When was the last time that you had a fairly indepth conversation about your experience of ministry? If you have children, have the children been included in the conversation? If you are married but without children in the home, have you and your spouse had that conversation? If you are within 10 years of retirement, have you and your spouse had the conversation that explores what retirement may mean for the both of you? If you are a single pastor, or educator, have you had that conversation with some other single pastors or educators that you trust?
One of the stresses of ministry is that it is a lonely profession. Despite the fact that our faith is built on the presence of community, most pastors and educators have a vulnerable side that is rarely shared even with their most intimate associates. There are reasons why that conversation needs to respect the boundaries of appropriateness. It can be a mistake to constantly want to discuss how stressed you are or the doubts that you are struggling with among various members of your congregation. In a variety of conversations that I have had with clergy, I sense a level of guilt that they carry because of the impact of their ministry on the well being of their family members.Yet they are not sure how to talk about it. I think that our isolation can be enhanced by our failure to develop a way in which we can explore the impact of our ministry on our family with our family. I also think that if they would have such a conversation with their family members, they might be surprised at the level of understanding and support that they would receive.
Those conversations need to take place at various stages in our lives. It’s different if you are concerned about your young children or your teenagers than it is if you don’t have children in the house. A single pastor or educator has a unique setting but they are not without family. As Jesus made clear, our family does not just consist of our blood relationships. When he said “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:34-35), he expanded the definition of family. In the various configurations and at different stages of our journey, we need to be able to sit down with others and explore the broad experiences of our ministry.
Over the next several days, I want to provide a means by which that conversation can be held in what I hope can be an enjoyable context. I will be describing what amounts to a game that you can play with other members of your family. I have created a series of questions that apply to the different configurations of family so we will take one context at a time.
