Bob James

It might be said that clergy families live in the shadow of the church.  It is a unique and specialized form of family life, with vocation, family, and spiritual life all intertwined. Because of this, pastor and spouse have different and equally challenging roles in their family and within the church community. Ministers have opportunities to reflect on this with peers or with a spiritual advisor, but spouses rarely do. There are even fewer places where they can talk about it as a couple.

We live in a time of transition in the church. There is a growing consensus that many aspects of  the “1950’s church” need to be realigned with a changing social and religious landscape. Expectations toward the pastor’s spouse and family are also decades out of date. Unfortunately, this aspect is often overlooked as new church initiatives are discussed and implemented. Both areas need our attention if the emerging church is to become a sustainable church.

Ministers put in long hours – and then are on call during their family time. The work itself can be emotionally draining, often leaving the pastor spent when he or she does return home.  And the intrusions of e-mails, texts, and phone calls make uninterrupted family time the rarest of commodities in the clergy home. The work follows the pastor wherever he or she goes.

Successful clergy couples have learned to talk about these issues and seek solutions that honor both work and family. No two couples are alike, so different answers emerge. Setting sensible boundaries between a pastor’s work life and his or her family time is essential to a successful ministry, an enduring marriage, happy children, and, in the end, a sustainable church. It is a skill not generally taught (or practiced) in seminary, and has to be learned through trial and error in the real world. Clergy couples need support in negotiating these waters.

One available resource is the increasing number of books out there that address the experience of clergy families. Even before my wife’s ordination we began the habit of reading books on the practice of ministry and talking about them together. It helped us understand what was happening to us as a couple and as a family, and to think our way around the roadblocks we encountered. Here are a few of those we found to be the most useful.

Clergy Moms: A Survival Guide to Balancing Family and Congregation by Allison M. Moore (Seabury Books, 2008). Although particularly helpful for women, this is a book for all genders (it is my personal favorite). Allison Moore has written a very readable book that draws upon research and stories from five mainline denominations to address a range of issues confronting a clergy family. An example of her style: “Parishes and infants make their needs known loudly and insistently; the needs of spouses or partners and older children are often much more subtle and easy to miss.”

How the Other Half Lives: The Challenges Facing Clergy Spouses and Partners by Johnna Fredrickson and William A. Smith (Pilgrim Press, 2010). This collaboration between a clergy spouse (with a Ph.D. in Practical Theology from Princeton) and a marriage and family therapist challenges many conventional ideas, such as the pastor-centered church: “If a pastor serves the faith community in a way that makes that community reliant on him or her alone, damage is done to all concerned. The community begins to see itself and its work only as the extension of the minister’s work and vision rather than as God’s presence for the world. The result is a weakened community and an exhausted minister.”  In dealing with the issue of whether the call of the clergy person supersedes their spouse’s career they ask the simple question “Do both partners get a turn?”

Rest in the Storm: Self-Care Strategies for Clergy and Other Caregivers by Kirk Byron Jones (Judson Press, 2001). While this book was written primarily for pastors, it quickly became a classic in the emerging field of clergy health and balance. As a pastor who had emerged from a significant episode of burnout, Jones has a deep insight into the multiple forces that cause pastors to overwork. At the heart of the problem, he writes, is our fear that if we don’t do it, it won’t get done, or a least done right: “The first delusion is the myth of our own indispensability. In order for us to embrace the time we need and deserve to rest and refuel, we must believe the unbelievable, the preposterous, and the absurd – namely, that life will go along just fine during our temporary retreat.  Indeed, things may go even better without us.  Often, it is when we move out of the picture that we allow for the necessary leadership shifts and decision-making to take place in our various ministry settings.”

Saying No to Say Yes: Everyday Boundaries and Pastoral Excellence by David C. Olsen and Nancy G. Devor (Roman and Littlefield, 2015). Applying Murray Bowen’s work on differentiation and family systems to the ministry, the authors state delve into the complex nature of setting boundaries: “While clergy can go through endless boundary-awareness training and prepare to set healthy boundaries, they are in the end attempting to do so in the midst of anxious parish systems that may resent those boundaries and work even harder to block healthy boundaries from being implemented.”

Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller (Bantam Books, 1999). Written for the general reader, Muller takes on “the forgotten necessity of rest”.  “It becomes the standard greeting everywhere: I am so busy.  We say this to one another with no small degree of pride, as if our exhaustion were a trophy, our ability to withstand stress a real mark of character.  The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others.  To be unavailable to our friends and family, to be unable to find time for the sunset (or even know that the sun has set at all), to whiz through our obligations without time for a single, mindful breath, this has become the model of a successful life.”   He goes on to warn: “If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath.”

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown (Gotham Books, 2012). A remarkable book (for everyone) that goes deep into the dynamics of authentic relationships and why we sometimes shy away from them. “Honest engagement around expectations and behavior is always fraught with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure for everyone involved.” A good companion to Saying No to Say Yes; it explains why that is so damn difficult.

 Clergy Families: Is Normal Life Possible? by Paul A. Mickey and Ginny W. Ashmore (Zondervan Publishing House, 1991). Conclusions drawn from a study of eleven Protestant denominations by the Divinity School at Duke. Although nearly three decades old, the findings remain remarkably relevant today. Even then, they discovered that “the clergy family is in a period of radical transition, a transition as profound as the introduction of married clergy by the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.”

Yoked: Stories of a Clergy Couple in Marriage, Family, and Ministry by Andrew Kort and Mihee Kim-Kort (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). This married couple – both ordained Presbyterian ministers – describe their partnership in ministry from meeting in seminary through their first years in the field. As the title suggests, the book is conversational in tone as the two writers alternate telling their story. Andy writes: “Growing up and watching my father as a pastor, I saw how necessary it was not to bring work home.  Even though he might not bring sermons or books home all the time, I could see that his mind was still at the office. When the phone rang at home, it was usually for him because there was some kind of pastoral need. I started to hate hearing the phone ring during dinner because I knew that it would take him away for the evening.”

The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction by Eugene H. Peterson (Wm.B.Eerdmans Publishing, 1989). An older book, and one directed at pastors, but a very important one. Peterson advocated that ministry focus on the basics: prayer, preaching, and listening. He felt that pastors succumbed to busyness at their own peril: “The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker.” He also said something that every clergy spouses needs to hear from their partner: “Early on I determined that I was never going to treat my parishioners better than I treated my family.”

Resilient Ministry: What Pastors Told Us About Surviving and Thriving by Bob Burns, Tasha D. Chapman, and Donald C. Guthrie (InterVarsity Press, 2013). This book summarizes the findings of a multi-year, broad research study of pastors and their spouses funded by the Lilly Endowment. In the section on marriage and family they identify five stressors: (1) The ‘normal’ pressures of marriage and family life; (2) Ministry  as a lifestyle more than a job; (3) Conflicting loyalties of church and home; (4) Abandonment by a spouse who is always on the job; and (5) The need of ministry spouses for confidants.

These are just a few of the many books out there that deal with boundaries, clergy health and wellbeing, and the experiences of clergy families. It should be noted that few of them are written by spouses or partners themselves. One of the goals of this blog is to bring the voices of spouses and partners to the table, so they can be heard directly.