My First Year in Bi-Vocational Ministry

It's been a year since I started this crazy path of being a Bi-Vocational Pastor. I came to Albia June of last year. It was so exciting moving and being out in the "real world."After 4 years of Bible College, I was ready for a break from classes, grades, and the constant demands of a student. When I came in June, there were 7 people attending First Baptist Church. There were some issues in the church and a bleak outlook that I was well aware of coming in. But I was ready to step into the trenches and minister to people. One of the first things my girlfriend Christina and I wanted to do was get on Facebook, Google Maps, and anywhere else we could online. We also want to start a website, but we have both been super busy. We are both tech savvy so we thought that was a good idea.

The church was clear that this was a "part time" job and I would probably need to find additional employment. I say "part time" because being in the ministry requires a lot more hours and odd hours than a typical part time job. If I wanted to, I really could put in 40 hours a week into my "part time" Pastor job and some weeks I probably do. Anyway, I had worked at the Gladstone Hy-Vee when I was down in Kansas City at Bible College so I thought I could start out at the Hy-Vee in Albia and see what other jobs might be available. With a little complication, I started working part time at Hy-Vee the week after my first sermon at First Baptist. God provided a place I could get some hours to help supplement my income. It is a smaller store than the Gladstone Hy-Vee or the Mason City Fareway I worked at. After 10 years in the grocery business, I am enjoying the slower pace! The hours are flexible, I have a chance to meet the townspeople, and I can talk to church members if they need something. The people who work there are friendly and it feels like another family.

My typical week includes working during the day Monday, Wednesday - Fridays and occasionally a Saturday. I work on my sermon and prep music in the evenings and some of Tuesday as well. Occasionally I go out to visit people from the church or people who we think need a visit. On the weekends my girlfriend Christina will visit or I will go visit her or meet her somewhere like Des Moines. A couple of the church members have an extra bedroom so she is able to take advantage of that about 2 Sundays a month.

The church members seemed to really enjoy the sermons and they enjoy having contemporary worship music played on my guitar and having my girlfriend, Christina, sing when she visits. When I came, we still wanted hymns played on the piano and so I would play a few songs and our piano player/deacon's wife would play a few songs. In October the doctors discovered cancer had spread throughout her body and the week of Thanksgiving she passed away. I officiated my first funeral on the day after Thanksgiving.

In October, I was Ordained into the Gospel Ministry. That was a crazy weekend. The day before my ordination our piano player had lost control of her hand (we would find out later it was cancer) and she informed me she could not play for my service. It was looking like I would have to play guitar by myself that day, but fortunately most of the members of the praise team from my hometown were coming down so they grabbed their instruments and we all played together again. My preaching professor, Dr. Robert Matz, came up from Kansas City to give my Ordination Service Sermon and did a great job. I also had my girlfriend, my parents, my girlfriend's parents, many mentors, several of my pastors, some pastors in town, and many friends come to Albia for the service. It was an encouragement to feel so loved.

I have enjoyed writing sermons week after week. I took a couple vacations, had a missionary come preach, and had two of my younger friends come preach for me. I started with a 3-week series entitled "Not My Church" and looked at Jesus as the Shepherd of the Church (Mt 16:18), The Members are in it Together (Eph 4), and The Pastor is the Under-Shepherd of the Church (1 Tim 3). Then I did another 3-week series with God is Greater than the Future (Joshua & Acts and talking about the future of the church), God is Greater than My Plans (Sharing my story), and God is Greater than Dry Bones (Eze 37). Not My Church dug into the biblical roles and was a good series to start with. Then God is Greater basically was an encouragement to the church that God can do anything.

We then took 10 weeks to go through the book of Philippians. When we finished with that I pulled out a sermon I had done a few times because that was the Sunday after my ordination service. The sermon is about the biblical basis for friendship looking at the friendship of David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel. Then we started James until the Christmas season when I did a 3-week series called "Investigating Christmas" looking at the aspects of the Jewish Messiah and how Jesus fit that perfectly. After my Christmas vacation, I came back and preached on Romans 12 talking about how Christians should live. Then we finished up with James which in total took 9 weeks. Then I had a 7 week sermon series looking at 1 Corinthians 12-15 looking at spiritual gifts and then the resurrection which led into Easter. For Easter we did 2 weeks of "Investigating Easter" looking at the Easter events that show Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. We also did a short Good Friday Service which was a nice service. After Easter we did a 6-week series on the book of Ruth. This Summer, when I haven't been on vacation or out of the pulpit, we are going through the different aspects of a worship service and basically looking at why we do what we do.

Coming into a small church, I quickly realized how much they don't teach you at Bible College on the ministry and the practical side. Like when our air conditioner started leaking water into the sound booth at the end of Summer. They didn't teach air conditioner repair at Bible College. We ended getting a new A/C as there was no fixing the problem. I also found out how much junk mail and mail from Lifeway a church gets! I never knew! Bible College also never prepared me how to deal with people. I kind of knew, but as a Pastor now, I have to deal with things a bit more carefully now.

In May, we showed the movie War Room at the church and had some food, cotton candy, and popcorn. We had originally planned to do it outside, but it had been raining so we showed the movie inside. We partnered with my parents church in Mason City for some extra helpers and I think it went well. We plan to show the movie again and probably do the study with it and begin an evening study in the Fall.

This Summer we are doing VBS at the end of July. God blessed with a member who has done many VBS's and is super excited to do another one. We are also having a small team from another Southern Baptist Church in Green Bay to help us out with VBS and a few projects at the church. We are super excited for it!

When I came to Albia, we had 7 people, mostly older people, attending church. Through some visits and people finding us online, we now average about 20 children and adults. We have a regular children's Sunday School class we didn't have when I first came and we are in the initial steps of starting a small Youth Group. I am optimistic about what God has for us in Albia at First Baptist. If you get the chance, come visit us and see what we are up to!