How to Start a Church When You Have to Pay the Bills

The need all around us is clear: in our increasingly diverse (and decreasingly religious) world, we need a wider variety of new churches to start. At the same time, leaders need to count the cost, because starting a new church is tremendously demanding. 

When I’ve described my church-planting wages as “full-time work, part-time pay,” I’ve received many sighs of recognition from other planters. I’ve had numerous conversations with sincere and talented church planters whose nerves are totally frayed because of financial stress. The need for church planters to provide for ourselves and our households is real. It’s a tragedy whenever anxiety and stress about finances cause a church planter to burn out or quit.

I really wish we could wave a magic wand and find a stable income for all church planters. Unfortunately, each context is unique and there are no simple solutions — otherwise, someone would have solved that problem long ago!

Today, I’m thinking about faithful innovators who are balancing more than one job — which I will describe as being “multivocational” — as they start a new church, whether that church work is a paid position or not. For those of us navigating the challenges of being multivocational, here are a couple of important frames to consider. 

Potential Benefits for Church Starters 

Being multivocational addresses perhaps the most immediate need for church starters — drawing a livable income from their work mix. It’s not “unspiritual” to have to pay the bills. In fact, it might be more harmful to the spiritual life of your church if you end up burning out from financial stress. 

In some ways, being multivocational gives you a clear understanding of your church members’ attempt to balance their time. Instead of wondering why no one wants to show up for a 7:30 pm meeting on a Wednesday night, you’ll quickly realize that after a 13 hour day at the office, even the most committed church members might not have much margin for that. Further, it’s easy to talk about the “mission field in the marketplace” as a disembodied idea. However, engaging coworkers who display the full spectrum of faith on a daily basis provides a solid reality check. 

I’m also reminded of something Mark Charles taught during our Flipping Church Planting Paradigms course: be careful not to become beholden to only a few big financial givers. Leaders who have multiple income streams free themselves to lead in the Spirit with authority and confidence, even when their views might be difficult or challenging for church members. Multivocational pastors understand that it’s okay if the church needs to make mission-focused decisions that result in fewer pastoral responsibilities. They can pick up hours elsewhere. You can learn more from Mark Charles about this as part of our Membership Community.

Costs for Church Starters 

Real talk: being multivocational will place significant demands on your time. We all have only 24 hours in each day and 7 days in the week. Even if your church work only took up 10-15 hours a week, what will you do when you’re double-booked? What about vacation? How many more hours will you have to work to make up for the low wages from the church? How in the world will you intentionally practice Sabbath (a command, not a suggestion) on top of all that?

I’m not trying to be pessimistic by raising these concerns. For many of us, these are the questions we’ll need to ask ourselves as we try to make it work.

Potential Benefits for New Churches 

I would strongly advocate against new churches viewing multivocationality as a cost-cutting measure. If the goal is simply to save money by not paying pastors, I think a church’s leadership team needs to take a good hard look at themselves and their sense of mission.

With that important caveat, this approach could free up some of the church’s funds toward other outward-focused ministry. Again, though, a couple of important notes: first, pastoring is real work and deserves to be paid at a fair wage. Second, it’s still good for your church to consider what ministry you can engage that doesn’t require funds.

Even more than saving money, this approach could be an opportunity for your members to see each of themselves as leaders in your church’s mission. There’s no better way to practice “the priesthood of all believers” than by distributing leadership away from the “paid professional” model to a shared vision for the future. 

Costs for New Churches 

However, this shift in thinking away from professionalized ministry can come with growing pains. For consumers of religious goods and services, this can feel like their whole notion of “church” is being blown up (which, quite frankly, may be a good thing). This also means faithful innovators will need to spend more time in leadership development — and not simply delegating tasks to others, but inviting them to carry the vision of the church forward as well. Developing leaders takes time, and it takes investment from the leaders who are being developed. Has the new church accounted for these costs?

Being multivocational also means that pastors will have less availability throughout the week. However, this could be a blessing in disguise as your church learns to move at the speed of relationship. 

Moving Forward as Multivocational 

Starting and leading a new church rarely follows a predictable, cookie-cutter approach. Even in this article, I’ve shared some frames for those of us who are already multivocational in our church starting work. Some of you are in the thick of trying to find other work to help make ends meet. In today’s job market, even finding other part-time work can be very difficult. 

No matter where you find yourself on this journey, I want to close with a couple of self-reflection questions that will help you discern the path forward; 

• What does “health” look like for you? In the ebb and flow of life, ministry, family, and personal health (including emotional, social, physical, and spiritual life), finding “balance” might be impossible. However, each of us can, and must, find a place of health in the midst of it all. 
• What kind of additional work works for you? Will you prioritize another job that occupies the same mental space (i.e., creative, pastoral, entrepreneurial) as your church work or one that is in a different sphere altogether? Each of us is different, and you might find your needs shift over time. This question also applies to how many hours you’d like to spend each week on church vs. non-church work.
• Who is helping you discern? These are big questions, and multivocational is a challenging path. Who is listening to the Spirit with you? Who’s rooting for you? Who can see things in your life that you might not be able to see? 
• Would you shift to full-time church work if you could? If your new church reaches a point where they can invest in a full-time paid pastor, would that be the wisest path? Is that your goal?