Go out into the world...

One of the unavoidable demands of ministry is the time that is required when a pastor is engaged in conducting either a funeral or a wedding. The funeral comes at totally unexpected times and while the wedding is scheduled, it still means that the pastor is often engaged in both a Friday rehearsal and a major portion of Saturday. Both require silent sacrifices by members of the pastor’s family. If it doesn’t interrupt planned time together, it crowds the schedule so that other time to complete normal activities must be made. In either case, such events cut into family time.

It is a small suggestion but I wonder if you could alter the family’s perception of such events as something they could look forward to with anticipation. What if the family knew that when the “honorarium” for the pastor’s efforts was offered, it would be put in a special “family fund” to pay for a fun family experience. Then, even though they needed to make a sacrifice, they could look forward to being able to have a future fun experience.

Depending on the frequency of such honorariums, and if it seemed too self-indulgent to always spend it on the family. The family could agree that a certain percentage of the fund would be contributed to a good cause that the whole family chose. The family gathering to make such decisions could have its own benefit.

Either or both such decisions could have a healthy effect on what often can become a negative experience for the family.

Being the family of a pastor creates a complex dynamic. Sometimes the spouse and even the children can recognize that they too are part of God’s call, but in most cases it is the pastor that experiences the call to serve God in the ministry. The family, by virture of their relationship to the pastor, are drafted.

One of the dynamics of being part of a pastor’s family is that you do not have the same freedom that other members of a church have. However you react to the pressures of ministry on the pastor, whether in rebellion, compassion, or enthusiasm, it affects the pastor and his or her ministry. That is beyond anyone’s choice. It just is.

However, how the family chooses to respond and how the pastor recognizes and can work with those pressures can make a lot of difference in the health of the family. I once read from a Catholic author that the family is our domestic church. I like that phrase because it reminds me that it is one of the more visible ways in which my faith is embodied. How I handle the time pressures of the pastorate, the hopes and disappointments of ministry, and the tensions between the affirmations and the needs for forgiveness can say a lot about my understanding of the Gospel. We are not always in control of the events that occur within our family or our church but we do make choices of how we will respond to those events.

I think a healthy conversation that should take place at least annually within a pastor’s family is a discussion of the meaning of the call. In the Reformed faith there is the belief that not only clergy but all believers have a call from God. It would be healthy for the family of a pastor to discuss not only the pastor’s call but also the call of each member of the family in that current year.

It might begin by each member speaking of one of the positive parts of being part of the pastor’s family and one of the tensions created by being in that position. Then building on the positive affirmations, let each person explore how they feel God is calling them to respond to the pressures and tensions that they have named. Finally, it would be good to create a covenant within the family of how they are going to support each other in responding to the needs of their family for the following year.

Don’t expect it to be easy but do expect it to be fruitful as you journey together as a family in the unique context of being part of the pastor’s family.

There are a number of things that Presbyteries can do to contribute to the emotional health of their Pastors and Educators. Even something as simple as remembering their anniversaries of employment or ordination is a way of saying you are important. Occasionally someone can offer a brief experience at a Presbytery meeting that also recognizes who we are as servants of the Lord. I want to offer one such possibility. Feel free to adapt it to your situation.

Depending on the size of the Presbytery meeting, this might take 20 to 30 minutes. The leader would say that s/he wants to lead the group in an experience of grace. He then asks people to stand up and tell an affirmative story about someone else’s ministry who is present in the room. This is followed by repeated brief, unrehearsed stories of affirmation about other people’s ministry. You might need to say that this will continue for 15 minutes and the stories should be brief and to the point.

Following the story telling, you tell them that they are going to determine the winner of a grace prize. First step, using applause as your meter, ask the group to choose from which section of the room the best story came. Divide the room into quarters and proceed. Next, taking the winning quarter, have those who told stories to stand up and by a quick show of hands, determine the best story told. Now here comes the grace part. Remind them that if the prize went to the person who told the best story, it would not be grace but a reward for work performed, so count four people down and three people back in the audience and offer them a prize such as a $10 Starbucks card.

All of this is meant to be fun and celebratory. People hear about good ministry being performed, people hear about themselves being affirmed, and an unexpected person receives the prize. It is that type of experience that can lift our spirits.

In what way can a congregation be supportive of the emotional health of their staff? I want to suggest an approach that an official board could take that would allow them to be attentive to their staff’s emotional health. I will use the example of a pastor but it could be applied to any staff member. I also think there could be great value in allowing the members of the board to also have the same experience from time to time.

The exercise is simple. At least once a quarter ask the pastor to reflect on two to three satisfying movements in the congregation and/or in his or her pastorate. Then ask him or her to also identify at least one area which troubles them. This is not a time for debate but simply of listening to the satisfactions and concerns of your spiritual leader.

Once the concern and satisfactions have been shared, the session might expand the discussion in the following manner. Without debating whether the described experience looks the same from someone else’s perspective, explore what effect it might have on the life of the church if either the positive or negative movement would increase at least ten fold. What you are doing is exagerating the trend before it has happened in order to look at its implications.

What you are doing for the pastor is allowing him or her to share the beginnings of movements within the congregation that affect him or her emotional satisfaction within their ministry. If this happened quarterly, the church would have a sense of the pulse of the leadership of their church and maybe be able to address both the positive and negative before they became too large to handle.

In looking at how you can care for your emotions, do not neglect to recognize the healing power of underused gifts. I recently asked my staff to identify some gifts that they had but have not had an opportunity to develop lately. Each of them reflected on either gifts that they once used and had lately neglected or ones that because of forks in their journey of life had been left behind.

Either talking to a friend or using a piece of paper, I would invite you to take a moment to reflect on gifts you have that are not being used. I discovered in trying this with a session in my church that it is important to do this without thinking that it will produce more work. Assume that you had some more free time, what are some of your gifts that you might enjoy developing.

Now think creatiively how such gifts might contribute to your life even if they were only used in small ways. Sometimes you can develop tasks at work or home that draw upon those gifts. At other times they are an interruption on the otherwise demanding life. What I do think you will discover is that in even contemplating how they might be developed and used in a new way you will discover a lift to your spirits.

As we develop and use our gifts, we discover an affirmation of our life. Too often we find ourselves being ground down by the constant demands of our life and fail to open ourselves to our creative side. God gave us our gifts for a purpose. Drawing upon them can nurture and heal us from the wounds of our life.

You are more than you have dreamed of, so dream a little and discover some new sides of yourself.