But roughly seven years later, intrigued by hearing about a program funded by the Lilly Endowment to train “dual-role” clergy, Vellenga began to veer a different way.
When his wife went to work full-time – she’s a computer programmer and systems analyst – Vellenga became a full-time dad, serving a small church on a part-time basis. He also earned a two-year degree in electronics.
And when the family moved to Raleigh, N.C., for his wife’s career, Vellenga went to work full-time for a Research Triangle firm in microlithography, which is part of the process of making computer chips. He stayed in that job for 20 years, switching four years ago to similar work at North Carolina State University.
On the pastoral side, Vellenga took part-time church ministries – at a small church and doing pulpit supply. He’s now the stated supply pastor at Nutbush Church, a congregation of about 40 members near Henderson, N.C., an historic congregation that has had a part-time pastor for decades.
“They’re a small congregation that has really adapted well to part-time leadership and don’t have a dependency relationship on the pastor, which I think is all really good,” Vellenga said. “It of course relieves the financial burden, in that they don’t have to support a full-time (economic) package for a pastor” – his health insurance and pension benefits are all supplied through his full-time job.
And the lay leaders “really have a sense of ownership about the church. … They basically do just about everything in the day-to-day operation of the church.” He preaches on Sundays, performs weddings and funerals, and visits people who are ill.
For himself, Vellenga, 64, has enjoyed the balance between a technically-oriented job and one that focuses more on people.
Does he feel he’s given anything up by switching from full-time ministry to tentmaking?
“Not really, no – I really like it,” Vellenga said with a laugh. “I really enjoy the work I do technically. I enjoy the people I work with – they’re good friends. It’s an interesting subject. I would hate to give that up.”
But many are not willing to consider tentmaking, he said – in part because “it has an image problem. I think for churches it’s seen as a second-class way of having a minister. Full-time ministers tease me and say, ‘When are you going to be a real minister again?’… I think there’s a feeling the real ministers are the full-time ministers, and then there are these odd people like tentmakers and CLPs (commissioned lay pastors). I think this idea that ministers are by definition full-time church employees is really deeply embedded.”
For presbyteries, having ministers who are to some extent financially independent can be uncomfortable, Vellenga said – although there’s precedent for tentmaking from the earliest days of church history in the United States.
Vellenga also finds that his interactions with people at his technical job can be a form of ministry too.
“We come up against people who are totally different from Presbyterians,” he said. “They are people of every faith, or none.”
Outside the church, Vellenga never introduces himself as a minister to start with, although he does tell people about his pastoral work as he gets to know them.
“Sometimes they will share things with me that they might not want to even share with their own minister,” Vellenga said. “I do a lot of damage control for the church, because a lot of people have gone to church and have had bad experiences there. They’ll tell me, ‘I don’t go to church because of such-and-such.’ I’ll say, ‘That’s not really the way church is supposed to be. That’s not the way all churches are.’ … There are people who never in the normal course of their lives talk to a minister. They just wouldn’t go to church. I have some very interesting theological discussions.”
