Bi-vocational ministry is increasingly common today. Research published by Patricia M. Y. Chang through the Pulpit & Pew initiative of Duke University notes that the majority of Protestant congregations in the United States have fewer than 100 regular attendees. Many of these churches lack the financial resources to support a full time pastor. Chang explains, "As employment opportunities for full-time, fully ordained pastors shrink, the future leaders of many congregations will be lay pastors, local pastors, part-time tentmaker pastors, yoked pastors, and pastors with alternative means of support (partner income or retirement benefits from previous careers)."

In these congregations, the pastor's interests are necessarily divided. Since they are usually the only pastor serving the congregation, they shoulder the responsibilities of weekly preaching and congregational care, along with the weight of working a second job. When the need of the church is combined with the pastor's desire to be ...