The Future is Bivocational
Andrew Hamilton
Arkhouse Press 2022
Reviewed by Rev Angus Monro
Andrew Hamilton wants to goad, encourage and guide pastors and church-planters to broaden their horizons beyond the standard “professional minister” model, and is convinced that bivocationality needs to become normal. So, this book – shortlisted for SparkLit’s 2023 Christian Book of the Year - is designed for you if you are:
- considering a future in pastoral ministry or church- planting
- struggling to connect meaningfully with your flock’s everyday experiences
- wanting to radically deepen your community engagement
- looking for a way to circumvent that inevitable conversation-stopper (“I’m a minister”)
- desiring your members to take more ministry
- operating bivocationally already but struggling to make it work
- or in a financially struggling parish.
And on that last point, this might be just the book for churchwardens, too.
Hamilton’s background emerges from the stories scattered through this book. In the 1970s, the West Australian Baptist church sent ‘worker pastors’ – including the author’s future in-laws – to the far North West of the state to work full-time secularly while endeavouring to plant churches after-hours. Fast forward, and Hamilton, lacking a full-time role during this first two decades of Baptist ministry, supplemented his church income with side jobs to which he frankly admits he attached little meaning. His bivocational awakening occurred when he decided to start his own home irrigation installation business and through this found himself getting to know his community’s people, and even praying for and inviting them to church. Since then he has embraced and developed this model, including blogging, mentoring and surveying likeminded people.
The book is very readable with plenty of stories, both the author’s own and others’. Hamilton’s style has this frustrating feature, though: he frequently starts a chapter or section on a weak theological footing (I think his intent is to start where the reader might be!). Hang in there, though – he will work his way to firmer ground. His theology of work itself is a case in point: the first four chapters will give the reader the impression that he
views work in utilitarian or evangelistic terms; then work emerges as being of creational value and a means of worship.
This is a very practical book. After working to convince us that bivocationality needs to be a staple of neighbourhood ministry, Hamilton surveys a number of essential topics. Vocation, calling and identity are revisited. Challenges, pitfalls and complexities of the bivocational lifestyle are discussed. He puts on his career counsellor’s hat and suggests eight options for finding work. The spiritual life and leadership of the bivocational minister receive some centring advice. Bivocationality requires building a ministry team and adjusting one’s self-expectations, to which a chapter is devoted.
If we were to embrace this within Anglicanism, we may need to revisit the assumption of full-timeness at a structural level. For example, in Melbourne the number of synod representatives of a parish is linked to the number of full-time ministers in the parish. But what if a parish has four 50/50 bivocational ministers? At the same time, I found myself wondering as I read: Hamilton’s model is one solution; could reviving Anglicanism’s historical priest (church gathered) / deacon (church scattered) distinction also be a solution, or piece thereof? I am referring here to the distinctive deacon as one dedicated to supporting laypeople where they are in the community. This has been my own part-time ministry alongside my secular business analyst role: encouraging and enabling believers at their frontlines to stand firmer in their faith, conducting in-house worship services and training in work-as-ministry and in witness. Our culture is no longer all that interested in hearing the voice of professional church ministers, so Hamilton’s proposal merits every minister’s serious consideration.
Angus Monro BE, BSc, MDiv is a distinctive deacon in the Diocese of Melbourne, ministering as a business analyst in an Australian multinational bank while pastoring its global christian community and chairing its multi-faith umbrella. He is married to Michelle, and together they worship and serve at St Mark’s Camberwell.