Failure. That is how I felt two-plus years ago when I was forced to take a job outside the church to supplement my income. Furthermore, the church had to reduce my salary to make ends meet.
The feelings of failure came mainly from my disappointment that the church had not grown enough to support their pastor. True or not, it felt like a direct reflection on me. I took a part-time job as a valet at a large hospital. The only plus I saw was that walking 10 miles a day provided great exercise.
Sometime in my first month a woman whose car I parked came to the valet shack in tears because she forgot something in her car. I asked what else was going on. After she told me, I asked if I could pray for her. She said yes, and we stood inside the hospital as I prayed for her.
Another time a woman drove up having a panic attack. I asked her if she believed in prayer. She did, so I prayed with her while she sat in her car. There was a husband with cancer, and his family asked me to come to his room and pray for them, which I did. He later died, and I was able to connect with them again.
Co-workers asked spiritual questions and sought advice on things going on in their lives. I didn’t always have the answers, but I was able to help them think through the situations they faced.
I came to understand that God had placed me in a strategic place. When people used valet to park their cars, I was the first person they saw—not the chaplain, nurse, doctor or customer-service people. I was meeting people who were in immediate crisis, and it provided an opportunity for ministry that I would not have had otherwise. I recently left the valet position to become a part-time hospice chaplain in the same hospital, but I continue to be thankful for the time I spent as a valet.
Being “trapped” in a church office has the potential to insulate and rob pastors of important opportunities to connect with non-believers. I don’t begrudge those who serve in churches that can adequately support them on a full-time basis. However, I learned that in my own case I had become a bit insulated and out of touch. When I was hired as a valet, I asked my supervisor not to announce that I was a pastor. I wanted my co-workers to know me first and not my title.
Jesus provides us with many great examples in his own ministry. He meets people where they are: the woman at the well, the lepers, the woman caught in adultery and many others. In fact, the Great Commission in Matthew 28 tells us that in our everyday going, we are to make disciples.
I no longer see bi-vocational ministry as a failure. Do I think all pastors should become bi-vocational? No. But I do think we need to recognize that full-time ministry has its blind spots.
Jeff Turner is pastor at Christ Community Church, Harrisburg, S.D., and a hospice chaplain. He and his wife, Angela, who works for the Sioux Falls school district, have two grown children.
Jeff Turner has been pastor of Christ Community Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, since 2017, and is a hospice chaplain. He came to faith in Christ in 1991 while in Alcoholics Anonymous and continues to work with those struggling from drug and alcohol addiction. He is a graduate of Trinity Bible College and Sioux Falls Seminary. He and his wife, Angela, have two grown children.
