Fidelia's Sisters: An online publication by, for, and about young clergy women, published by The Young Clergy Women Project.

But how do we make the shift to part-time? How do we convince congregations who view part-time ministers as “too outside the box”? And how do part-time pastors make the most of the two, three or four days we are on the job?

I contacted some of the pastors I know who work or have worked part-time, and they were generous to share their experiences, tips and advice.

Know When the Time is Right

Often pastors will decide to shift to a part-time ministry after becoming a parent. This can be excellent timing, because the church has already gotten used to being without the pastor during his or her family leave. It can make for a less abrupt transition, according to Ashley Goff, who negotiated a 30-hour-a-week call with Church of the Pilgrims (PCUSA) in Washington, DC after becoming pregnant with her second child. They were so glad to have her back at the end of her maternity leave that it cushioned the adjustment to part-time.

I was very fortunate in my negotiation, because we had a pastor who had attended our church for years while working in non-parish ministry. As it happens, he was ready to retire from that position, but still wanted to serve in ministry part-time. He and I now job share, 20 hours each per week, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. He and I complement one another, we make a good team along with the head of staff, and most people feel that two halves make more than a whole in terms of energy and quality of ministry.

Even without a pastor waiting in the wings, it can be done. Ashley and others affirmed that healthy churches know when they’ve got a good thing. They will do what they can to retain a pastor who is gifted and dedicated, even if it means having him or her for fewer hours each week.

That said, sometimes the timing is just not right for the church. One pastor found herself pregnant immediately after beginning her call, and as much as she would have liked a part-time schedule, she knew it was not in the cards. “The prior associate had left to raise children. So the church system’s panic was palpable,” she said. “My husband had also just started an unstable job.” It was a difficult phase of life, but she persevered full-time, and continues to serve that church faithfully many years later. If a part-time arrangement is not meant to be, know that people do survive, even in the midst of early parenthood, a spouse’s illness, or other special life circumstances.

Negotiating the Call

While others may disagree with me, I think it is a mistake to let the negotiation be framed in terms of the church being able to save money. Certainly we are more aware of financial issues facing congregations during this economic downturn. And sometimes churches have no choice but to reduce a pastor’s call to part-time status. But if that is not the impetus for the shift, then keep the focus where it belongs: the pastor’s request, her reasons for it, and the church’s opportunity to support a brother or sister in Christ who needs a different rhythm for ministry.

Shawn Coons, who currently serves as co-pastor with his wife, Carrie Smith-Coons (for a combined position and a half), emphasizes the importance of getting things specified in writing. “We had been told that if it isn’t on paper in the terms of call, it most likely will never happen. We have experienced this to be true.” He also advises doing your homework in terms of denominational insurance, pension, and other nuts and bolts issues. Helen Moore, who worked as a supply pastor for a small church in Clear Lake, Texas adds: “I made use of the resources available to me. This church had a troubled history with pastors and was struggling with the whole issue of closing. I often spoke with presbytery staff about how to proceed with that, and found them invaluable, both in mapping out strategies and in giving me pastoral support.”

Monica Thompson Smith, stated supply at Good Shepherd Presbyterian in San Antonio advises, “In arranging your weekly schedule, think about if you’d rather have multiple full days off or work fewer hours on a daily basis. I think it’s easier to just work fewer full days. If I go in to the office in the morning, it’s hard to quit at noon, for example.” In fact, churches will need you to help them envision what part-time will really look like. Many congregations have a hard time imagining a model of ministry other than a pastor in the study, every day of the week, ready and waiting for people to drop in.

Of course, interruptions are a part of ministry, and face time at the church is probably more important when one is only there a couple of times a week. Jennifer Garrison Brownell, currently a solo pastor at Hillsdale Community Church (UCC) in Portland, but who worked a 12-hour-a-week call in the past, made sure to be visible, even to people not connected to her ministry area, “for instance asking and receiving permission to attend governing board meetings. The leadership could still see my face and I think that helped to alleviate any concern that might have been floating under the surface.” At the same time, in an age of cell phones, laptops, and cafes with wireless internet, ministry is happening in different ways and in different places—even with people who work full-time.

Ashley Goff says, “One thing that might be helpful if folks are anxious about someone cutting back is just to give it a trial period, like a year. More than likely all will be well at the end of the year, but it might let folks feel better if they know there is an evaluation, or just a marking point so that change can take place if necessary.”

In my case, we had a nine-month trial period and a pastoral review committee, which met for several months, talked to church staff, surveyed the congregation, and presented a number of options to our session, with the pros and cons of each. These options included everything from dissolving the current part-time positions and searching for one full-time associate, to continuing with the current situation, and everything in between. The session considered their feedback and voted unanimously to keep the current arrangement for the foreseeable future.

Working part-time is freeing in the flexibility it gives people to do things during the week—everything from haircuts to doctors’ appointments to teacher conferences. Let congregations know there is a benefit here for them as well: you will typically take care of those things on your days off. In other words, when you’re on the job, you’re fully there.

Be Creative

Be creative in the ways you advocate for yourself and encourage others to advocate for you. I was blessed to have both women and men speak on my behalf in session meetings about my request, which helped keep this from becoming just a “mommy problem.” I did not plan this, but would advise women moving to part-time to make sure that you have some men as well as women advocating for you.

Shawn Coons found his denominational forms too limiting when describing the advantages of two pastors (in his case a clergy couple) sharing one position. “One thing we found very helpful in ‘selling’ ourselves was to provide additional information in our own website…The website gave us freedom to offer more information about what it might mean for a church to call us both, and we also included more personal information so people could get to know us a little bit. We kept it confidential, with a login that only those with our PIF (church resume) would know. The website made a very good impression on several churches we spoke with.”

Use the negotiation as a way to do some soul searching for the church and yourself. Ashley Goff found the part-time negotiation gave her the opportunity to examine what aspects of her full-time job description still made sense, and what needed to go: “Part of my job that was ‘cut’ I really wasn’t doing anyway.”

And I, too, used the process as an opportunity for revise my job description, which had not changed in five years. I am focusing energy on a new aspect of church ministry now, one that both energizes me and is something that the church has needed and wanted. I think that the move to a different set of responsibilities has helped eliminate some of the “creep” that comes when people are accustomed to a pastor’s doing something (“Oh, MaryAnn used to take care of this; it’s such a small thing; surely she wouldn’t mind just this once.”).

Sometimes thinking outside the box can yield some hidden benefits. Helen Moore worked part-time ministry took place while also doing clinical work as a licensed professional counselor. The church was small enough that it became clear that they did not have a viable position to offer someone full-time. “So they disbanded their pastor nominating committee and doubled my salary with the money set aside for the search,” she reports.

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries

Few of the pastors I talked to kept track of their hours. Churches were satisfied knowing the work got done, and none of them asked for an accounting of where a pastor had spent his or her time. Ruth Everhart, who works 20 hours a week as pastor of Poolesville Presbyterian Church in Poolesville, MD, writes down the number of hours she works each day, and occasionally reports an average, but nobody has ever asked for it. And I keep track of what I spend my time on, using a simple shorthand only I understand, because this is a new job description, and I want to have information readily available if people ask which tasks take up most of my time. So far, they haven’t.

Jennifer Garrison Brownell suggests negotiating hours in terms of a monthly rather than weekly figure, to allow for busy times. “That way, if you have to work one week to get ready for a funeral or run a VBS or something, you can flex it yourself the next week without feeling guilty or worrying about people looking over your shoulder all the time.”

One of the best pieces of advice I received in seminary came from Ernestine Cole, associate dean of students at Columbia Theological Seminary, who urged prospective pastors to enjoy the down times in ministry—they are few and far between. Instead of inventing things to do just for the sake of adhering to some pre-determined number of hours per week, revel in the slower times: rest, study, and take care of personal errands.

Boundaries and the need for self-care are huge issues, and the guilt of leaving things undone can be tough whether a pastor is full-time or part-time. Shawn Coons says, “My wife, who is currently part time, sometimes finds it challenging to keep things in balance. She often feels as though she’s either short-changing the church or short-changing our son, and she strongly feels a call to parenthood and to ministry. Sometimes the boundaries of part-time ministry are pretty fuzzy, and in a new position now, she feels the need to ‘prove’ that she’s working, as well as the desire to find a healthy balance.”

Jennifer Garrison Brownell entered ministry with the desire to work part-time. When she communicated this to the ordination committee, she was told, “There’s no such thing as part time in ministry.” She shares her experience:

At the time, I thought that was part of a baby boomer pattern of over-work and just indicated the sort of out-of-control work ethic that burns pastors out. My reply was gracious, but basically was, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ All of that was partly true—pastors do tend to be overfunctioning over-workers in my experience—but the committee did have a point. I never really kept track, but I suspect I often worked more than 12 hours per week. And, anything extra that I did, like working on Conference committees for example or, reading related to church stuff, I did outside my regular hours.

So, I would not advise, as the ordination committee advised me, not to do it. But it really is true that it will expand to take over any part of your life that you let it take over.

A few other thoughts about boundary-setting, shared in the pastors’ in their own words:

• Setting boundaries is completely up to you! No one else will do it.
• Even though you are part time, you still deserve as many Sundays off as a full-time minister.
• At times, I realized that I was not being very collegial with the number of hours I over-worked. It was fine for me, because I did not have another job… But if someone had come into that role after me who really had to support herself or her family on that income, plus other part-time jobs, it would have been very difficult for her. The church would have unrealistic expectations of the person in that role.
• The most difficult part for me was feeling like I was never fully present anywhere. I would say to anyone looking at part-time work to be aware of how you spend the rest of your time and allow for the fact that part-time work is about balance of energy and emotional investment as much as it is about time.
• I used to keep track of my hours, just for me. Then my daughter was born and I began multi-tasking so much that it just became impossible. Do I count the time I spend thinking about the sermon while feeding her, or just the time I actually spend staring at the computer screen?
• Never justify your existence. It should be obvious to all that you do important work. Remember who you work for, and it is not the crankiest elder on the session.
• Don’t do anything somebody else could do. Have a good administrative assistant and empower that person to do a lot of things for you.
• Many church members have bought into the “no such thing as part-time” idea, but it is expressed as concern for me. I really do work part-time, basically, but they assume I work more hours than I do, and worry that I am working too much. This might sound bad, but I don’t disavail them of that notion! I don’t lie to them, but I also think that if church members think I have a lot on my plate, perhaps they will think twice before assuming that I am the only one who can do something. It’s a gift when church members will take ownership of the ministry themselves.

The Greatest Challenge

For me the biggest challenge is balancing getting things done with being flexible and open. My job description includes administrative/programmatic responsibilities, and I am a very organized person. In the beginning, I worked hard to prove myself, and assure the church that it was getting its “money’s worth.” I got a lot done, but I neglected the relational aspects of ministry. Meanwhile my head of staff, who is very relational, was missing the times when we used to just get together and reflect on ministry in a less hurried way. Communication also became a huge issue, since our schedules are such that we only overlap about 6 hours a week at the church. So I am learning to balance getting things done with being available for the unplanned, yet deeply important, moments of ministry.

I have realized that the part-time negotiation did not end last year when the session approved my current terms of call. It is a constant negotiation, as it is for every pastor, as we find our way in the midst of the myriad needs, demands, challenges and blessings of ministry—regardless of how many hours a week we undertake it.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana may work part-time while raising three children, but she considers herself “fully pastor, fully mother.” She is Christ and Creativity editor of Fidelia’s Sisters.