The Tentmaking Pastor: The Joy of Bivocational Ministry

By Dennis W. Bickers

Book Overview

Real-world guide to the challenges, rewards, and advantages of bivocational ministry. Excellent for individuals and churches exploring pastoring options. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801090997
• ISBN13: 9780801090998
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Baker Books
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.5" x 5.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Very Good

If you are looking for a mission manual written by a seminary professor, move on and keep looking. This simple book shares anecdotes and pointers from a many who has decades of experience working as a minister and blue-collar factory worker. He knows what it's like, and offers in this book some very good insight for the church member who is considering going into ministry. This book focuses mostly on bivocational work with small congregations in an area where the prospective minister already lives. It does not deal with bivocational church planting in new areas. "The Tentmaking Pastor" was enjoyable to read.

THE bivocational resource

I picked this book up looking for info on being a tentmaking missionary - which is merely bivocational ministry that happens in a cross-cultural setting. It has been a cornerstone of my resources on the topic, especially since it is (1) practical, (2) explores the unique BENEFITS to bivocational ministry, and not just how to mitigate the weaknesses and (3) the only resource I've found written from the perspective of 20 years of bivocational experience (most are theories on what bivocational ministry might or should be like - Bickers tells it like it is). An excellent (and inexpensive) resource.

Excellent,, even for the lay person !

This is an excellent book. It's easy to read and offers thoughtful insight to the "joys" and the pitfalls of bivocational ministry. Rev. Bickers has provided an exceptional reference tool for those considering the ministry and for churches who may be considering hiring a bivocational minister. For the lay person, it provides an understanding of the cycles churches can sometimes fall into and a positive way to break that cycle. It has also left me with a better appreciation of my pastor and I've learned bivocational definately does not mean part time!