Losing Common Sense and Saying “Hallelujah”: What are We Doing?
My husband and I have had leadership roles in churches since 2009. He was the main pastor of a small-town country church, and then, two years later, we transitioned to a multicultural parish with Asian-American roots.
Both experiences were fulfilling, not just because we had a role that promised a positive impact on other people’s lives, but also because of the bittersweet challenges we experienced. While my husband served a significant role as a pastor in Sunday services, I was privileged to hold a co-pastorate position alongside him.
In sum, for anyone who is called by God to the pastorate, I offer some very easy, quick and straightforward thoughts about the necessities of being healthy and happy in ministry:
1. It’s Lonely, So Get a Life Outside of Church (While Loving Your Fellow Members).
The most trying aspect of being a pastor was not being able to socially mingle with our church members to the extent that they normally do with each other on a weekly basis.
The depth of friendship, transparency and informality only went to the level of us ministering to church members, and so the actual fellowship and weekly rest that every person needs—including us pastors—was sacrificed. We found that many church members were extremely good friends with each other and would regularly spend time together outside of the Sunday service. We did miss out on that.
As much as my husband and I wanted to experience this level of interaction, we acknowledged what our seminary had forewarned us about: This type of loneliness can leave pastors—like us—in a dangerous place of temptation to find a sense of belonging elsewhere, in places and through ways that are unhealthy or just downright wrong.
We found ourselves in strange places during our journey in the pastorate. While my husband was trying to juggle the administrative, time-sucking duties of being a pastor, I was serving on the prayer and women’s ministry while waiting on God’s timing to pursue the adoption process we so hoped to start in order to build a family. … And so, this is perhaps the other aspect of loneliness we faced. It wasn’t as if becoming pastors halted all our dreams; actually, being pastors was part of the dream, but it was a phase that required a lot of grace, optimism and patience. God started to institute in us a culture of just having fun, so we began learning to enjoy the presence of our church members with encouragement and prayer while equipping ourselves with a healthy social life outside of church.
Here is the break-down of what we realized along the way in building that healthy social life:
