I am 45 years old as I write this, which puts me squarely at mid-career. I turned 25 the summer I graduated from seminary, and 65 is the age at which I will theoretically retire, though that’s hard to imagine for multiple reasons.

My peers have started to use this midway point to evaluate their ministries and the trajectory of their lives, which I think is a great idea. Here are some of the questions that I think those of us in our 40s need to be considering:

Vocational

How has my call to ministry evolved over time? I went to seminary to prepare for youth ministry, partly because I had never seen a woman in a lead or associate pastor role. I have worked with youth, but most of my ministry has been as a solo or associate pastor and now as a coach. The essentials haven’t changed, just the shape of how I have lived them out. It can both unleash our imaginations and give us an appreciation of what we have done and learned and survived to look back at the twists, turns, and constants in our vocational journey.

How do I fit with where the Church is heading? The Church is - rightfully so - in a big shift. For some of us that is really good news, and we’re excited to see what comes of this transformation. For others of us this reality is daunting, because the Church of today and tomorrow is very different than the Church we were trained to lead. We need to consider where we want to locate ourselves in relationship to where the Church is now and where it might be headed.

What knowledge have I gained in the first half of my vocational life, and how do I want to use it for good? We don’t go through 20 years of ministry without learning a whole lot - about ourselves, about the God we serve and the Jesus we follow, and about the Church and world. Let’s use that hard-wrought wisdom!

What new challenges do I want to take on in the second half of my vocational life, and what skills will I need to develop? This isn’t necessarily about looking for a new context or role, although it could be. It’s more about considering how we want to grow. What tools do I want to add to my toolkit that would benefit my congregation and me, or even that would just bring delight to them and me?

What legacy do I want to leave in my congregation, larger community, and the Church at large? Maybe this relates to the wellbeing we foster in our communities. Maybe it’s creating pathways of welcome for those who need it most. Maybe it’s naming the gifts in others that they can’t see without help. We can’t control what others say about us once we are gone, but we can do what we’re able to infuse our environments with love and hope.

Personal

How do I navigate the realities of being in the Sandwich Generation? I have a child who is 10 and still wants to be close to his mom most of the time (though that could change at any moment). I have a mom who is 70, hangs out with friends multiple times a week, volunteers in her community, and goes on trips by herself (though that could change at any moment). I feel the tug to be with both my son and my mom. I am not alone, as many of my peers - having gotten into the parenting game late like me - have young children and parents who need increasing amounts of help. How do we roll with this, even as we also serve in a vocation that is physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sometimes financially taxing?

What is my financial situation? It is generally held that mine is the first generation in a while that has not done better money-wise than previous generations. (This might only be true for demographics that have benefitted from generational wealth.) Many of my peers carry loads of debt from school or mortgages or credit cards. Some denominations offer salary guidelines and generous pensions for ministers, while in others we’re on our own to negotiate pay and choose and invest in retirement funds. Now is a good time to assess our entire money picture, looking both backward and forward to make a plan. Thinking and talking about money is not crass. It is a means of care for ourselves and the people we love.

What support systems have I built for now and for later? In ministry our worlds can become very small. We can mostly know and hang around people in our church and our clergy colleagues. We need bigger circles of care for now and later, including both non-churchy (or at least not our church) friends and professional caregivers such as a primary care doctor we trust and a therapist we can confide in.

Mid-career is a great time for intention-setting. We’re not newbies anymore to ministry or to adulting. We know some things. We probably have some stability, though maybe not as much as we’d like. We want to make our remaining professional years count but not crispy-fry ourselves in the process. I hope these questions can help you in looking forward and backward, and I’d love to hear what questions you’d add to this list.

Photo by Luke van Zyl on Unsplash.

When I entered seminary in the fall of 1999, I was there to train for ministry. I was not on the lookout for a spouse. And yet, in my final year, I found myself falling in love with a United Methodist pastor from Alabama. When Matt was commissioned for service in his conference, we were not yet engaged. Three years later, though, we were newlyweds when Matt underwent his interviews for ordination.

I attended the interview retreat as moral support. I was shocked to be called into Matt’s actual interview with the Board of Ordained Ministry. The Board asked us what we would do about baptism when we had children, since I was ordained to ministry in a believer’s baptism tradition and the United Methodists practice infant baptism. “Well, if we have children [red flag #1 for the Board], we’ll have that conversation then [red flag #2].” Luckily, in spite of my obstinance/honesty, Matt was approved for ordination. But the summons to his interview, much less the question posed to me, was an early signal to me that life as a clergy spouse came with some land mines.

A few months ago Matt stepped away from pastoring a congregation, at least for a season. As we planned for a year and a half for his leave, which was prompted by the challenges of Covid, 20 years of ministry without a break of more than a week at a time, and other factors, I could not wait to throw off the weight of all the projections that come with being the minister’s wife. Some people relish the role of being married to a pastor. I do not, though I delight both in being clergy myself and being a spouse to Matt.

Since I now feel like I have space to talk more freely, I thought I’d share a bit about my experience. I don’t speak for all clergy spouses, though I expect many could relate with the struggles of being:

Silenced. Ministry is one of the few jobs in which the pastors might (though this should never be assumed) bring their families to work. That makes the stakes higher for everyone in the pastor’s family. If the pastor runs afoul of the congregation, the pastor’s family loses a faith community. If the pastor’s spouse and/or kids “act out,” that causes trouble for the pastor. For me this has resulted in the need (felt, if not actual) to keep my cards close to the vest.

Hurt. People sometimes feel like the pastor and family are fair game for any kind of criticism. I’m not talking about the constructive kind, which is good and necessary for a minister to grow. And it is a special kind of pain to watch an embattled pastor navigate conflict, knowing that you as the spouse can’t do anything to make things better.

Weighed down with expectations. I don’t think many churches (that Matt would serve, anyway) still hand the curriculum for the children’s Sunday School class over to the pastor’s wife on the first day. Other stated and unstated suppositions still lurk, though. Some are benign, like that I would bring a dish to a church potluck. (I am not the cook in our family, and no one needs to take a chance eating what I would make.) Some are more insidious, such as that my work should always be eclipsed by Matt’s.

Vocationally hemmed-in. Being married to an itinerant minister who serves at the pleasure of the bishop has meant we’ve gone where Matt is appointed, and then I adjust vocationally. (Other clergy families, even United Methodist ones, navigate this differently, and I celebrate that!) This has resulted in two narratives that are both true: 1) that Matt’s job security has given me the freedom to develop my ecumenical interim work and coaching practice (which is the story I lean into on my better days) and 2) that I have had to create a portable ministry so that I don’t have to struggle afresh to find my vocational footing every 3-4 years.

Lonely. Pastors have to set boundaries with parishioners for their own ethical integrity. Clergy spouses often end up doing the same to protect their clergy spouses and/or themselves for reasons related to many of the challenges named above.

I give this window into clergy spouse-dom because it doesn’t have to be so hard. Churches can support pastors and their families, and when this happens, everyone wins. Pastor, spouse (and kids, if applicable), and congregation are all energized by love and trust, and a longer and more fruitful mutual ministry together becomes possible. Specifically, here is what churches can do:

Treat your pastors fairly. This is basic stuff that goes for all pastors, whether or not they are partnered or have kids. Respect their time, come alongside them, pay them a just wage, tell them you appreciate them every once in a while, bless their need for breaks, and give them useful feedback. This allows these pastors to be fully human and more present to their loved ones.

Remember that spouses are our own people. When we speak, we speak for ourselves. Clergy shouldn’t have to deal with blowback because church members are clutching their pearls at something the spouse said or did.

Respect the clergy spouse’s needs. Our lives do not have to revolve around a congregation we do not lead. We want to work. We want to have friends who don’t know us as Pastor’s Spouse. We want to feel free to go to church somewhere else sometimes or always. We might even want to sleep in on the occasional Sunday morning.

Don’t expect more of clergy spouses than you would of anyone else. If you think spouses should do more, there should be a formal position with pay involved. If you think spouses should be better, remember that we are human.

See and value clergy spouses. We have our own gifts and callings that we want to exercise to their fullest.

Support and encourage our desire to expand our connections. Our desire to make friends outside the church is not a criticism or rejection of those in the church. We just need to jump out of the fishbowl sometimes.

Offer help with clergy kids, without judgment. Whatever you think about the pastor or spouse, please love our children, even and especially when they are acting out. (It is stressful to bring your child to your own or your spouse’s workplace!) Show interest in them. Engage them in conversation. Invite them to sit with you. Support the need for their care during meetings and classes.

Someone who is currently a clergy spouse can’t say all these things I’ve shared with you. It’s too touchy. But since I now can, I hope my experience sheds some light on what it’s like to be a clergy spouse and how your church can more fully support clergy families.

Photo by Janno Reyes on Unsplash.

As a kid learning to love basketball as Michael Jordan was emerging as an NBA superstar, I was curious about the Netflix docuseries covering his final season with the Chicago Bulls. I found several aspects of the series fascinating: Jordan’s exaggerated sense of competition, his rise as a cultural icon, his role in making individual endorsement deals as a team sport star commonplace. (By the way, did you know Nike was a small company specializing in track shoes until Jordan signed a deal with it straight out of UNC? I didn’t.)

But it was a quote from a journalist in the last episode that really grabbed me:

“Most people struggle to be present. People go and sit in ashrams in India for twenty years, trying to be present. Do yoga, meditate, trying to get here, now. Most people live in fear because we project the past into the future. Michael is a mystic. He was never anywhere else. His gift was not that he could jump high, run fast, shoot a basketball. His gift was that he was completely present, and that was the separator.”

— Mark Vancil, quoted in the Netflix series "The Last Dance," episode X.

Michael Jordan’s gift wasn’t his athleticism, it was his ability to be present.

That’s quite a statement. It’s also a ray of hope to me. I’ll never have great physical gifts. I’m a decent preacher, but no one will ever call me the GOAT. Sometimes I’m slow to respond in conversation. But being present? That’s something that I - that you - can conceivably do. That’s the real gift, and it’s available to us.

Sure enough, being present is especially tough right now when the demands are greater and our roles overlap in messy ways. That’s also why it’s even more important. If we can be where we are, if we can be with the people around us, if we can stay in the present without worrying about how our leadership will be received or obsessing about what our choices are doing to our loved ones, not only will this time be more bearable, it will also make us better pastors, parents, friends, and citizens.

What do you need in order to be deeply present? Keep it simple: a deep breath, a focusing verse of scripture or image, a ritual that helps you transition from one mode or task to the next.

I wonder what incredible, relational things we might be capable of if we leaned into this superpower.

Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash.

It was not always a given that I’d become a mom. After eight years of marriage, my spouse and I still shrugged at each other every time one of us brought up the topic of parenthood. That is, until God dropped a vision-bomb of me setting down a toddler, who then ran so gleefully to a man - my husband - that the parent-child connection was obvious.

It was almost two years until that child I’d seen in my mind was born. As an interim minister, I was between calls, but I knew I’d want to work again soon. The kind of position I was looking for was different than pre-baby, though. I wanted to go part-time while Levi was so young, and I needed a congregational context that would welcome his presence rather than resent it. (In fact, I turned down one job offer when it seemed the senior pastor didn’t really want my kid around.) I hit the jackpot, accepting the call to be minister to youth at a church I had previously served as interim associate minister. The search team chair bent over backwards to make the situation work for Levi and me. She found us a spot at the church’s early childhood ministry for the days that I worked. She arranged for childcare on Sunday evenings when I would be leading youth group. The senior minister and my immediate supervisor, the associate minister who followed my interim, were also generous with their support.

I loved that I could utilize my gifts as minister while my baby was across the hall from my office, being cared for by people who adored him. I loved that his teachers could ask me questions or grab me about concerns at any time. I loved that when he refused to take a nap in room full of active babies (the FOMO has always been strong with this one), I could lay him down in my office, turn off the lights, and work by computer monitor light while he slept. Sunday mornings, though, were my favorite. Since I served a Disciples of Christ congregation, there was communion every week. As youth minister I rarely presided at the table, so I slipped out the back of the sanctuary, picked Levi up from the nursery, and joined the end of the communion line. At first I carried him facing out in a wrap, his smile and others’ big as we walked down the aisle. As he began to walk, he teeter-tottered forward, and people on the end of the pews clutched their chests in joy. In front of the communion table, he regularly heard that the bread and juice meant that Jesus loved him.

It was a gift for both of us to spend two years in an environment that supported my ministry and nurtured my budding parental identity and my son’s faith development. It reinforced for me that I was called both to ministry and motherhood, and that in the right context, I could do both imperfectly but well. I believe - hope - that our presence also reassured the congregation of the same to the benefit of other clergywomen who might serve there.

Above all, though, I gained insight into who God is as holy parent. God does not compartmentalize when it comes to Jesus - God is Creator/Sustainer/Redeemer of all humankind as well as Jesus’ own parent at all times, even when the overlap gets messy. God wishes to affirm all the parts of us as well. That is part of what it means to be made whole.

As I transitioned from ministry in the congregation to the ministry of clergy coaching, making space for my two calls has been the priority. As Levi got older and started school, I started to divide up my life into work and family tracks. During the pandemic, those lines have slowly been erased. I’ll admit - it was rough at first. It’s still hard sometimes. But once we found our groove, I remembered how wonderful it was to be able to snuggle my baby (now 7 years old) anytime during the day while still living fully into my pastoral call. Thanks be to God for the chance to pastor and parent.

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This post is part of the book launch blog tour for Embodied: Clergy Women and the Solidarity of a Mothering God. Embodied includes reflection questions at the end of each chapter, to instigate conversations that lead to support and new perspectives. The book is available this September from Bookshop.org, Amazon, or Cokesbury.  Check out all the stops on the blog tour, and buy the book!

Sure, I’m biased. But I believe coaching is more valuable now than ever. Pastors are facing so many new situations for which there is no expert advice. We are all feeling our way along, and coaching can help you think through your gifts, needs, resources, and context so that you create a path that fits you and the people in your care. For example:

Is your church continuing to meet online for the foreseeable future, yet you’re exhausted and not sure how to make this means of ministry sustainable? Coaching can help you think through goals for this time, cull the to-do list down to the tasks that make accomplishing those aims possible, and a make plan for tackling the tasks.

Are you undecided about how to approach the traditional start of the program year in this very untraditional season of social distancing? Coaching can help you tap into your creativity and place this program year in a larger spiritual formation trajectory, making it easier to focus on and get excited about what is most important.

Are you looking for a new call during this pandemic, wondering whether churches are searching for pastors and how a candidate can tell her story well in these changed circumstances? Coaching can help you identify the added opportunities and challenges of being in search & call right now, enabling you to capitalize on the former and manage the latter.

Are you scratching your head (or, let’s be real, panicking) about how to balance supervising your child(ren)’s virtual or blended school while staying faithful to your ministerial role? Coaching can help you name how you want to show up for your family and your church, then make an actionable plan for how to operate that way.

Do you want to explore a new self care strategy since many of your usual outlets are unavailable to you? Coaching can draw out the characteristics that make self care effective for you and broaden your thinking about tactics that meet those criteria.

Has your pastoral position been downsized from full- to part-time because the offering has tailed off during the pandemic? Coaching can help you make the transition to being truly part-time - not just full-time with part-time pay - and to discover additional income streams if needed.

Is the polarization over mask-wearing morphing into political debate in your congregation - with a U.S. presidential election looming - and leaving you caught in the middle? Coaching can help you discern how to self-differentiate so that you can tend well to relationships rather than get hooked by arguments.

Not only can coaching assist in these areas and more, but it is fully customizable to your goals and your schedule. If you had professional development funds earmarked for conferences you can no longer attend, there is no better use of that money than to contract with a coach who can help you navigate all that 2020 is throwing at us. I welcome you to schedule a free discovery call here to learn more about how I approach coaching and to ask any questions you might have.

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash.

Two months after most of the United States began feeling the sucker punch of Covid-19, states are moving at various speeds to “re-open” the economy. I have a number of feelings about this, many of them related to the dangers faced by vulnerable populations and the likelihood that we’ll all be sheltering at home again soon.

And then, there’s this: the reality that many of the people whose work drives the economy will be unable to return to their positions because childcare is so scarce. (It was virtually non-existent pre-Coronavirus in my rural Alabama county, where there was one daycare, no extended day at the schools, and no summer programming.) Schools are closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year, as are many childcare centers for the foreseeable future. Parents can’t ask neighbors or family to look after kids because of the possibility of spreading the virus or because they’re taking care of their own children.

We all know what this means, right? Disproportionately, the responsibility of caring for kids in the absence of outside help will fall to women. Women generally earn less, so they’re the ones to give up their jobs when there isn’t adequate childcare. Both women and men have internalized misogyny that characterizes childrearing as women’s work. And these two issues are for two-parent households. Single parents face a range of additional barriers to work when reliable childcare is out of reach.

We simply cannot lose women’s work in any sphere, ministry included. We cannot sacrifice their innovation, their perspectives, their gifts, their tenacity, their tendencies toward collaborative leadership - especially now, when the world is topsy-turvy and demands grit and fresh thinking. I don’t have any answers for solving the childcare dilemma, unfortunately, but I would urge that women consider the following:

Accept that the ongoing crisis is hard for everyone - and that its not changing anytime soon. It would be easier to ride out a time-bound frustration, but there’s no expiration date on this pandemic. We need to make shifts, then, where we’re able.

Notice ongoing and new patterns that de-prioritize your vocation. The pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing problems at every level of society and creating new fault lines. Reflect on what is happening in your household and community so that you can make the aforementioned shifts.

Ask your partner (if you have one) clearly for the time and space you need to work. I, for one, have a bad habit of believing that if I sulk enough, my spouse will intuit the nature of my resentment. It never works.

Support other women in naming what they need. When we encourage one another, it becomes easier to say hard things and harder to take the easy (but soul-crushing) way out.

Raise your voice. The lack of available (and affordable while still paying workers fairly) childcare is a long-running problem, and we’re about to see what happens when an untenable system collapses entirely. Raise a ruckus with those who might be able to do something about the short- and longer-term needs.

Moms, I see you. You are trying to care for kids with big feelings and help them with schoolwork and squeeze work in here and there and maintain your own physical and mental health. Don’t be afraid to seek out whatever support is available to you right now.

Recent scenes from my house:

I am sending emails from my desk, my seven-year-old curled around my feet as he plays with Lego minifigures.

I am wrestling internally with how hard to push my kid to complete the math worksheets assigned by his teacher, even as I seek to lower work expectations for myself.

I am coaching in my office, noting the sounds of my son humming the Jurassic Park soundtrack filtering through multiple walls.

I am closing the lid of my laptop as my child comes to me with a book and a need to snuggle.

I am wondering, as I drift off to sleep, how well I served anyone that day with my attention pulled in multiple directions.

Pastor-parents, I salute you. You are walking a tightrope right now, learning how to do - and doing - all the church things in new ways while your children also need your attention. And, of course, your own exhaustion requires tending as well. How do we strike that balance?

I am offering a group coaching session next Tuesday, April 28, in which we’ll work through that struggle for ourselves. How we want to show up for the people in our care (both at church and at home), what is essential to us right now for both pastoring and parenting, and what shifts would we like to make as a result? The session will take place 12:00-1:30 pm CDT via Zoom and limited to no more than five participants. The cost will be $25. Click here to sign up.

Pastor-parents - I see you. Thank you for the ways you care for the people in your personal and professional lives.

I am part of the teaching team for the Thriving in Ministry program co-sponsored by Wake Forest School of Divinity and the Center for Congregational Health and funded by the Lilly Endowment. Last week program participants gathered for the first time to mull what it means to thrive (and why it matters for that clergyperson, the congregation, and the world). Much of thriving boils down to relationships. We merely survive, at best, when our ties to others are tenuous. Here, then are some ways you can set up your incoming - or settled! - minister to thrive:

Pray for your pastor(s). Pray for them not just as leaders, but as human beings. Let your minister(s) know that they are part of your spiritual practice in this way.

Pitch in on ministries. The clergyperson is not there to do everything. Your pastor is with you to encourage you in your discipleship. Make it clear that you see your minister as a partner in service and worship, not a hired hand to do all the things.

Encourage connections within the community. Ministers are at their best when they have colleagues to learn with and vent to. Urge your pastor to join a clergy group, meet the minister down the road, or become involved with an organization, then be supportive when your pastor is away from the office for these reasons.

Encourage engagement with the wider church. Pastors need interaction with other leaders in the denomination, and that often means going out of town to be a camp chaplain or serve on a denominational committee. Building these relationships within bigger circles gives your minister a broader support network to draw on and connects your congregation to more resources.

Protect the minister’s time with loved ones. This one is so hard - and so necessary. Pastors know what they've signed up for when they accept a call to congregational ministry. And yet, they don’t need to miss games and plays at their kids’ schools, special lunches at their spouse’s place of work, and birthday celebrations with best friends. These bonds will last them long after the relationship with your church is dissolved, so they must prioritize them. They are also a clergyperson’s best daily protection against loneliness, which has not only emotional but physical health effects.

Thriving ministers help congregations answer God’s invitations to show love in a world so desperate for it. If relationships can make all of that happen, why wouldn’t we make sure our pastors are making life-enriching, life-saving connections?

Last week I talked about the challenges of moving as a clergy spouse. This week I want to address an issue of even greater concern to me personally: moving a preacher’s kid.

When our family relocated to our current city for my husband’s pastoral appointment, our son was two. He didn’t really understand what was happening. He was also a bit delayed in stringing together words, so he couldn’t ask us questions or verbally share many of his feelings. We tried to make him feel safe, and we explained as simply and as well as we knew how. Still, his anxiety ramped up as he saw boxes accumulating in our old house, causing behavior changes and stress-induced illness. And when we moved into our current house, which was a great situation in many ways, he spent the first day wandering around the house in tears. What was this place? Why were we here? Would we leave him here alone? Where was all of his stuff? It broke my mama heart.

He’s an adaptable kid, though, and it didn’t take long for him to love his new surroundings. So much so that my husband and I dreaded telling him that now, four years later, it is time to move again. We knew we would be moving months before we could tell our son. For one thing, we were bound by confidentiality. For another, we weren’t sure yet where we were going. Once we found out, we sat him down and gave him the news. “You mean I’ll have to leave my school? My NanNan and Papa? My church?” That last one really stung. When a clergy parent moves, the whole family loses its faith community and the anchor of its social connections.  (That is, if the family has been coming to church with the clergy parent. Some do not, and churches should not assume that the family will attend.) It’s hard to explain to a child that mom or dad’s job is the link to a particular congregation and that changing jobs means severing that link.

As you can hear, the grief is potent in a PK. Here our son made his first real friends. He claimed his church and his school, and they claimed him in return. He will move away from one set of grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and three cousins who are like his siblings. He will leave behind his own activities, like the martial arts academy where he has learned so many life skills and the music school that promoted his verbal development. In all of this sadness his dad and I are trying to balance honoring his feelings and helping him get excited about a new adventure.

One of my son’s biggest worries relates to parsonage/manse/rectory life. Not everything in our house belongs to us – some furnishings belong to the church. He is trying to get straight what will be going with us and wondering if some of his toys and stuffed animals were never really his. And what if we leave something behind? And where will I sleep in my new house? Will I have a bed since this bed stays here? These are all hard concepts for a 6-year-old, especially as the boxes tower over us and the anxiety mounts and the truck’s arrival date grows ever closer.

When we get to our new town, our routines (specifically our Sunday morning ones) will change. He and I won’t go to Panera Bread for breakfast before Sunday School at 10:00 and worship at 11:00, because there is no Panera Bread. We don’t know which worship service we’ll attend, traditional at 9:00 or contemporary at 11:00.  Our son’s Sunday School teachers will have to learn that he is always in costume, whether as a penguin or Batman or a book character named Galaxy Zack. And he’s a method actor, so expect the voice and persona to go with the character. He’s not going to be a sharply-dressed, perfectly still and reverent preacher’s kid.

You know from reading to this point that though the circumstances are causing some of my son’s anxiety, some of my own is probably adding on. It’s kind of a cycle. I’m working on it, I promise! But it is important for clergy to be aware of what their children might experience with a move – knowing adversity can be character-building – and for churches receiving new pastors with children to understand what the minister will be coping with on the home front. Make an effort to get to know clergy children, to make them feel valued in their own right. Soon they will be at home in your congregation, and your new pastor can focus more fully on ministry alongside you.

My husband and I are both clergy. I was ordained first, in a tradition that allows ministers to decide what positions to seek and where to search. Matt, on the other hand, still had a couple of years to go as a provisional minister in the United Methodist Church, in which clergy are appointed to congregations by the bishop. In other words, I was mobile, and he was not. So it made sense that I would move to where he was pastoring when we got married fifteen years ago.

As it has worked out, I have been the trailing spouse ever since. Though frustrating at first, those circumstances eventually played a part in my decisions to pursue interim ministry, consultant, and coach training as well as opportunities to serve beyond my denomination. I love what I do, and because of my education and network, I can do it anywhere.

It’s helpful to remember that, because it’s moving time again. Next week we’ll migrate our household two hours up the road so that Matt can take a new appointment. For the moving minister, this change is predictably bittersweet. It’s hard to leave a congregation you’ve pastored for several years, but the anticipation of new challenges is (mostly) exciting. There’s a tangible reality this clergyperson is reaching toward. For the spouse of a minister, this new thing is much more nebulous. There’s no pre-set title, role, or responsibilities waiting – there shouldn’t be, at least! – and contact with the new church and community is minimal before the actual move. The feelings of a moving clergy spouse, then, can vary widely, and I think it’s important for churches receiving new pastors to know that.

Specifically, there can be more grief than excitement because what we as spouses are leaving is much more definable that what the future holds. From my perspective, there has been good in our current church, even as there has been difficulty. I have cultivated networks in the surrounding community that I will deeply miss, and I have doubts that there will be similar counterparts in my new town. And I lament the unmet hopes and plans for our time in this city. (For example, I have had to put some developments in my coaching practice on hold to free up time to pack and to be able to put a more long-term address on legal paperwork.)

Also, developing a sense of home is difficult as a clergy spouse, particularly the spouse of an officially itinerant minister. The unknowns around how long we will be living in this place affect how much I invest in the church and community. I wonder whether it’s worth hanging pictures and art on the wall. I hesitate to make friends, knowing we will not be here forever. The anticipatory grief begins almost as soon as a bond is established. I note all these patterns in myself, even as I wonder how to adapt them to be more healthy and settled.

And then there’s the issue of expectations. I am not, will never be, don’t want to be the stereotypical clergy spouse. For example, don’t assume I’ll be at church whenever the doors are open. I also probably won’t teach Sunday School, even though I love kids and have been both a children’s and a youth minister, because I’m on the road some Sundays. This can be hard for a receiving congregation to understand. It’s not rejection. It’s just that I have my own call to ministry, and I’m very introverted to boot. And, of course, these expectations say nothing about my parenting. My kid is always in character. He’s painfully (for me) outgoing. He’s very inquisitive. While I want him to be respectful, I will not change who he is so that he can be a smartly-dressed, seen-but-not-heard preacher’s kid. (More on that next week.)

Clergy spouses, I pray with and for you when you go through a pastoral change. Churches, I encourage you to do the same and to ask your pastoral families what they – and I mean all the family members – need. When the clergy family feels seen, heard, and valued, it makes it much more likely that your pastor will be able to focus on the work at hand. It also breeds the kind of connection that makes the minister and family want to stay in your congregation for a long time.

I have a decade-old memory of weeding with great ferocity. In the process I was telling my husband – who had joined me in yanking up a root system that spanned the entire backyard – that I was so tired all the time. I was constantly doing, and if I wasn’t doing, I was recalling information or researching or planning. How did people find the leisure time they seemed to have? I was truly befuddled.

Part of my problem was due to my personality. I am interested in a lot of subjects, and it was (is) easy to let myself become occupied. I also have perfectionist tendencies, so it’s hard to leave projects be when they reach the “good enough” stage. But I’ve come to realize that there is another reason it is so difficult to let myself rest – mental load and emotional labor.

Mental load is bearing the responsibility of remembering all the things. Emotional labor is tending to the feelings of everyone affected by those things. Both mental load and emotional labor are both invisible and labor-intensive, draining energy and leaving us to wonder where it went. And women are culturally-conditioned to be responsible for both.

But wait, there’s more! Ministry is itself a vocation laden with emotional labor. We hold the big picture for our congregations, with all the hopes and disappointments of individual church members wrapped up in it. We sit with people in intimate moments, deeply listening to thoughts and feelings so personal they might not have been shared with anyone else.

And then…parenthood. That added layer upon layer of remembering – when was the last time my baby pooped? what did he say his best friends might like for their birthdays? what time is karate, and who will take him and pick him up? – and tending to big feelings (his and mine).

All of this hard work was brought into the light by reading Gemma Hartley’s book Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward. I took away a couple of pieces of wisdom from the book that are currently helping me address the heaping pile of emotional labor in my own life. One is that I have to talk about all of that invisible work, proactively rather than when I am at my wits’ end. Only then can I begin to shift some of it. The second suggestion that struck me was that I am sometimes undermining my own desires to share the emotional labor load by thinking that things can only be done one way. If I have a standard that no one else can live up to, or if I go behind others to “fix” what doesn’t look like I think it should, then the emotional labor will be all mine, for all time. I must admit that my way isn’t the only or even necessarily the best way.

Where do you feel doubled-over with emotional labor? What strategies might you employ to hand some of it off, not just so that you can breathe but also so that others can enjoy the breadth and depth of emotional and relational life?

Last week I shared my positive experience with a congregation that worked with me so that I could live into my dual calling as pastor and parent. Since then I have heard from several clergy: those whose churches who have made similar efforts and those who have left congregational ministry or are considering doing so because their churches want them to compartmentalize their pastoring and parenting selves.

Sometimes congregations simply don’t know how to support the pastor-parent. Below I have shared a few ways a church can reduce parenting stress so that the pastor can better focus on ministry. For the unconvinced, I have thrown in some notes on how these actions benefit the congregation as a whole – beyond having a grateful and less frazzled leader.

If your church has a daycare or preschool, offer a reduced rate to the minister. Side benefit: the minister will undoubtedly be more involved in the school and will be a more informed and enthusiastic evangelist for it in the community.

Allow flexibility in work arrangements, such as permitting the minister to work from home or bring a child to work as needed. Side benefit: though it may seem counterintuitive, ministers will likely be more available and productive if they are not spending time and mental and emotional energies on arranging emergency childcare.

Set up a rotation of church parents/grandparents to help the minister’s child(ren) participate in worship – or to care for young children during worship, if there’s no formal nursery. Side benefit: the church will develop more cross-generational communication and investment.

Provide childcare for evening and weekend meetings that the minister must attend. Side benefit: other parents with young children will now be able to participate in those meetings when childcare is a given.

Help the minister manage the congregation’s expectations of the minister’s family. Side benefit: the graciousness extended to the pastor’s children and significant other can reinforce or help establish a church atmosphere in which everyone feels safe to be their true selves before one another and God.

What would you add to this list?

In summary, congregations need not be afraid to call pastor-parents. In addition to their many gifts, these ministers bring a deepened investment in the church as their child(ren)’s faith community, an instant means of connection with parents and grandparents in the church, and a unique perspective on hospitality toward and the spiritual formation of young families. For pastor-parents to call upon these “extras,” though, the congregation must demonstrate its willingness to welcome both aspects of the minister’s identity.

I was in congregational ministry for over ten years before my child came into the world. During that decade it was sometimes necessary for my husband (a pastor in another denomination) and me to negotiate conflicts between our calendars, but we were both free for the most part to work odd hours, commit to all ministry-related trips we wanted, and sleep off church-induced stress and exhaustion.

That freedom came to a full stop when our son was born four years ago. Suddenly I had to become much more thoughtful about my time and energy usage. While my call to ministry was (and is) as strong as ever, I now had a calling to parenthood as well, and my baby’s dependence meant that I had to figure out how to operate pastorally in a new way.

I was between church positions during my pregnancy, but I was ready to begin looking again soon after L was born. I was extended a call to a part-time ministry in a congregation that was a great theological fit when L was two or three months old. After much hand-wringing, I turned it down because there were big red flags about the position’s flexibility. Not long thereafter I accepted an offer to a congregation that went out of its way to work with me on my office hours, provide me with reduced-price daycare, and set up Sunday evening childcare. This church got the best I had to offer as an experienced minister/new parent because of this extra effort.

While it is true that caring for wee ones consumes a lot of time and focus, parents can be great pastors. And congregations can promote excellence in ministry (and in parenting) by understanding the following:

Some (many? most?) pastor-parents see ministry and child-rearing as dual callings. They are committed to doing both well. A church can make living toward both purposes much easier…or much harder.

Pastor-parents are better able to focus on ministry if they aren’t always worried about their child(ren) or about how congregants view their parenting. The childcare arrangement that works best for the pastor’s family – whatever it looks like – is usually best for the congregation, even if it’s not what the church members would have chosen for themselves or for their minister.

Every minister will have a different pastor-parent style. Some will want or need to bring their child(ren) on pastoral care visits or to evening meetings. Others might choose to build in more separation between pastoring and parenting.

Pastor-parents typically welcome the congregation’s help and parenting wisdom. We can’t do it all, and we don’t know it all! Criticism of the minister’s child-rearing style and especially of the child(ren) is never welcome, however, and can harm the pastor-parishioner relationship.

The church is not just a pastor-parent’s workplace, it is also the PK’s faith community. Just like with any other family in the pews, pastor-parents will invest more in the church if the church invests in their children.

Congregational ministry is one of the only callings in which the leader is evaluated primarily on a weekly take-your-child-to-work day. Bear that in mind when a minister’s kid has a meltdown on the front row during the sermon, and respond with compassion both to the child and to the concerned/embarrassed pastor-parent.

Next week I will offer a part two to this post, noting some ways your church can support the pastor-parent, thereby deepening the pastor-parish relationship and giving the minister opportunity to lead with a full heart.