In the past several blogs, I have dealt a lot with expectations from the congregation, the session, each other, and how they affect the family relationship. I think that research will indicate that that mixture of expectations, real and projected, create the type of pressures that can lead to a person dropping out of the ministry, and/or family dissolution. However, there is another aspect of the ministry that have some deep impact on the family as well and which sometimes can get overlooked as the pressure of the ministry grows. Sometimes we neglect to acknowledge and affirm the deep satisfactions that come from participating in the ministry. Of course that satisfaction can be part of the clergy person’s experience, but it can also be experienced by members of the family. It is important to recognize some of the negative pressures and develop strategies to counter them. But it is also true that if we focus on the negative, we can easily forget how much is also positive.
As a first step, let each of you think back to when you first realized that one of you was going to be a pastor. Try to make at least three statements of what it felt like to consider that either you or your spouse was being called by God to enter the ministry. Share those statements with each other and any discussion that might result from hearing those statements.
Of course with the passage of time and the build up of the stresses caused by the reality of being a pastor, some of those dreams may have been lost or at least been weakened. However, either new satisfactions or new forms of old satisfactions may have emerged. Affirming those can strengthen one’s ability to cope with the other stresses. So the second step is for each of you to try to write out 3 to 5 statements describing a satisfaction that you get from being a pastor or a member of a pastor’s family. You might also make a couple of statements about a satisfaction you think the other person may derive from God’s call which has resulted in you being in a clergy family.
My guess is that you will be surprised at the results from actually engaging in this process.
