discipleship | mission | practical theology

Tentmaking is certainly as old as Christianity and probably older. Paul, the one of the Damascus Road, is known to have been a tent-maker. Literally one who makes tents so as to be able to support himself and offer ministry without charge. This was practice amongst some rabbis too and therefore certainly an influence on Paul. Tentmaking, as many who are reading this will know better than I, is still the majority practice amongst many recognised missionaries. For some it serves as a segue away from the illegal practice of being a Christian in the country they are living/serving. For others it is because the missionary activity has no chance of being funded any other way.

I have been struggling with tentmaking! Since I am coming from a place where all my waking ‘working’ hours have been consumed with ‘things of the Lord’ or at least working in the context of full-time church-based ministry, the idea of diverting a whole bunch of hours, and therefore energy, into earning a living has seemed like a colossal… diversion.

There is a whole bunch of conversation which is pertinent at this stage, like why should a calling abscond one from labour and what does a stipend say about the ministry of those who actually do have to ‘work’ for a living. I am going to skip over these pertinent points though and get to my point which is what is ministry anyway? Our ideas of ministry are of course socially conditioned and are made reality by our taking up of somethings and the ignoring of others. We have come to this place where there is a thing called full-time ministry and in such a way as it becomes a benchmark for ministry: anything less is often seen as somehow inferior. This valuing is applied not only to time but also the content of that ministry. Full-time church based ministry, dealing with the things of the lord that happen to focus around the running of a set of services and the associated pastoral care and evngelistic projects, as a calling is only beaten by full-time overseas missionary status.

Before we entertain too much digression, the point here is that this cultural valuing of various types of ministry completely devalues others: being a nurse, mother, solitictor, dental receptionist, checkout operator etc etc. This observation is nothing new and I only raise it because of the struggles I have been grappling with concerning my own life. I am just getting to this point where, yes, running a small commerical affair to prove some income is not in contrast to my ministry but part of it.

As I take note of the mental and emtional processes involved in getting to this point I see that in the large part it was a case of getting over the spiritual snobery of not been able to say that I am in full-time church based ministry! A spiritual snobery that is reflective of the cultural framework in which we see ministry – the way we do and think about ministry in these parts.

At this stage the future of stipendary ministry is up for grabs, the only sure thing being that more of the same will not work! Which therefore means a painful grappling with our social understanding of what ministry is; a dismantling of our cultural framework for constructing ministerial pathways; confronting the ecclesiastical expectations both from demoninational and congregational perspectives and a gentle healing approach to the many whose very identity is deeply contected to the way they have done ministry thus far.

It is this onotlogical component, the way of being in ministry, that will of course be the real issue. If we construct, say a ministerial pathway to train and equip people for tentmaking ministries of which part of is the preistly oversight of a local church, what does that say to those who have given their entire working life to the full-time preistly and pastoral care of that local congregation. The deep feelings associated with loosing the vicar in pastoral reorganisation [1 vicar taking on 2 or more parishes instead of each parish having its own vicar] will be repeated and added too. Since the previsously secure side to pastoral reorganisation has been the role of the vicar, whose role and identity has in some ways received a boost from such reorganisation. This boost will not be missing in such reconstruction of ministry, but quite the reverse, there will be a sapping of the foregoing confidence: what have I been doing all my life now that a part-timer is fulfiling my role?