A Covocational Church Planter is one whose primary vocation is in the marketplace, but at the same time, they feel called to start a church. A “covo” planter has a clear calling in the marketplace that they don’t intend to leave. They desire to weave that calling into the plan to plant a church. The prefix “co” is the reduced form of the Latin “com,” which means “together” or to have “in common.” English words like co-founder, co-pilot or co-author are examples of words that denote partnership and equality. Covocation embodies the reality: if a person is called to the marketplace and at the same time is called to start a church, the different callings are not isolated from one another. Instead, they are interlinked and equal.

A Bivocational Church Planter works a second job to supplement the salary the church provides. Historically, the language of “tentmaker” (the Apostle Paul’s trade described in Acts 18) has been used to define this type of church planter. Typically, a bivocational planter has a marketplace job that they view as temporary. They hope the church plant grows enough to provide the financial support to leave their bivocational job to focus full-time on the church.