A long time ago, I heard a Catholic author refer to the family as our domestic church. That has always served me as a good reminder that how I lived out my faith in relation to my family was a strong reflection of my faith. With that in mind, as we are checking our pulse or temperature in various areas of our life, it is a good idea to take the pulse of our family life from time to time.
No one has to convince us that the life of ministry makes many demands on our own family relationships. In the toolbox at www.pastoralcarenetwork.org, there are instructions for a family game that helps you all talk about how each member is doing with the pressures of being in a family where at least one member is a pastor. In the new expanded toolbox, hopefully to be up by the end of the year, there are different versions of that game for different family circumstances. Included is a game for a pastor who is single. Single people have families as well. They are just less easily defined by our culture.
One of the challenges for us as pastors is to recognize and pay attention to the impact of our ministry on the members of our family. Take a piece of paper and list some of the times when one member of your family or the other has been affected by the demands of your ministry. It might have been a missed meal or not being available for a school event. It might be that you were too tired to be fully responsive to his or her need when you returned home. It might be the expectations that either are or are assumed to be placed on them as members of the pastor’s family. List as many as you can over the past year.
Instead of feeling guilty about the items on your list, make use of them for some positive actions. One action might be to share the list with your family and see how they really reacted to those incidents. Occasionally having that conversation can be healthy in itself.
