Ask a Sociologist

Learning from the pros about bivocational trends + a really cool collage

I was so curious to learn more I coughed up the $18 to read the whole academic text of “Are Bivocational Clergy Becoming the New Normal?”¹ and was it worth it.

First, the scope of this study was from 1996-2017 and only in the United States. We’re already a few years out from that, but I think much of the data is still relevant. In addition, this study looked at labor statistics for clergy fairly generally including both Protestant and Catholic clergy, which the authors noted doesn’t help parse out differences in denominations.

One of the key takeaways of the whole study (found right in the abstract if you don’t want to read the whole thing) is that in that time period, the number of clergy who held a second job did not increase. Already, this is interesting to me as the anecdotal and widely accepted wisdom is that bivocational clergy are on the rise. However, there was more widespread stability.

While this was a bit surprising to me, the second big conclusion was less so. The researchers found that there was an upward trend for bivocationality in a few categories—for women and unmarried folks. I’m not much of a sociologist and in fact trying to read the data charts in this article was a bit beyond my expertise. This part, however, I understood. Our churches pass precarity along to those already in places of difficulty. The classic ideal of a pastor—a married man—holds onto occupational security for longer.

All of this made me think about my own job prospects. As it’s been well-documented, I’m pretty happy with my current career configurations. But could I get a full-time church gig if I wanted? I checked our denomination’s job board and found seven listings in my region. Four of the seven had that little PT (part-time) designation with two FT (full-time) associate positions and only one solo FT call. Not for nothing, in my denomination we have gender parity among clergy.² I can’t help but think we’ve reached this milestone alongside some genuine insecurity.

In short, full-time pastor jobs are holding steadier than we might think, but only for select demographics.

I did find one very, very important bit of information in this article. And that was the truly outrageous statistic that pastors worked an average of 76 hours in 1934. 76! Honestly, if this whole system was built on that kind of work, I’m okay with some institutional collapse. May we all find an appropriate paid and boundaried work week on the other side.

What I’m playing

My Christmas break joy came from playing lots and lots of video games, including the 2018 release Dead Cells. I’ve included the animated trailer below which is just one of the best game trailers for capturing not what the game looks like (it’s animated in a totally different style) but the spirit of what it feels to play. Your character plays through different levels but when you die, you start back at the beginning. Each time the levels regenerate in new ways and you’re always collecting skills to make each run interesting. I love it because it’s a game that rewards a pretty reckless melee play style—something I excel at.

Where you can find me

Don’t forget, you can get even more photo updates from my life on Instagram, plenty of book recommendations on Goodreads, and weirdly you might have seen me on LinkedIn lately?

Or, just respond to these posts with questions, comments, and all your video game recommendations.

What life looks like

A perfect collage made by my nephew

1. Perry, S.L. and Schleifer, C. (2019), Are Bivocational Clergy Becoming the New Normal? An Analysis of the Current Population Survey, 1996–2017. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 58: 513-525. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12593

2. https://eileencampbellreed.org/wp-content/uploads/Downloads/State-of-Clergywomen-US-2018-web.pdf