How can pastoral ministry be healthier?

http://joshrhone.posterous.com/what-if-our-current-models-of-pastoral-leader

Joining a conversation

I have decided to join an important conversation about the long term viability of the current paradigm of pastoral ministry.  Pastor Josh Rhone has asked a crucial question that I believe is a very important one for pastoral leaders today.  It is a daring, even dangerous question.  Yet it is one that may help us to face uncomfortable facts about the way we usually do ministry.   We owe it to following generations to answer his question.  Let me copy in his intensive query.

What if our current models of pastoral ministry are in fact detrimental to the spiritual health and vitality of the Church (and her leaders)? Might we need to reimagine/re-envision our models of pastoral ministry? And, what might a new model of pastoral ministry look like?

I am especially interested in how ministry affects pastors over the long term.  Today I would like to comment on the issue of proximity.  One of the characteristics of many pastoral situations that I believe often creates greater wear and tear on the pastor is the issue of proximity.   By this I am speaking about how enmeshed the pastor’s and family’s lives are with his work.  This issue has many facets.  

Are parsonages usually too close to the church for best clergy health?

One is simply the location of the pastoral residence.  I speak as a pastor who lived in a parsonage that was built onto the church for the first 12 years of my ministry.   The church wrapped around the back of the house also.   In such a situation, there is an unhealthy crossover between home space and church space.  Church seems to steal away the presence of family members at all kinds of times for sundry purposes from locking the building to preparing for a service to putting out garbage.    At my present church for the next 21 years, I have lived next door, a big improvement but still too close.   There is still that not-so-subtle sense that you are always at work.   While living so close is nice for getting things you have forgotten or for eliminating driving time, in a one full-time pastor church, it also usually means you are still by default the keeper of the keys, involved in snow removal, and have people stopping by for things other than seeing you.  You wonder what is going on in the parking lot.   You run over to do something extra on a day off that you probably would not do if you were farther away.   Sometimes, if I cookout or sit in a lawn chair on a weekday, I wonder if people driving by the church think I should be working.   I’m sure it’s a projection of my own inner drives, yet I wonder if it would be the same if I were not so close.   From what I’ve been told it would not be the same.  I think the ideal would be to be for the pastor to live out of sight but within walking distance of the church.  It would be interesting to hear from some who have lived next door in a parish and then a little further away in another one.

Enmeshed lives of clergy families decrease clergy family health

Another part of proximity is the involvement of family in the church.  My wife is heavily involved in church as most clergy spouses are.  While this is very good, it has the unintended result that home schedules become so integrated with church schedules that it is extremely hard to maintain a healthy separation between work and home.   As happens to many pastors, I had an opportunity for my wife to be my administrative assistant at one point.   She would have made an ideal one in many ways.   However, I turned it down.   The biggest reason was that I knew it would have further increased the proximity factor and nearly dissolved something that is extremely valuable to the pastor – a sense of separation between work and home.    Many pastors’ and spouses’ lives are so entwined with their church that they do not have time for themselves, their family or personal time.  I have heard of very small parishes where the entanglement is far greater than mine with the pastor being the custodian, the lawn mower, the building maintainer, etc.   As a long term pastor, I think this proximity issue may get worse the longer you serve in a parish too.  I believe it has in the 21 years I have served here. 

What has helped me?

Besides the decision not to hire my wife as administrative assistant, other things that have made my proximity factor decrease and increased my health and the possibility for longevity as a pastor have been: 

1. I schedule a weekly day off.  Even though I acknowledge violating it frequently, having it scheduled is better than not having it.  I tried that too.
2. I have tried as pastor to draw an appropriate boundary/distinction between my ministry/purpose and that of the church’s trustees.   So even though I am next door I try to let their grass grow and recruit people to fix things at church or better yet encourage the trustee chair to do so as opposed to being involved in it myself, until workbee, when we all pitch in.    
3. I joined a community band.  I have played trombone in Liverpool Community Band for the last 15 years.    It puts me in a non-church setting weekly doing something I enjoy.  It is a scheduled commitment so I can protect it.    It has given my wife time to do things she wants to do too – a ladies Bible study at our house or attending an art class. 
4. Speaking of the keys, early on in this parish, I provided ministry leaders with keys.  This way the people of the church took responsibility for opening and closing.   It was a small thing, but it saved much time and untold home interruptions.
5. My wife and I take our vacation time.  The most helpful type is the week or two we get away together to the Adirondacks or go West or something like that.   Vacations to see family are nice but not as effective for changing the scene and renewing the ministry drive.
6. I have hobbies.  Besides trombone, I have some seasonal pastimes.  I garden in summer.  At Christmas time, I set up a train display and in the winter, I do jigsaw puzzles.   Such things rest the mind and create a healthy mini-separation time from the feeling of being always at work.