0:00: Well, I'm excited to be launching today the multi-vocational podcast,, which has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time. 
 0:08: I'm called Steve Jones, by the way, and I'll be sharing some of my story,, in the next few minutes. 
 0:14: This is just an introductory podcast so you can get used to,, you know, what this is gonna be about, tell you a bit who this podcast would be suitable for. 
 0:24: And just sharing a little bit of my own sort of story,, in the multi-vocational world, which is a new word in some ways, and, and one of the discussions that's gonna be happening over this podcast is this idea or this question of multi-vocational or bi-vocational, or some people like the idea of tent making, you may have heard of that as a as a metaphor from from the life of Paul, how he, supported his ministry of mission. 
 0:55: , by making tents, and we're told that he kind of in the evenings,, and overnight even, he would be, you know, making tents to support what he did during the day. 
 1:08: , and we're gonna look at that as an idea, the idea of doing something to support ministry, or actually is that doing something, the actual tent making a ministry in its own right anyway. 
 1:20: So the idea of multi-vocational rather than a secular,, job and a spiritual ministry,, we're kind of gonna be breaking that down a little bit and exploring,, and that's why I I I suppose why we're looking at the word multi-vocational rather than just bi-vocational. 
 1:41: So this podcast is really for those people who are either involved in bivocational ministry. 
 1:49: Or multi vocational ministry or tent making or will want to, or want to do that as they look at their life and the way forward. 
 1:59: So the kind of people we're after,, are those that are either in some kind of ministry. 
 2:06: Now whether that's pastoring or whether that's pioneering or overseas mission,, or even a theological education. 
 2:16: , whatever your ministry is,, is there a way to,, kind of explore that alongside some kind of business, some kind of, I hate using the word secular, I think it's all full of language, this whole thing, isn't it? 
 2:33: And that's part of what this podcast is gonna be about is exploring some of these words and going deeper into the theology. 
 2:41: Of some of these words, some of the history of these words, some of the downsides and upsides of using some of these words. 
 2:49: So, that's gonna be really crucial as well. 
 2:52: So, I mean, you may be listening to this, you may have seen the word multi-vocational, bi vocational and thought, yep, I'm just gonna give this a quick listen. 
 3:00: So I guess the reasons you've, you're interested in this, it might be because it's a really difficult way of being. 
 3:08: , having more than one focus, having more than one call, if you like. 
 3:16: The, the ability to balance both,, the tension that is found between not just both, that's why we, one of the other reasons we call it multiplicational is we live in a world where many of us don't just have one business, we have multiple businesses or multiple side hustles,, or, or all kinds of things erupting in our lives, if you like, good things,, but it's how to manage all those, how to make them all work. 
 3:45: And not just see some failing, a little bit like the metaphor of spinning plates. 
 3:51: Not a helpful metaphor I don't think,, because that's not the way we're going to be looking at this in the sense that we have to drop plates in order to keep at least one of the the plates spinning. 
 4:01: That's not the idea at all. 
 4:03: , so we're gonna be looking at multi-vocational, bi-vocational,, other reasons you might have your,, first of all, you're in perhaps in a, in a secular. 
 4:14: Job and you want to explore getting more of your time into ministry. 
 4:21: So enabling yourself to go maybe part time in a, in a role, and then so you can do more time in a ministry. 
 4:29: So that this is absolutely for you, this podcast where we're going to be exploring, you know, how you can do that. 
 4:36: You might be the other way around. 
 4:37: You might be in full-time ministry and looking to actually have more engagement with the workplace in your life for lots of reasons. 
 4:47: It might be because you feel you're in a Christian bubble, if you like, or a ministry bubble, and I know for a number of years I felt like I was like that when I was a full time minister. 
 4:59: , that I, I wanted to get out of that bubble because I realized I was becoming more irrelevant, not just to the Christians in my,, church, but also the people,, that were not part of the church, people in the community. 
 5:14: So I decided to go by. 
 5:16: vocational, not out of,,, any other reason apart from a desire to be more in touch with people and more understanding of people,, and more connected with people in the wider community. 
 5:30: So that might be you as well, you know, you are in ministry, but you actually want to do more in the workplace. 
 5:38: I think that's what I'll call it, the workplace as opposed to secular work. 
 5:42: Because you'd probably be aware, and this is something we're going to be exploring in the next sort of few, few podcasts, is that split between secular and sacred,, what some theologians call a platonic dualism. 
 5:55: , where the idea that that Greek ideas have been so informed and have formed our Christian theology that we've got this kind of strong sacred secular split inside us where we see secular work as non-spiritual. 
 6:14: And not kind of God stuff and ministry in the church as spiritual and God stuff. 
 6:21: , and that isn't very helpful at all. 
 6:23: So actually, I think what I want to do is call that call that stuff that's out there, the workplace, and call the stuff that's kind of in the Christian community, you know, more sort of, I suppose, ministry in that sense, or church ministry. 
 6:38: , so yeah, there's a lot of tensions, all these reasons that you are kind of listening to this podcast. 
 6:45: It might be any of the ones I've mentioned before, but for all of us, it's this idea of making it all work, making it all work. 
 6:55: So having A family that is flourishing, having,, if we've, if we've got a partnership, a a a marriage that is working,, having a ministry that is working and having something in the workplace that is working as well, so. 
 7:14: , that's what this podcast is gonna be all about, looking at some of the theology, hearing some of the stories. 
 7:22: I'm hopefully gonna bring on some people to be interviewed. 
 7:25: Actually, if you're interested in being interviewed, if you're somebody that even is starting that journey. 
 7:31: , or already in that by vocational, multi-vocational journey. 
 7:35: , we'd love to hear from you as well. 
 7:38: I, I'm gonna bring in some kind of denominational leaders and other,, other inspirational figures,, to kind of get their, their views on multi-vocationalism. 
 7:49: , 11 of the kind of passions that I, I really feel it's not just surviving. 
 7:53: , you know, by doing multi-vocational life, but it's actually a really, really positive way for the whole church to look at its future, particularly in a world where church finances perhaps are decreasing ways in which we can still flourish. 
 8:14: But have this multi-vocational thing, not just as a survival mechanism, but actually as a really, really good thing, kind of the thing we should have been doing all along, but now is a season in which we can see multi-vocationalism as something that is good and beneficial and to be encouraged,, in our lives and in the lives of the people in our, in our communities and congregations. 
 8:40: So we're gonna be exploring theology, interviews, stories,, my story, I'll share bits from my story. 
 8:48: I'm, I'm now currently 55 years old, and for 25 years, I guess 26 years,, I was involved in bi-vocational and full-time Christian work. 
 9:01: , this last sort of few years I've been more sort of biased in the, the workplace mode,, but with more ministry coming in of recent years. 
 9:11: So I've moved and shifted in my balance between workplace and ministry,, church ministry,, and, and that's under a lot of different umbrellas, denominational umbrellas,, new church umbrellas, community church umbrellas, if you like. 
 9:29: , so lots of different flows and stories I can share from my own experience. 
 9:34: , I was a denominational leader with the Methodist Church in the region here. 
 9:40: I'm in the southwest of the UK,, and I was involved in, in training,, church leaders across our region, which is sort of Cornwall, if you know the UK, Cornwall and Devon. 
 9:52: Somerset,, this entire bit that, that kind of juts out at the bottom left of the UK. 
 10:00: So that's some of my background, so I was involved in that, been very much involved in pioneering ministry and church planting,, and particularly by vocational multiplication can be really helpful in the pioneering. 
 10:15: , and church planting world as well. 
 10:18: , and involved in local, just, just as a normal church pastor,, actually I was up in Scotland,, for a while in a, in a city called Glasgow,, where I was helping to lead a large,, church up there as well as a full time or nearly full-time pastor. 
 10:39: That was really interesting. 
 10:40: Just, just a quick story up there. 
 10:42: You probably experienced this,, that when, you know, I've gone for these pastor jobs and got these wonderful roles,, when the wage is actually offered to you, when they say, well, this is what we're going to be paying, I think a lot of churches just don't pay enough. 
 10:58: , and we struggle. 
 11:00: I mean, I don't know many well off full time Christian people. 
 11:04: , and, and I don't mean well off in the sense of,, You know, overflowing with abundant riches and,, all that kind of stuff. 
 11:15: What I'm talking about is just a normal life, the average life of the people,, in the congregation. 
 11:21: And I found,, particularly,,, in this experience,, that, that the church was just not paying me enough. 
 11:30: So I went to them and said, well, this isn't actually enough,, compared to having a life, because I had a young family at the time. 
 11:37: , and it wasn't enough money to actually make things work. 
 11:41: So I went to them and said to them, Can I go and do some teaching, cause I was a qualified PE teacher. 
 11:47: So I actually experienced that in Glasgow as well. 
 11:50: And that was really my first taste of bi-vocational work, where just one day a week, I was in the community learning lots about Glaswegians and the culture and,, all that kind of stuff, which was terrific. 
 12:05: And that was actually feeding back into my ministry, but it was also giving me an extra few 1000 a year. 
 12:11: Pounds,, to really support me and my young family. 
 12:15: So again, again, the benefits there,, for poorly paid,, church workers,, it's, it's a great way of kind of topping up,, and providing for families and, and others. 
 12:30: So that was part of my story, and for you that might be part of it. 
 12:33: You might just need a little bit more income. 
 12:36: You're not getting actually enough income through the ministry side of your life, and you need to top it up. 
 12:42: , and that's great, and that's honorable, and that's something we're gonna be exploring,, as we go forward. 
 12:49: Anyway, if you're interested, do subscribe to this podcast. 
 12:54: But also we have a website supporting this pod podcast as well called Multivocational.com. 
 13:00: , multi-vocational one word. 
 13:03: It's a new word. 
 13:05: It has been used slightly in some academic work in Canada, I believe, but apart from that, you know, it is pretty much a new word, and it's not got a little dash in it. 
 13:15: It's one word, multivocational.com,, and you can sign up there and you'll get lots of news and so so on there. 
 13:22: Sign up there for free,, and it'd be lovely to just sort of connect with you there as well. 
 13:27: So subscribe,, connect through the website and do just keep the conversation going, maybe leave some comments, whatever, and it'd be good to get into some conversation around these really crucial,, important things, multi-vocationalism, bi vocationalism and the future of the church. 
 13:46: Speak to you next time.