Episcopal Press and News
Short of Clergy and Money, Churches Take to the Tentmakers
Episcopal News Service. November 17, 2000 [2000-208]
Evan Silverstein
(PNS) Tentmaking pastors who split their time between the pulpit and their "day jobs" are under-appreciated leaders of the church who represent an emerging model of ministry in the new millennium.
That was the message a group of about 40 Presbyterian and Episcopalian tentmakers heard during the Nov. 3-5 annual conference of the Association of Presbyterian Tentmakers (APT), which was co-sponsored by the National Association for the Self-Supporting Active Ministry (NASSAM) of the Episcopal Church. Members serve in church positions but derive all or most of their income from outside employment.
Bishop William Persell of the Diocese of Chicago, a guest panelist during the conference, said the tentmaking ministry is "very largely hidden, and not understood by most people within the context of the church."
"I think the church as a whole does not recognize ordained ministry that happens outside the context of a parish, or possibly a chaplaincy," Persell told participants in the conference. "I think we have a long way to go to get a real understanding of what some of you are about, and have been for many years."
The conference, whose theme was Tentmaking 2000: The Outer Fringe or the Cutting Edge?, featured perspectives from those on the front lines of ministry in the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches. It included panel discussions with seminary, presbytery and diocesan leaders of the tentmaking role and the possible impact of an expansion of tentmaking ministries.
Tentmakers said Presbyterians and Episcopalians must "wake up" to the reality of tentmaking as a cutting-edge solution to the shortage of full-time clergy and the declining number of congregations able to afford full-time pastors.
Although its roots date to the Old Testament, tentmakers are often dismissed as pastoral flunkies forced into two-vocation careers because they can't nab a permanent calling. The Rev. Ron Simpson, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a Presbyterian tentmaker, blamed some of his colleagues for doing too little to broaden the faith community's perspective on the importance of tentmakers.
"Tentmakers sort of see themselves as second-class citizens," said Simpson, a tentmaker for 25 years and an employee of General Electric before his retirement in 1997. "I like to see tentmaking as providing a full ministry on a part-time schedule. You're providing a full ministry in every sense of the word, you're just not there all the time. Without tentmakers, I think a lot of smaller churches would go under sooner."
Simpson said congregants need to help tentmakers with duties from visiting hospitalized parishioners to maintaining the grounds.
"That's how the lay and the tentmaking clergy can work together," said Simpson. "And that strengthens the church. It gets the members working so they don't feel like they're paying a full-time minister."
Tentmakers, whose name is a reference to leather working, a trade of the apostle Paul, exchanged stories about their own "tents" and discussed the polity of the two denominations during the gathering at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, a sprawling Catholic seminary about 40 miles north of Chicago.
Participants urged seminaries to step up their efforts in preparing tentmakers and commissioned lay leaders to fill the growing number of empty pulpits in both denominations.
"The need will grow and it is growing for (pastoral leadership)," said the Rev. John P. Jewell, a panelist and director of Seminary Technological Services at the Presbyterian-related University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. "I think that is under that part of tentmaking as the ministry of the 'gap.'"
The conference also provided "quality time" for bonding among the 22 Presbyterian clergy and 16 Episcopalians, who are also bankers, teachers, farmers, writers and parents.
"Tentmaking is also for the large churches who need a part-time assistant, or the medium-size churches who are just thinking they're moving into needing an associate pastor but can't afford to call one," said Amy Isbell Hanschen, of Austin, Texas, who as an ordination candidate seeking a call is working for a national corporation that places chaplains in businesses to counsel employees.
"Tentmaking is ideally suited for new-church development and church re-development. It crosses all of the boundaries," said Isbell Hanschen, whose primary "tent" consists of her husband and four children. "I can be a mom and I can provide ministry."