I've noted that the latest issue of the The CHURCH ADVOCATE features two articles on so-called bi-vocational ministry.
Bi-vocational ministry takes place when a person providing religious products and services to a, uh, church, in the role of a parish priest is considered to be serving the church part-time and also earns an income from another, presumably, "secular," source.
I don't consider living out my calling to be a vocation. I'm nothing like a parish priest and I don't receive remuneration for the service I provide to the disciples with whom I gather but, other than that, I'm in bi-vocational ministry.
I have a full-time job, yet, the people with whom I gather consider me to be the key person in our community.
And, the people with whom I work know me to be blatantly, apologetically and openly Christian.
So, in traditional parish priest, institutional church, terms I loosely fit the category, bi-vocational. But, I'm not a parish priest and I refuse to feed the dysfunction of institutional Christianity. Other than that, I'm bi-vocational.
So, consider me un-vocational.
It's hard to describe how that works on the job and I'm not sure I understand it myself. But, I think that I am, on the job, pretty much what Peter was talking about when he called ALL disciples, "a royal priesthood."
Rather than being seen, by my co-workers, as a pastor who has a second job or as a minister, some of them, anyway, think of me, apparently, as an actual priest--in the way they, individually, think of what a priest is.
I definitely represent Jesus to many of the people I work with, including the millennials and the geezers--and, even, the people who are my bosses!
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Anyway...
...here in Pennsylvania Dutch country, the day before that High Church-ist observation called Lent, is Fastnacht day. And, in a grocery store, Fastnacht day is a rather big holiday.
One of the traditions in our store is that one of the other Front End managers, besides me, goes to the bakery reputed to make the best Fastnachts in Lancaster County and buys enough Fastnachts to feed the whole Front End crew on duty that day.
He buys half sugared of them and the other half plain. The sugared are absolutely covered in powdered sugar.
I ate a sugared Fastnacht.
After a time, in a lull in business, we began chatting about how the powdered sugar covers the lips and nose and chin of its eater.
And, I said that when I ate mine, I looked like I'd snorted something. And most people chuckled.
But, one young woman, who has become very close to me and who obviously takes my priesthood seriously, shouted, "BILL!!!!!"
It's difficult to describe what her tone implied.
Shock, surprise, confusion, disappointment...? All of that and more.
Two thoughts:
1. This Royal Priesthood thing is real and it crucial to the expansion of the Kingdom, if not the church, but, it is very difficult to incarnate the Kingdom well.
2. One of the most compelling reasons that the institutionized church is in free fall is that very few people are incarnating the Kingdom, even doing it poorly.
To those who are in my faith tradition: In our movement days, John Winebrenner, and his compatriots, lived in the world, among real people.
Winebrenner didn't work out of an office in a headquarters building.
He rubbed elbows with the unwarshed sinners of the world and those people had an opportunity to see Jesus, or not, in him in real life. They could judge what he preached by how he preached through his lifestyle. How is that even a possibility for Lance, or here, for Kevin or Dave?
Today, when nearly all church attenders are taught that they are, by definition, consumers of religious products and services, few live in the world as members of the Royal Priesthood.
And, today, nearly all of the men and women gifted by the Lord to be apostles, prophets and evangelists are so enmeshed with things of the institution that they don't have the time to rub elbows with people who need Jesus so that, through them, the Lord can expand the Kingdom.
Most of these people schedule the meetings they attend a month or more in advance and few of them are able to do justice to their institutional obligations, let alone live among people who are not subjects of the Kingdom as salt and light--not as a member of the clergy--but as member of the Royal Priesthood.
All of that must change.
Every disciple must become un-vocational, as were all New Testament era disciples.
We must repent.
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