Eric Hoke - Market Street Pastor

Rob, Jason, & Courtney talk with author and speaker Eric Hoke about his latest book "Market Street Pastor."  Eric is a co-vocational church planter and proven marketplace professional specializing in staffing and corporate training. He has worked with thousands of eager career changers from around the world including church planters, missional church leaders, and pastors.

You can find out more about Eric's organization here:  "I Help Pastors Find Jobs"
You can find his latest book here: Market Street Pastor
Eric's Substack

Follow us on Insta @churchtalkproject. www.churchtalkproject.com

Transcript

Jason Allison (00:03)
Well, welcome back everybody to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Courtney and Jason. It's been a while since all three of us have been together on this and we even have a guest coming in in just a minute. guys, this is like mid December. Like Christmas is right around the corner. Are you ready? I feel like I'm never ready for Christmas. Yeah. You know, it's amazing when you just become a Scrooge how you don't ever have to get ready. That's been my philosophy.

You know, I get ready for Christmas in terms of like family stuff, always after Christmas. I know that sounds weird, but being a pastor, you know, it's always like church stuff all the way up until and through kind of Christmas. And then, then it really that whole next week I take off and don't preach ever the weekend after Christmas. And yeah, so my, my kids get way more of me after.

and nothing before. Yeah, for me, it's always been like my birthday is October and then like Thanksgiving happens and then Christmas. So between like those three, you know, my birthday is a big holiday in my life. So between those three events that I always feel like Christmas sticks up on us, especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's like three weeks or something. And it's like, man, it's already here. So Courtney, I got a question just based on how you said that about

Like your birthday being kind of like a big deal in your life, you know, beyond. So are you one of those people that has like a birthday month and you like force people to celebrate you for like weeks on end? No, I just do like the immediate, the like surrounding days. If it's not like my birthday proper, cause it falls in the middle of the week, it'll be like the weekend, you know, around my birthday. I'm not like crazy, you know, go ahead, Jason. No, you go ahead, Rob.

No, well, I was going to take us a different direction because I was going to like, you know, I wanted to push Courtney, but I also, you know, I kind of want to out Jason a little bit and it ties in with your Christmas question, but Courtney. So last week, Jason and I were at a pastor's meeting and we drove together because it was like hours away. And, and when we came home, I had parked my vehicle in a Cabela's parking lot. This is going to like tick off all of our,

you know, financial peace, Dave Ramsey people. But as we were walking in, of course, Cabela's always has like that little thing saying, join our club. And I, I go into Cabela's all the time, but I'm not, I'm not even aware of what the club was. And Jason looks at me he's like, you don't know what the club is? And I'm way more outdoorsy than Jason, but he pulls out his like club card. And so then I had to, I signed up and actually later today I'm gonna, I'm going to be traveling a little bit.

and I'm planning to make my first purchase with my Cabela's Club card. you know, again, it's Jason's fault. I blame him completely. Yeah, but you get points back. I got 20 bucks just for bringing you in. And that's going to be my new side gig is getting people to Cabela's to sign up for their club membership so that I can get the money out of it, which is an absolutely amazing segue into our guest today, if you really think about it.

because today we have on with us the one and only Eric Hoke. He is the author of Market Street Pastor. He runs the website, ihelppastorsgetjobs.com, which has got to be one of my favorite websites in the world when it comes to the name of the website. So I'm really glad because Eric.

I have had other conversations with him before today, and I just recently finished the book that he wrote, The Market Street Pastor. And I even, this is rare for me, I wrote a review after reading it for Amazon, just saying it was an excellent book and that every pastor should read it. you know, I only do that when I actually think it's a good book. Like if I don't think it's a good book, then I just won't review. I'm not one of those, you know, mean people who just write bad reviews.

But Eric wrote this book, it's excellent. He works with helping pastors, especially helping pastors get jobs outside of ministry. Not like he's trying to get all the pastors out of ministry, but he helps them do things that come alongside. We would call that co-vocational or bivocational. He's a sought after international speaker, trained over 100,000 professionals.

works in brands like Uber and American Express as well as then his work with pastors. So we are just excited and honored, Eric, to have you on the show today. Eric, welcome, my friend, to the Church Talk podcast. Thanks, Jason. I got distracted looking at your review and I want to say thank you because now I'm no longer 4.5 stars. I'm five stars because of your bump me up a little bit.

My identity is restored as a human being. Thank you so much. That's why I live. I live just to help people feel more human. Exactly. You live to get those $20 Cabela gift card kickbacks and to help people find identity in something as frivolous as a reading on Amazon. Thank you. And before we go any further, I did want to ask you, are you a member of

Cabela's club. Exactly. Well, I relocated from New York City to Lancaster County, PA. So I feel like I have to. That's like a rite of passage. Right. I mean, you're not. Yeah. Yeah. It might be necessary, actually, just for your existence. But man, Eric, maybe just to get started here, tell your story is pretty compelling, but maybe tell a little bit about the story of, you know, how you started this business, why you started it, you know, what it does.

Yeah, I'll give the high level. I'm an accidental, convocational church planter. So I know some people, they church plant convocationally, so having a job outside of the tithes and offerings of the church to support them. And they do it as a strategy. I'm not that smart. So I did it accidentally, where I planted a church in a historically under-established community, the South Bronx of New York City. Obviously, New York City is a pricey place to live.

and realized pretty quickly, okay, I'm gonna have to do this whole bivo-covo thing for a season because there's not enough money coming in to sustain my family in this pricey town. Obviously the joke was kind of on me because our church never got to a place to support me full-time, but I realized through the pandemic and through about 10 years of ministry in that context, that's not only as a viable way to lead ministry, it's a viable way to multiply churches, multiply disciples, equip saints.

And I realized I kind of backed into something that would become a major part of my life. The way that I help pastors get jobs started is because post COVID, New York City had locked down very early. We locked down for a very long time. Now living in Lancaster, PA, it's very strange because I asked pastors and ministry folks, like, how long did you guys not have services during March 2020? They're like, like six weeks. It's like six weeks? We didn't have an in-person gathering for over a year because of the restrictions of the city.

So with that being said, a lot of church plants like mine, know, 40, 50, 60 people did not make it through COVID. And one of my mentors from Redeemer City to City, the late Tim Keller's ministry had reached out to me. He's like, you know what, Eric? I feel like the reason why all saints outside of the grace of God kind of kept going and blossomed through the pandemic is because you didn't rely on the church only to pay for your life. And I think you should help other pastors to figure that out as well, because you know,

urban communities in lot of ways, the Canary and the coal mine for the wider society and culture. So that was the genesis of I help pastors get jobs, which started in 2022, March, 2022. So come up on three years. So I think he website, a lead generating PDF turned into a book and some speaking and training and networks and denominations being interested in what I have to share. And it's been a pretty, wild ride. So I'm grateful for where God has taken me. Yeah.

Well, so before I let the other two dive in with all their hard-hitting questions real quick, I get your Substack email. And this morning, we're recording on a Monday, the newest one came out. And it said, the headline was, is bivocational ministry the kiss of death for your church? Which I love the headline, first of all, but then I actually read it, and it was really good. I enjoyed the.

It's kind of the tension that you introduce that pastors feel, especially pastors that are connected with a denomination or network type thing. Why do you think that just from 30,000 feet, bivocational, convocational ministry is actually a healthy way to engage in ministry? What takes you to that conclusion? Yeah, I appreciate that. And thanks for reading the sub stack. So quick.

30 second backstory, was working with the pastor. He kind of saw the running on the wall that he can't sustain a full-time salary and keep the church moving. They weren't bleeding money, but they were kind of at a place where within about a year or two, they'd be in a deficit. And he was really jazzed up about the idea of finding another source of income, kind of moving into a co-locational model. But then when he went to talk to his denominational leader about it, his denominational leader said, don't do that. Everyone knows that's the kiss of death for a church. Basically, once you go get another job, like,

air comes out of the balloon and that's it the church will just inevitably die. So I decided to kind of research this is that actually true and what the article kind of the tension you're describing is it really isn't a clear answer either way but there is a lot of evidence that convocational pastors are healthier they actually are happier in ministry that actually last longer in ministry they're less likely to leave ministry so if the evidence skewed anyway is skewed towards actually it's not the kiss of death for your church it could be the

the kiss of life for your church. just made that up. I don't know if it's a thing, we were going with it. Is that like the holy kiss? we greet each other with a holy kiss. Exactly. Exactly. So when it comes to the benefits of convocation, I mean, starting from the very top and working our way down, the first and most obvious one is that a pastor no longer has to take the majority or all of his income from the tithes and offerings of those in the pews. Inflation is what it is. Housing prices are what they are.

People in our pews are feeling the same pressures and pinches that we're feeling as people in ministry. And if our only strategy is, well, get them to give more or get more people who can give more. I mean, you can do that. Churches do that that's okay. But that's one massive burden lifted is that now I'm receiving a source of income outside of that. The second thing I kind of poked on this in the article a little bit is I think the reason why convocational pastors stay in ministry longer.

or don't leave ministry, it's because functionally every week they leave ministry, right? If you're full time and that's what you do, and I've been full time in my career, youth pastor and executive pastor, it was very easy for someone like myself, maybe someone listening as well, to like really get that tunnel vision of like church is my life, church is my identity, if church is good, I'm good, if church is bad, I'm bad. And when you have other activities, including another job, that's not distracting you, but kind of taking you away from that tunnel vision.

It gives you a more robust view of the world, a more robust view of your faith, a more robust view of ministry. And the last thing, and I think this is the secret sauce, is it puts you in touch with real people every single day. When I was full-time in ministry, was lots of times I was cloistered in my office and prepping sermons. And that's where I felt like it was my duty as a pastor. And it was part of my duty, it certainly is. But that was like all I did. So I'd go up there and preach on Sunday. And I had no idea what, you know, Janet the, you know,

VP of the local bank did every single week. I had no idea what Bob the construction worker did every single week. I was in my own little world. And I think that prophetic voice that a lot of us as pastors long for can be recaptured by having another source of income working outside the church. So those are the kind of the three big ones that I would share are the benefits of of bivocational, co-vocational. That's so good, Eric. I too read that article this morning.

and I was gonna ask a question about it, but Jason obviously has been hogging the questions so far this morning. I'm kind of curious, because as I was reading that, how you set it up, which is really the picture of so many churches that are great churches, that have great faithful people that are impacting their communities, but like a church that's smaller in decline, maybe of 60, I think, in the article that you referenced.

You know, but like if you were talking, you know, just to a pastor who said, thank God that my church is big enough and we have enough money coming in where they can pay me. And I don't really have to worry about that. You know, how would you sort of interact with them or talk to them? Maybe like, would you encourage them, Hey, just keep doing what you're doing then. Or would you, you know, suggest still exploring ways to add additional streams of income? Cause again, I mean, some of the benefits of

really seeing people in the church step up when there's times where you're out kind of doing other work like them, you know, has a lot of benefit too. So, you know, what would you say to somebody in that situation? I mean, listen, if someone's happy and they're able to support their family and life is good, I'm not going to run out someone's parade. I mean, it's like, cool. If things are firing all cylinders, you know, keep on keeping on. I think I would maybe coach that pastor and say, well, convocational is more than just going out and getting another job.

Co-vocational is a whole mindset and philosophy that says we are all called to ministry. Every single one of us from the pastor to the, you know, like I said, the VP at the bank and the construction worker. So I think what I would encourage that pastor to do is let's think a little bit differently about how you're approaching your ministry. Are you the person who feels like because I'm full-time, I have to do everything? Like that was something I felt in my full-time ministry capacity. Whereas co-vocational, bivocational pastors recognize I can't do everything. I need to...

equipped as saints to do the work of the ministry. So I would probably approach it from the conversation of not, hey, I know you're happy and everything is good and you're getting paid well, but you still need to get another job. Like that would be dumb. If things are good, things are good. But instead take some of those mindset shifts that convocational pastors have no choice but to wrestle with and apply that to the full time. The full time leader would be where I would start. The last thing I would say as well is, I would evaluate the kind of age and life, life.

phase of that pastor. If that pastor is 28, I would say, okay, that's great that you're feeling that way now, but you have 40 more years of ministry, 35 more years of ministry. Maybe it's a good idea to kind of re-skill a little bit, learn some things, pick up some professional certification. It's just things like that. Just to keep yourself sharp. Because I do find one of the biggest challenges in my work is the pastor who's 60 has 60 people.

and says, I can't afford to do this, but I literally can't do anything else. So that'll be the second thing I would kind of say. So adopt a convocational mindset, even if you are full time and continue to sharpen your skills professionally, even if you have no intention of starting a new career, just ask some extra tools in the toolkit that will help you in ministry. Yeah. You know, and Eric, as you say that, like, I think there's probably a lot of pastors listening. I have felt this in seasons of transition myself. You know, it's like,

Like what would I do? You know, like I can't do or I don't have skills to do. And I remember again, like we were talking beforehand a couple of years ago when we had John Sanders on the podcast and he was like, actually people in ministry have lots of skills that are valuable out in the world. You know, maybe there's someone listening to the podcast this week who's thinking to themselves, I would love to be able to do something else, but I don't know that I can, you know.

What are some of the things that as you help pastors find jobs, you know, that you find them like, really, ideally, you know, fit for and flourishing in outside of the church? Yeah. And John and Les, those guys are correct. The challenge with we as pastors and people in ministry is that we're generalists. So we're like yellow belt to the hundred things.

Right? We're not black belts in one or two, maybe like preaching and leading small groups, but that's, you know, that's, that's fine. But we're, really good generalists. We can lead a board. We can communicate well. We can put together an email campaign. We can hire, hire volunteers. We can, we can train staff. We can fill in the blank. I mean, there's a hundred things the four of us on this call are able to do pretty good, pretty well. We have a baseline knowledge of it.

So when I speak with pastors and coach them, the biggest challenge a lot of them have is they say, hey, listen, like, I want to make this switch. I have no idea where to start. I did the Bible college seminary full-time ministry route. Maybe I'm 35, maybe I'm 45, maybe I'm 55. And this is all I've ever done is be in full-time ministry. And what I do is I kind of reverse it on them and I say, well, what do you enjoy doing? And a lot of times I get a blank stare.

because a lot of times we in ministry, we're always in kind of defense, meeting the needs of other people, kind of helping them in their journey and their formation. We never stop and step backwards and say, how's God uniquely wired me? And I think some of that internal work has to be done first because the job market doesn't start with what jobs are out there. The job market starts with where, how has God wired you and what sort of jobs would you flourish in as a result of the unique wiring he's given you? So.

Shameless plug because every author does this. So forgive me. If you buy my book, you get a free assessment that will help you identify how God has uniquely wired you. So high level, and we can talk more about this if you'd like to. The jobs I encourage pastors to explore is the nonprofit jobs. I say, if you're someone who leads from the heart, you're compassionate, you're caring, you're justice oriented, explore a not-for-profit job. If you lead by the head, you're cerebral, you're academic, you love reading, you love research.

explore a job in learning and development. That's what I did as a marketplace professional. If you're hands-on, you're like tinkering, fixing, juggling multiple tasks, multiple demands, explore a career in project management. You can earn a certification in that discipline and find a job pretty quickly. And last, people kind of grossed out by this, trigger warning here. If you're active, you're like moving with your feet, you like going and coming and calling people, emailing people, following up with people, pursue a career in sales.

I know some people get annoyed by that in ministry, like, sales, why would I ever do that? But if you're selling something you believe in, that's generally solving a problem for somebody, you you're making their life better. It's an honorable thing. And if you've ever tried to, you know, convince a group of people, hey, volunteer for our VBS, you were selling an idea. You weren't selling a product or a service, but you were selling an idea. So those are kind of the four I recommend that pastors begin to think about. But like I said, starting off with how has God uniquely wired you?

Yeah. When you talk about those skills, like I think back to whenever I was feeling called the ministry and I had lots of really great mentors and stuff. Like my grandfather's a pastor, my uncle's a pastor and our associate pastor and youth minister all recommended to me, number one, go and get a degree in something that does not ministry as your undergrad. They're like, whatever you find interesting. That's what they said. Whatever you find interesting. Cause you never know how that skill is going to come back around. And so I went and got a degree in French education, like foreign language education and French were my specialties. And it's just like.

And I immediately went to the seminary after that. Right. And I taught for like a year, but it was not, not very intense. And I was like, I'll never do that again. But those education skills came in handy every single week. Whenever I had to figure out how to teach something as a pastor, but then now I have a business where I'm teaching biblical Greek and Hebrew online. those foreign language education skills came back in a totally different way with a totally different language.

And like, and my grandfather, uncle, associate pastor, youth pastor, they all said that they had similar things that happened where all of a sudden they needed to be co-vocational in some kind of role. Or even just to help the community in some kind of way where, you know, my youth pastor was an engineer. He was like, I was able to help our community, in a number of different ways with city planning and things like that. as like a pastor who gets involved in the community in those kinds of ways. And so you had that kind of background as a civil engineer and being able to help his community. So it wasn't even paid work, but it was just kind of consulting work.

And so it's, it's one of those things that like, yeah, we develop skills, but also like, maybe you can prepare on the front end. Cause I do think what you're, what you're saying is going to become the norm for my generation of pastors, for younger pastors that we will need to do that. So there's ways that on the front end we could prepare, but also that's like what every old pastor used to do. Like they always had to start out in some kind of bi-educational some way. So it was kind of like, we hit this sweet spot where you could kind of guarantee a ministry, full-time ministry career and not maybe necessarily need to delve into other skills, but.

That's what advice was given to me and I've seen it come around already to benefit, you know, my ministry. Yeah, I love that good advice. What do you think, you know, and I don't want to split hairs, but the you've used both these terms and I'm wondering if there's a difference you've used bivocational and co-ocational. Are they just the same thing or do they have some different nuance in the way you use them? Yeah, it's not to give credit where credit is due. Brad Briscoe is kind of the mastermind behind the distinction.

I like his distinction, I think it's helpful. Bivocational is a pastor or ministry person who works a second job, but their ultimate goal is to go full-time. They said, I'm doing this for a season, maybe that season's a year, maybe it's two years, but ultimately my goal is to get to the church to a place where I can quit this other job and go full-time at the church. Co-vocational is somebody who says, no, my ministry is both in the marketplace and it's in the church, and even if the church couldn't afford to keep me full-time,

I still want to have my feet in both worlds because I feel a calling to both worlds. Both are strategies. Both are game plans for the church to be healthy and what it needs to be. One is not better than the other. And I think it's just one of those things that, like I said, I'm an accidental convocational pastor. I started off as a bivocational pastor. I started off thinking I'll do this for a season and the church will get to the place where it needs to be. That never happened because of where I was serving and the nature of the ministry.

But I became convocational is now I'm helping others do the same. But yeah, I think sometimes people who say, you cover guys think you're so cool. I'm like, Hey, listen, Bible covo full time, as long as you're doing what God's called you to do. That's what matters. Eric, I, again, I just want to ask. So for somebody like me, who's full time at the, at a church, but I have, you know, two or three side hustles. and again, my situation's unique. I pastor a medium sized church.

So I have a staff that's able to carry out like a lot of the day to day functions, you know, and, and, know, so whether I'm in the office or not, things still take place. Do I fall in either of those categories or am I just a third? Is that a whole separate thing? No, I would, I would qualify you as a convocational pastor because you have other ways of supporting yourself outside of the tithes and offerings of the church. Yeah. Okay. You're in the club, Rob, you're asking.

Cabela Club and the Kovo Club. Jason, get $20 for this too? There's a secret handshake. If I teach you that, get another 20. It's a lot of fun. Now we're cooking. So, you in all this, you say in your book, on page like 64, 65, you say, many of us in full-time vocational ministry believe

that we are the elite Navy Seals of Christians, and that Joe the used car dealer or Sally the hairdresser who attend our church are just quote, normal folk, that this type of thinking hurts people and especially the souls of pastors. How do you think our paradigm of vocational ministry has become potentially an obstacle?

to a healthy long-term ministry today.

Yeah. that's a, that's a loaded question. You said no heavy hitters out Jason, man. I was not prepared for that one. Okay. Let's, let's untangle that one. Yeah. The first thing that does is it can be very tempting. If you have a view that I am a full-time pastor, therefore I'm a Navy seal Christian. That's not that far from God values my performance over my heart.

Right? Like God, what I can produce is more important than who I am. and I grew up in a church context. I grew up Baptist. So it's like altar calls. If you feel called to ministry, raise your hand, we're going to bring you up front and we're going to pray for you. And that's very affirming, especially to a young person who's 16, 17 years old. They, my gosh, look at me. I'm, I'm God's special boy. I also wonder how much of that is, and we'll get a little deep here.

is our own father and our own mother wounds not being met as children and therefore they're met in the church. Right? So a lot of times we're like living out our ministry as a result of not having the nurturing, the love, the attachment we needed as children. So therefore we say, since I didn't get that from my earthly parents, I'm going to try to earn the approval of God. And the only way to earn God's approval is full-time vocational church ministry. I've had people in my church, you guys have had this too.

They come to you and they say, I want to be a pastor because that's the best thing I can do for God. And I always say, okay, well, interesting idea, but do you believe that God cannot love you anymore, any less if you're a full-time missionary in a developing country, or if you sell used cars down the street, God won't love you anymore, any less. I think for a lot of us in the pews, that's hard to untangle. And for a lot of us in the pulpit, that's hard to untangle. So I think that's how I would kind of answer that. think that there's this...

you know, whether you want to call it a caste system or a hierarchy where we look at, you know, our churches as well, they're, they're set apart. They're different than, than we are. therefore, therefore Sally, the hairdresser, and I forget who I said, Bob, the used car dealer or whatever that Joe, thank you, Bob. Joe, I'm very original with names. ever noticed they feel like, I don't have a ministry. I just cut hair. I don't have a ministry. just sell cars. And I think that's what can damage the soul of both the pastor and the parishioner.

that's so good. You know, Eric is you're saying this, you know, like I've spent most of my life in ministry, you know, anyone who tries to put me on a pedestal, I jump off it, you know, like I, I love, you know, a lot of the thinking out there, like I've heard Alan Hirsch talk about the clergy laity divide as a doctrine of devils, you know, so I've again, for decades, tried to flatten that and say, Hey, you know, you have

roles in your ministry and I have roles in my ministry and when we sort of work together, you know, we can do great things and, and, that's good. but my kid who's actually my oldest son, who's in college, and he's studying for music and ministry. he was telling me they did this assignment in class last week and, and, each group had to like do, do pieces and components of a worship service. And so, you know, different people are coming up and

and sitting down at different points and his group, one of the elements they wanted to do was communion. And the professor said, that's great, but you guys need to ask and find a local minister to come in and bless the elements before. And so that was just something they had to do. And I started thinking about that. And again, I'm very, I was ordained Wesleyan, know, so I'm very John Wesley, like, hey, let's knock this requiring seven years of,

training and education and degrees off and let's like take people who are called and you know, ordain them and let them go like ride around the countryside and tell people about horses and send them out, right? Yeah. Like, so I want to make it easy for people who are called and passionate to be in ministry. and, so when my son told me this, I really reflected on that. And again, as somebody who's, who's, you know, primary wiring is to flatten that divide.

I also thought to myself, well, but you know what? Like there's value to the 10 years of education I have. There's value to the 30 years of experience. so Rob is not the exact same as Joe and his church from the standpoint of skill development and in all those kinds of things. And so, you know, like there's a reason why when I need a procedure,

I go to a surgeon instead of my neighbor who has a really good table saw with a sharp blade. Right. and, so maybe talk about that a little bit, you know, just from the standpoint of, know, there is value, you know, for us and we have, are well trained like Navy seals. And yet my ministry is not any more valuable than Joe or Sally. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I currently worship in a Lutheran church and

I'm reading about Luther for the first time in my whole life. And his philosophy is on vocation are, they're fascinating in a lot of ways they're, timeless. He has this one idea that says, if you're a, a Christian shoemaker, you don't become a Christian shoemaker by making crosses on the shoes. You show your, your, you know, worship the God by making beautiful shoes. So Sally, the hairdresser, you're her pastor. She says, I don't have a ministry. It's like, Hey, people come into your doors and you help them feel beautiful.

You ask them about their story. Hey, what are you got going on this week? How's your nephew that was sick doing? How's your grandpa doing? I haven't seen him in a few years. Like you're administering people every single day in that chair. So you could either gouge people for as much money as possible for the crappiest haircut they can possibly find, or you can do your best to provide excellent service and love and care and support. And I work a full-time secular job and I prayed for coworkers. I prayed for people that I work with. That's been part of my

of my ministry. So I think it's a matter of, yes, to your point, Rob, we have had this unique training. We have had this opportunity to kind of do things that not everyone can, parsing through Hebrew and Greek to what Courtney can do a lot better than I ever could. Maybe I should become one of your students. But how do we equip Sally or Joe, used car dealer? Yeah, here's what ministry looks like in your world. And I think one of the things that I think that's missing is a lot of times with that clergy laity divide is

Well, they're the pastor, they're doing ministry and I'm just working a job. Well, you you're called to ministry regardless of what you're doing, being a stay at home mom or dad, like that's all ministry. So good. Yeah, think, yeah, Luther's theology of vocation is really good on that. And I could hear it coming through or either Luther's theology of vocation or you've mentioned Timothy Keller as being like one of your mentors over at the University of City. He has a really great book on vocation as well.

Cause I do think there is like a nice tension to balance there that like we've been given a special training, a special calling to help people connect with God. And so we are especially equipped to do that in a certain way, but that that is what our vocation is. And they have a different vocation that all serves greater purpose, which is, you know, we live in the world, but it's just God and the things that he's made. And we have to attend in store and take care of those things. You know, we all have different roles to do that.

I liked also like in your book, you, mentioned, you know, kind of this distinction. How do I know when it's time to consider a change? How do I know if it's time to consider something else? And you say there that like, it's when you have something to run to and not something that you're, running from. Right. Can you, how have you seen this play out? How do you counsel somebody when they come to you and say, Hey, I think I need to consider a change. What kind of change should it be? And how do I break this, you know, to, to my staff or my board or, you know, denomination or whatnot.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny because one of the earliest questions I asked when I was speaking to a pastor who's kind of on the fence about this change is, what does your husband or wife think? And what does your, you know, board or an elder that you trust or the pastor, if you're an associate pastor or youth pastor, like, what do they think when you talk to them about this? And I hate to say this, but sometimes they say, you're the first person I'm talking to about this. Like a stranger, a stranger they met on Twitter, not their spouse, not their board, not a trusted elder.

Just me. And I always look at that as like, listen, man, that's not great. Like you need to talk to your spouse. You need to talk to someone that knows you and trusts you in those situations. And then give me a call. I think sometimes what happens is, is, know, we've all had this, we have a bad day, a bad Sunday or a series of bad Sundays, or you have those, the elder, that deacon is on your nerves or the old lady who's sending you angry emails or that staff member who just, made a mistake hiring him or her.

And it seems like, man, you know what? The grass looks greener over there at XYZ corporation. I'm going to go work over there. And I can tell you as someone who has worked at XYZ corporation and has worked at the church and has had times in my, in my ministry, in my career, where I thought, let me jump ship and find something better that has never ended well for me professionally or in ministry. The only time it ends well for me is when I'm leaving to go over the next thing. I sense this is what God's calling me to do.

This is a position that makes sense for my goals, my family, my wiring. I'm going to something that he has next for me. I'm not running from what he has present. That's kind of the way that I would help pastors untangle that. And I think one of the first steps is what are those closest to you think? Because they have a lot better input and intel into your life than a stranger that you've met online does. Yeah. Maybe real quick, what are some of the things that you do

to help pastors through your website, through the business that you have. mean, they can, obviously they need to buy the book and they can learn more there and they need to go visit the website, but maybe give them a, a couple of, know, what are some of the tools you offer when it comes to helping them? Sure, sure. The first thing is, is that 99 % of the people who engage, help pastors get jobs, don't pay anything.

So if you follow me on Twitter, if you subscribe to my sub stack, all of that is completely free. I'm always trying to update that and share best practices. Cause I understand if you're a youth pastor and you're making $35,000 a year, you don't have extra income to pay for the products and services that I provide. I'm at the same time, I have a full-time job. have three children. I have a brand new mortgage. So I do charge us a very nominal fee for the services I provide because of the customization piece of it.

So if you go on website, you'll see a tab called plans. Essentially there's three tiers within that. The first one is having a DIY plan, is yeah, buy the book, you get a digital course, you get the assessment, like I shared. And if you're a person who feels like I can go in and kind of figure it out on my own inside the digital course, there's templates for resumes and cover letters and videos that I produced on how to interview in a secular marketplace, as opposed to a church interview, because those are vastly different.

And that's like a very accessible cost. I think it's about a hundred bucks, give or take. So that's really just like, I can figure this out. I can pay that. That's like two trips to Chick-fil-A that I won't take next month. I'll do that. The middle tier is everything there, but then you also get a customized resume rewrite. So you'll find a job that you think is interesting. I say, I really want to apply for this job, but I have a ministry resume. It doesn't really make sense for the marketplace. Can you go in and kind of fine tune that for me? That's kind of the middle tier. And the top tier is,

I need a resume, need the class, I need the book, I need the assessment, and I need five to six coaching calls with you, Eric, so can just walk through this process and figure out what's next. That's like the most premium service because now we're spending a lot of time together getting to know each other. So those are kind of the three buckets. But like I said, the vast majority of people who engage the work don't pay anything. I get emails like once a week of

I didn't pay anything by user advice and I got a job and I'm sorry to buy anything. I'm like, it's okay. Next time, just buy the book. Come on, it's not that much. But that's the way that I would help pastors and walk with pastors. Also with the sub-stack subscription, the premium one, which is included in the base package, I do quarterly events called CovoCon, which is convocational, bivocational, marketplace leaders, kind of sharing best practices around calling ministry and vocation.

that happens on zoom once a quarter for about two hours. Yeah, that's so good. So Eric, you know, I, I actually love your book. I, I think it has one of the best covers, on any book ever, which is great. You know, what do you, what do you hope, you know, so if someone's listening and they're like, I like this Eric guy and appreciate his heart and like what he's up to.

and they go on Amazon this afternoon and they buy a copy of your book and they read it. Like, what are you hoping that they take away from market street pastor? Yeah. I hope that it shifts a few paradigms and beliefs that they might've held that were unhealthy and holding them back. That's like the most like meta woo woo answer.

The really practical answer is I hope it inspires them to have honest conversations with those closest to them about ministry sustainability. Hope it inspires them to talk to their spouse, their board, their boss, their denomination. So listen, I read this book, not sure if I believe everything it says, but this piece really spoke to me. I wanna kind of figure out a way to make this more sustainable. Can we have a conversation about that? I think that'd be awesome. One thing that happened last week is I was...

with a pastor who bought the book and we spent some time visiting each other via Zoom. And he recognized he has to go convocational, like his church is gonna run out of money if he doesn't go convocational. And like, so what are the barriers? Like what's stopping you from making that leap? He's actually a real estate agent professionally and he can make some pretty good money doing that on the side. Because while I have this one elder who's via Amelia posed to be becoming convocational, long story short, but this elder's father planted the church and the father was always full time and

lots of times struggled with making enough money. So it was kind of in his, this guy's heart, even if you struggle, my dad struggled, so you have to struggle. And I said, it sounds like to me that you and his elder just need to sit down have a cup of coffee and just say, hey, listen, let's talk about this. Let's untangle this together. And he did. And this elder was like, you know what? I kind of see things from your perspective. And a letter was going out, probably about time this records to the whole church of like, hey, we're going to make this transition in 2025. So that's a big win. And a lot of times it's that

first baby step of just having that tough conversation.

Yeah, man, this is good stuff. I love how in listening to you talking and reading the book, you are so, I guess the word is bullish on the church. Like I talked to some people who talk about this bivocational or convocational or how pastors are perpetually poor and that kind of like we feel like we're supposed to be. that's like this, know, if you're poor, you must be doing it right type mentality.

But when I hear everything you say about the church, you're saying, no, no, no, we love the church. We want the church to thrive. We want you as a pastor to thrive in your calling. And so I want to help you think creatively about how better to do that. And I love that mindset because I'm reaching the point where I'm kind of tired of people who are just busting on the church for various reasons that I'm like, come on, let's.

instead of calling all this out, how about we start providing some solutions? And so that's what I like about what your ministry does, what your business does. You're not just saying things are hard and just do better. You're saying, no, let me give you some options to make this so it's less about money in your life and you can actually focus on ministry. Maybe with that in mind, I keep having this saying going through my head that

A pastor told me a long time ago, he basically said, know, we as pastors, we're paid to be good, but everyone in the congregation, they're good for nothing. OK, geez. What a high view of your clergy, of the lady. Holy smokes. Yeah, yeah. So I spent, you know, 20 years in therapy trying to unlearn that, basically. so maybe as we

you know, bring this in for a landing. Maybe offer a little bit of encouragement to pastors and leaders. Like as you think about, what are some words of encouragement you could offer them? As a podcast, our goal every week is to engage, equip, and encourage pastors and leaders. And so, I don't know, what are some thoughts you might have that would just be encouraging to pastors? Yeah, yeah. And that is definitely my heart. And I'm glad that that shined through in the book. man.

I'm going to tell a story without getting emotional. I'll do my best. I get emotional, it's part of the human experience, right? So I opened a story. I opened the book by sharing how I was on staff at a church. I was terminated pretty quickly and forced to sign an NDA. And that was kind of my experience in the church. And I think I'm grateful that I was able to bounce back from that.

and not look at one bad experience in one local church with one local pastor as this is how all Christians are in the whole entire world and have been for 2000 years. I'm glad I had that maturity to recognize that. Because maybe it's funny, I haven't even thought about this till now, but at that point I was only even a believer for about 11 or 12 years. So was still like a preteen Christian, but I knew enough to know this isn't all Christians, this isn't all churches. There's a quote.

And I don't know who said it, but I know that I learned this in seminary. If you don't know who said it, say it was Augustine because he said so much. No one really fact check you. So Augustine one time said the church is a whore and she is my mother. So despite all of the shortcomings, despite all the sin, despite all the ways that churches fall short to display God's love and care and stewardship and grace to the world, the church is still God's mechanism for reaching the nations, making disciples.

And I think it would have been very easy for me when I transitioned from church planting in the South Bronx to out here in suburban Lancaster County. I work a five day a week remote job. I make pretty good money. I have three kids who are six, five and two. My wife works at a local hospital as an electrician consultant. I don't think anybody would have been mad if like, know, Eric, you spent a really tough ministry and season ministry season in the Bronx. You can just chill for a few years. It's just to kind of take it easy. Like no one's going to be mad at you if you don't get engaged in the

congregation at this point of your life, just take it easy. But I recognized pretty quickly after moving here, I have to be involved in the church. And I don't have any formal leadership position. I'm not an elder or a deacon or a Sunday school teacher or anything like that. We show up, we attend service, I sing the hymns, I take the table. And the end of the story that I'll wrap up here is my six-year-old daughter and I beginning to have conversations about being baptized and her being baptized and what that means to follow Christ.

I just am so profoundly grateful that I didn't decide at this point, 11, 12 years ago, you know what, I'm done with this. I'm done with the church. I'm done doing that because my daughter's, my daughter Lydia's life is now different because I recognize that just as a church can be a place of hurt can also be a place of healing. So my encouragement for anybody listening to this is I hope and pray that all of our churches can be places of healing for people that, you know, maybe have bad experiences in church and are coming to you looking for some hope.

So that would be my encouragement. Yeah. that's so good. I appreciate that. I'm pretty sure it was Augustine who said that, by the way. I can't cite the source. I can't remember which of his works, but I'm pretty sure it was him. I think Tony Campolo actually would use that quote in sermons at times. So yeah. But man, thank you really for your time today. Thank you for the ministry. I know it's also a job, but the ministry that you do.

serving pastors. I do think it's a vital ministry. Obviously, I'm going to list all the ways they can reach out to you on the show notes and even through our social media stuff, we'll make sure that people can find you. But I really do appreciate it. And I encourage all our listeners, go get the book. I got the Kindle version so I could get it quickly and read it. And man, it was definitely worth it. And I really, really got a lot out of it in the process.

So Eric, thank you for your time, for your ministry. We hope we can connect some people to you because I know we have some people that listen to our podcast who could probably use just a little help in this. And I think it could be life giving and even life altering to the way they do ministry. So thank you for that. And to all our listeners, have an amazing week. know Christmas is coming, so get that shopping done and quit stressing over stuff that doesn't matter.

But most of all remember you are deeply loved and we are here to to serve you to care for you and anything we can do to help Please reach out and let us know do us a favor and share the podcast Maybe give it a review as long as it's a good one We appreciate that and just let us know how we can serve you better. Have an amazing week and blessings to you