2010.<\/p>\n As director of Luther\u2019s enrollment services, Jessi LeClear Vachta \u201914 M.A.<\/strong> regularly talks with students who have a clear bivocational path and empathizes with those who must combine employment opportunities to make ends meet. Ministry, she said, feels like a moving target for many incoming students.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been having lots of discussions about the part of our mission that focuses on listening\u2014to each other, to our students, and to the realities of the church. I think we sometimes forget how truly amazing it is for someone with incredible talents and energy to enter into a role when churches are closing and more and more people are opting out of religion. That is faith,\u201d she said. \u201cAt Luther, we need to continue to adapt the curriculum to address these trends and offer additional seminars and resources about workload and balance, money and finances, and professional clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n Luther Seminary has long provided students and the Christian community at large with increasingly dynamic, relevant, and accessible resources. Since embracing a vision of leading faithful innovation for the sake of the gospel in a rapidly changing world in 2017, the seminary has raised nearly $30 million to support innovation initiatives. Dwight Zscheile \u201908 Ph.D.<\/strong><\/a>, vice president of innovation, guides the seminary\u2019s work to diversify pathways to ministry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in a culture where it is assumed that you can have a perfectly good life without God,\u201d Zscheile said. \u201cAmericans rank family, career, and money higher than faith and spirituality when asked what gives meaning to their lives, so the question is how can we\u2014the church\u2014better connect with people\u2019s search for meaning and connection?\u201d<\/p>\n For more than 10 years, the seminary has offered degree programs through distributed learning, which allows the seminary\u2019s roughly 40% of students who live outside the Twin Cities access to classes through a mix of online, in-person, and hybrid experiences they can take at their own pace. In 2018, Luther launched the novel MDivX pilot<\/a>, which allows students to earn a Master of Divinity degree in 24 months while they study and serve in their current locations. The seminary also developed the Seeds Project<\/a>, a 12-month, fully funded fellowship for leaders who are investing in creative approaches to being church in a changing world.<\/p>\n To complement curricular innovations, Luther created the Faith+Lead online community, a digital hub for leaders that has welcomed 380,000 unique visitors and 18,500 participants in at least one paid course, event, or workshop, like the one Ciavarri hosted.<\/p>\n![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.luthersem.edu\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/11\/Luther_Story_Bivocationality_Mills.jpg\")
Brad Mills \u201913 M.Div.<\/strong>, an ordained deacon at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Mounds View, Minnesota, has rooted himself in dual careers. The father of three works 15 hours each week as director of youth ministry, while also offering support to the pastoral team. He works full-time as an insurance company manager in Edina, Minnesota.<\/p>\nIs the bivocational model the future of ministry?<\/h3>\n
Diverse pathways to ministry, digital gathering spaces<\/h3>\n
![\"Dwight](\"https:\/\/www.luthersem.edu\/story\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/11\/Luther_Story_Bivocationality_Binder_Zscheile.jpg\")