BANGOR, Maine  Pastors who divide their time between serving the church and working other jobs for a living are overlooked treasures of the church.
That was the principal message at a three-day meeting of about 25 Presbyterian and Episcopal "tentmakers"  men and women who serve in church positions but derive all or most of their income from outside jobs  who serve congregations short on leadership and cash for salaries.
The Presbyterian News Service reported that tentmakers from the two denominations gathered Oct. 31 for the annual meeting of the Association of Presbyterian Tentmakers. They heard from church consultants, parish officials and other guests about their unique style of ministry and how it could have a greater impact on denominations faced with declining memberships and budget constraints.
The ministry is largely unseen and not well understood, said the Rev. David Vellenga, a tentmaker from Raleigh, N.C.
"I think the church at large is not used to this idea and tends not to notice it because it doesn't fall within what people have been comfortable with," said Vellenga, who helps develop microcomputer chips at his "day job."
More people need to be made aware of tentmaking as a viable option for those called to ministry, he said.
"When they think they're being called to ministry, they usually think that means, ‘I'm being called to be a full-time church employee …devoting all my working hours to the ministry,'" he said. "We know that that's probably too narrow a way of looking at ministry as a vocation."
Tentmakers and speakers called the ministry a cutting-edge solution to the current shortage of full-time clergy.
"Tentmaking as a form of ministry is very rich," said the Rev. Douglass Walrath, a church consultant and retired professor at Bangor Theological Seminary. "It has a lot to contribute to the contemporary scene because of the challenges of providing ministry  for example, in small congregations and in situations where people are not able to afford a full-time minister."
