A few years back, if you had asked Ivan Dobbs about how to run a city park, that would’ve been a piece of cake to answer. Dobbs, a 24-year veteran of parks and recreation work with the City of Fayette, knows his stuff.
But if you’d asked him about preaching? Well, that would’ve been a different story — that was something new.
"I had gotten licensed to preach, but I hadn’t had a church or gotten any experience yet," Dobbs said.
And then he got linked up with Larry Barnes, director of missions for Fayette Baptist Association, as well as with a "blessing" called the Pastoral Sustenance Network (PSN), a program of the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence housed at Samford University in Birmingham.
The PSN, which started out with groups meeting in Fayette, Lamar, Tuscaloosa and Pickens Baptist associations and eventually spread to St. Clair and Elmore associations, offers support and continuing education opportunities for bivocational pastors.
After joining his area’s PSN group, Dobbs started meeting at the Fayette Association office with Barnes and a handful of bivocational pastors once a month to go through different studies, share experiences and pray together.
"It was a tremendous help to me. I got to talk to experienced pastors, and it gave me a lot of insight," Dobbs said. "The study courses we took really helped me along in my ministry, too."
Dobbs later accepted the pastorate of Spring Hill Baptist Church, Fayette, in Sipsey Baptist Association, and though he still meets with the Fayette Association group, he’s helping to start a Sipsey Association group as well.
"It has been an unbelievable help to me, and I know it can be for others, too," he said.
Gary Farley, director of missions for Pickens Association, says the program has been "really helpful" to pastors who, like Dobbs, have been able to take advantage of its resources.
"The groups are good for fellowship and discussion and praying," said Farley, whose pastors’ breakfast group served as a model for the program in west Alabama. The group had already been meeting for several years when the PSN kicked off.
Farley also started a second group as part of PSN — a weekly Monday night meeting aimed at preachers who are new in the ministry.
"Only two of the ones who come to that group are already serving as pastor of a church," Farley said of the group, which has 11 enrolled.
The PSN "helps develop the cadre of bivocational pastors who will be the next generation for us," he noted.
Bivocational pastors, because they are a part of the workforce in another profession, generally are not seminary trained, Farley said. "We want to provide education so that they can be most effective as pastors. We’re going through Romans right now."
This class is the fifth his group has finished together, and through the studies, the pastoral hopefuls are moving towards certificates in pastoral ministry offered by the Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence. "It’s been an exciting thing for me to watch them learn and grow," Farley said.
The meeting also provides fellowship and support for them, he said.
For example, he noted, one of the two class members who is currently a pastor arranged a revival at his church using other members of the class as the evangelists.
"It is wonderful experience for them, and it reflects the emerging relationships that are occuring among the guys," Farley said. "This, in turn, will help support them and the association in the years to come."
In Fayette Association, the group is more of a mix of experienced pastors and new ones, but it still has relatively the same outline and goals, Barnes said.
"Each association develops its own game plan for meeting and times," he said.
Fayette’s is structured around study content, reflection, discussion and prayer. "We have had some good experiences in the growth of ministry skills and developed new appreciation for fellowship and peer relationships," Barnes said.
The group, which meets on the last Tuesday night of each month, has had a steady attendance of seven or eight since its inception nearly four years ago. "That’s fairly remarkable for bivocational pastors, whose schedules do not allow for a lot of meeting time," Barnes said. "That in and of itself shows that this is something meaningful for them."
Dobbs can attest to that.
"I’m about to retire soon, and I’m hoping to put all my time into being a pastor," he said. "This has been such a valuable learning experience for me. I don’t know what I’d do without it."
For more information about starting a PSN group, call Farley at 205-367-8632.
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