About Tentmaking

TENTMAKING: An Old Model For a New Age

Tentmaking is the activity of Christians who, while dedicating themselves to ministry (with little or no pay) necessarily maintains a second job to support him or herself.  The term comes from the way in which the apostle Paul supported himself while living and preaching the Gospel in Corinth (Acts 18:3). But today the term is often mentioned in an apologetic way. 

Let me begin with one startling fact: within most of the so-called “mainline church” only a few churches can support a full-time member of the clergy. Yet most parishes still see that as a worthy objective for which to strive in spite of diminishing members and resources. Annual denominational meetings are often an exercise in triage -- how can we stop the bleeding and save the church? And each parish meeting is frequently an agonizing realization of this situation.

In my 20 years of ministry I have seen a number of variations on triage: yoked and three-point parishes, married clergy who have a spouse with a full-time job and health insurance, living off the parish endowment, sustaining grants from the diocese, and permanent supply clergy.

It is the latter response that I wish to consider.

I serve a small parish with an average Sunday attendance of about 25 worshipers. It is  a small church with a capacity of not more than 60 souls. We take no money from our denomination, pay our bills, and adequately maintain our building and its grounds. In short, we are solvent and sustainable. 

And the reason we are is that I chose to serve the parish at the going rate of  “supply clergy” (currently at the rate of $125/Sunday plus mileage). Additionally, I am available for pastoral emergencies, weekly teaching sessions during Advent and Lent, vestry meetings and other activities of the parish. ). If you do the math you will see that this is a sustainable expense for most all small parishes and removes them from the “failing” category and makes them active and sustainable entities.

In the five parishes I have served since my ordination, all have been small and all have thought of themselves as somehow less because they could not afford full-time clergy. This negative thinking often caused them to be focused not on the future but on a past that will never happen again (and, perhaps, never did).

What I hear from my generation of grey-heads is frequently a rosy depiction of the 1950s when “everyone” went to church. However, a closer examination of those days will quickly remind us that faith or discipleship should never be assessed by church attendance.

So, I have a proposal for today’s small churches, let’s forget about the past and get on with today and all its challenges following Jesus in our highly attention-competitive age, diminishing church attendance, and many among us using the word “none” to best describe their religion or denomination.

What do Christians offer to the world today? It is important that we be able to clearly answer this provocative question. As a start, we can begin to live lives consistent with who we say we honor and believe in. Some observers of Christian behavior say those of us who do attend church worship it as an idol -- a social club and fraternal organization of friendly, like-minded members.

Try that out with a twenty or thirty year old, “Would you like to join a nice social club of like-minded people?” and see what happens. Let’s face it. Those of us who follow Jesus are radical troublemakers. We want to see God’s reign being to happen now not some time in the future. The foundational text of this radical trouble-making lies within the 25th chapter of Matthew's gospel:

 ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

You know what I am getting at don’t you? The church of today is simply a meeting, teaching and strengthening place. Not a place to be worshiped. Whereas, the primary acts of  “doing” Jesus goes on outside the building in the community and into the world. And we do that best not by what we say but by what we do – doing Jesus. And doing Jesus has to do with elevating the underclass and ministering to the disfranchised in our economy. If we don’t take care of them, we don’t take care of Jesus. It’s that simple and that difficult regardless of one's politics!

It’s time for Christians to re-think, re-structure, and, yes, re-act.