wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Tentmakers urged to go first-class

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Note #9014 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05603
Nov. 10, 2005

Tentmakers urged to go first-class

PC(USA), other denominations unsure how part-time ministers fit in

by Toya Richards Hill

CHICAGO - Tent-making ministers must assert themselves and refuse to be
treated as second-class clergymen and women.

	That was the challenge heard repeatedly during the Nov. 4-6
Tentmaking Conference in Mundelain, IL, a Chicago suburb.

	About 50 tentmakers - ministers who earn a substantial share of their
income from jobs outside the church - gathered to talk about their ministries
and their place in the church. The term is a reference to the Apostle Paul,
who the Bible says made tents for a living while also serving as a minister.

	"People in tentmaking have to stand up," because otherwise,
recognition is "not just going to happen," said the Rev. William Persell, the
Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Chicago. "If you want something different,
you really have to ... make it known."

	Tentmakers have complaints ranging from how they are identified on
nametags during denominational meetings to being left "out of the loop"
regarding key information, participants said.

	"We have to be intentional about our presence in the presbytery or
diocese," said the Rev. Ed Hook, a co-moderator of the conference who also is
the convener of the National Association for the Self-Supporting Active
Ministry (NASSAM). "We're still considered second-class citizens."

	The conference, co-sponsored by the Association of Presbyterian
Tentmakers (APT) and NASSAM, was held in conjunction with the Episcopal
Bishop's Advisory Council on Tentmaking.

Tentmakers are struggling to find their voice, the Rev. Brian Hastings,
assistant rector at Church of Our Saviour Episcopal in Chicago, said during a
session titled, "Finding Our Own Voice." "You can't have dialogue without
voice. ... The time has now come." 

	The Rev. David Ezekiel, associate executive for congregational
development of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Presbytery of Chicago,
acknowledged that there are only two tentmakers on record in the entire Synod
of Lincoln Trails, which takes in all of Illinois and Indiana.

	That's because the PC(USA) defines tentmakers as "not being engaged
in ministry full-time," and usually assumes they serve a congregation,
Ezekiel said.

	That would exclude an ordained minister who works full-time as a
doctor or teacher, whether or not he considers that work to be ministry. 

	"It's going to take re-thinking on our part" to bring change, he
said, and an effort to compile a list of tentmakers and their skills and
talents.

	The Rev. Deborah Mullen, dean of masters-level programs at Chicago's
McCormick Theological Seminary, said seminaries must expand their curricula
to be more "responsive" to bi-vocational ministry.

	"It requires a spirit of openness on the part of theological
institutions," she said.

	In 2004 there were 45 PC(USA) tentmakers, according to the
denomination's research services office. There were 49 in 2003 and 50 in
2002.

	Among the current PC(USA) tentmakers is the Rev. Karen Mitcham, a
high school English teacher and stated-supply minister at 55-member Wayside
Presbyterian Church in Gray, GA. She began teaching in the 1970s and was
ordained in the PC(USA) in the 1990s.

	"Tentmakers have the unique opportunity to live out one's ministry in
the public arena" while providing a pastoral ear, eye and heart, she said. 

	Mitcham said tentmaking gives "seminary-educated Christians a pathway
to living out their sense of call," adding: "I love my life."

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