Other workers May 19, 2009

Here’s the funny thing.  I’ve been trained as a Director of Christian Education (DCE).  In fact, I have all of the ok’s from the church to be commissioned, but I just have never been called by a church, so I haven’t officially been commissioned (it’s one of those bureaucratic types of things, I know it’s for good order and all of that, but I digress).  I’ve taken classes and been in countless discussions about the need for better communication between pastors and other church workers.  I’m fully aware of how different the education is for both sides on team ministry, and even varies between the schools that instruct the workers.  So why is it that in this blog I, by and large, ignore the other workers’ spouses?

I don’t have any immediate answers to that question, but I’m trying to work on this.  I think part of it is that until recently, my husband was pretty much “it.”  Nobody else at the church, no other called workers, just a couple of part time people, one of whom was me.  And now we’re at a larger church with a called DCE and a couple of retired pastors and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not the only one experiencing these kinds of things.

I have a few dear friends who are married to DCE’s, in fact.  One of them reads this blog.  Another has been doing the “church worker wife” thing since her husband’s internship when we all went to college together.  I guess part of the reason that I don’t write about other workers or their spouses (I’m also fully aware that being married to a worker sometimes means that the wife works for the church and the husband is on the perimeter) is because I don’t know what it’s like for them.  I would imagine that on top of the difficulties of working with members, there is also the difficulty of working with a pastor who may or may not see things from the same perspective.  I’ve been there, being the youth worker under a pastor that I didn’t always see eye to eye with.  But I don’t know what it would be like to be the spouse of someone who experiences that.  Maybe I should ask my husband what it was like for him during that time.

Of course, the other piece to this is that men and women come at situations differently.  When there’s a problem, women like to talk it out.  Men like to fix it and move on.  We’re just different in that way.  So I think for the time being, I’ll stick to the wife perspective and let someone else write about their own experiences.

Hiding May 18, 2009

I think that there is a fundamental problem with blogging.  It’s very easy to only see your own world view and get continuous reinforcement of said view by people commenting, reading, etc.  Yet I am becoming increasingly aware that my perspective is extremely limited.  I received one of those “fill in the blank” things via email a while back, and the first one was “Four places I go often.”  I could only think of two, church and the library.  I spend most of my time at home, some of my time at church, and the rest divided among stores, library, and people’s homes, but that remainder is very small.  Most of my perspective is influenced heavily by the same teachings I have always grown up with, those of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  And while I don’t necessarily disagree with those teachings, I do struggle with the fact that I’m not getting out there and meeting new people along the way.

High school was easier.  I was immersed in a culture wholly unlike my own.  Even in college I had the opportunity to be stretched by others.  I missed out on opportunities to witness, though, because I was often too weak to speak up about what I believed.  I like to think that I’d be different now, but the truth is I find it easiest to speak up when I’m in “church mode.”  After all, if I’m talking about God’s truth at church or with church members, even if they disagree with me, it’s much less intimidating.  I’ve got stuff to back up what I’m saying that we ultimately agree upon.  But to talk to people who begin by saying that the Bible is fictional is much more difficult.  I’ve never been very good at that.  Maybe it’s why I’ve cloistered myself in the world of the church.  I married a pastor and trained to be a church worker, and if I don’t want to, I never have to remove myself from the “church comfort zone.”  I avoid interacting with strangers as much as possible, whether it’s the person in line behind me at the store or the sales clerk offering to set up a fitting room or the construction workers we see daily in our still-developing townhome complex.

I’m not going to stop blogging any time soon, but I am going to start following some other blogs, maybe seek out some viewpoints that are different than my own.  If any of you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.  This is an area I know God is challenging me in, to get back into the world.  While we are told by Him to not be “of the world,” we still need to be “in the world.”  I’ve been avoiding that for a long time now.  Please pray for me in this, it’s scary to go out into the world.

When the church owns your home May 15, 2009

My husband and I have been blessed.  Both parishes that he has served have not required us to live in a church-owned home.  Call it the parsonage, the manse, or whatever else you might call it, the arrangement can have both benefits and drawbacks.

The benefit of living in a parsonage is especially clear when it comes time to relocate.  Whether the overarching church body requires the move or the pastor has a choice, it is much simpler to pack up one house and move to another, without having to deal with real estate sales and purchases and the hassle of home buying.  It can be beneficial for the congregation to have the pastor “right there” on church property, knowing there is always someone keeping an eye on things or unlock the doors if needed.  It also helps in terms of housing expenses for the pastor and his family.  They don’t have to worry about making mortgage or tax payments, or stress out over increasingly high utility prices.

On the flip side, unless the church is willing to pay a stipend into a savings account for the pastor, his family will not have any home equity built up (of course, in this economy, owning a house no longer equals having equity either).  When he retires, where does he go?  If the pastor suddenly dies, does the family immediately have to move?  We knew of a congregation who had lost their pastor in that way, and out of sympathy for the family allowed them to stay in the parsonage.  This became complicated when they eventually called a new pastor, because they had to make alternative living arrangements for his family.  The other down side for the pastor is one of the up sides for the congregation.  Living right next door to the church means that the pastor is never really “off the clock.”  Granted, a pastor is always on call, but when you live that close you truly do live in a fishbowl.  People are more likely to stop by day or night, and the pastor’s job descriptions moves beyond being the shepherd of souls and into the realm of property caretaker.

Why would I talk about something we haven’t experienced?  Because I grew up in the parsonage.  My parents are currently living in their third church-owned home.  And my husband and I did lived in such a house during his first ministry position.  He was originally called to serve as a regional mission developer, and the overall district that employed him rented a vacant church house from a local congregation.  That particular arrangement was the worst of both worlds.  Because my husband was not that church’s pastor, the people didn’t have a vested interested in caring for us or the home we lived in.  Repairs were not completed, and we eventually had to write a letter to the congregation president outlining the issues that were unacceptable and needed to be fixed, or else we would find another living arrangement.  Not the best situation, I assure you.

We feel blessed that we have been able to buy not one, but three homes in our marriage.  We know God has been blessing us with financial wisdom in more recent years, and we are thankful for the gifts He has given to us.

“Bad” words May 14, 2009

I was laying awake last night and thinking about this post.  Sometimes that happens to me, as the minutes or hours tick by and I’m consumed by insomnia, so I contemplate anything from this blog to counting backwards to my lack of organization skills in the kitchen.

Being both a pastor’s wife and a pastor’s kid has given me a lot of experience with this particular topic.  I can’t tell you how many times someone has cussed in front of me and then, seeing that I’m present, apologized to me!  I’ve never truly understood this need that I seem to inspire in others.  Is it that I appear super-pious, so they feel they must have offended me?  Is it the related-to-the-pastor thing that makes them think I can instantaneously send them to hell?  Is it truly my presence that places remorse in their hearts?  I doubt that.  I’m still not sure why this happens, but it has happened a lot less now.

Maybe it’s an adult thing.  Adults tend to guard their language a lot more, and feel less inclined I think to use curse words for the shock value.  Maybe it’s the fact that I spend most of my time interacting with people at church than in other places.  Whatever the reason, I’ve noticed a lot less “bad” words in my day.

The reason for the “” around bad is because I think it’s a relative thing.  I know I’ve offended some church members along the way by using some of the milder explitives that are still shunned by a lot of Christians.  These include words like sucks, crap, fart, and pee.  But in my teenage years, I enjoyed using much worse words, mostly for the looks of shock they inspired on my friends’ faces.

What bothers me about all of this language being bad is that we’ve moved away from the original intent of the commandment that deals with cursing and swearing.  The command is about using God’s name in vain.  Yet we do that all the time.  Throw out an “Oh my God!” and no one will bat an eye.  But if you drop the f-bomb (unless you’re British, for some reason that accent makes it sound less horrific, at least in movies) and everyone will turn and look.  PG-13 movies are allowed one use of the f word, and boy do they make the most of it.  But I’d venture to guess that God’s name is used in vain many more times in such a movie, particularly the variety where “it” is being cursed through human words in God’s name (g-d-i).

It all makes me think about the words God shares with us in the book of James.  God knew we as human beings would struggle with this issue:

“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  James 1:19-27.

We waste our time worrying about which words are bad and which ones are good by the world’s standards, and we forget that the point is to keep a tight rein on our tongues, to care for those in need, and above all, to show the world the love of Christ.  Whether I’m using a “bad” word, taking God’s name in vain, or hurting someone’s feelings with my words, it’s all the same.  I can choose what I allow to come out of my mouth.

Confidential information May 13, 2009

One of the most difficult things I face as the wife of a pastor is how to deal with confidential information.  No, I don’t mean deciding whether or not to pass gossip along.  There are two possibilities that I face with this kind of information.  First, I sometimes end up knowing about things that really aren’t my business.  Not because my husband tells me about them (he’s very good at keeping things quiet) but because people will just assume that I’m the best way to get information to him.  This has gotten better since we no longer have a home telephone but two cell phones.  It’s rare for me to get information from someone that is really for my husband.  But several months ago I received a text message from a woman at church regarding a very private family emergency.  She wasn’t sure if my husband had texting capabilities and it was the only way she felt comfortable communicating at that moment.  Naturally I passed the phone over to my husband and tried to forget about what I knew.

On the flip side, there will be times when people will (for whatever reason) assume Travis has shared private information with me.  They will come up to me and chat about a situation of which I have absolutely no knowledge.  When I tell them I don’t know, they are sometimes offended, as though I should have known and why am I not caring for them since their pastor is caring for them?  This is something that doesn’t happen very often but when it does I’m surprised that people have so little faith in the promise of confidentiality.

I thank God that I am not a very curious person in general.  I know that some women would be horrified to not be allowed to know information about their husband’s whereabouts.  To me, it’s an issue of trust.  I know my husband will tell me if he has a meeting, but if he can’t tell me who it’s with I don’t mind.  Now, sometimes I’m privy to a piece of information, like that the person he’s meeting with is a woman.  This is because he is strict in his policy to never meet alone in a building with a woman.  If the church is going to be empty when such a meeting takes place, I tag along and find anothing room to read in.  It’s just all part of the drill.

Free stuff May 12, 2009

One of the things I’ve noticed about being in a ministry family is that members of the church will often do things for us without charging us.  Sometimes it’s a simple thing, like giving us a gift for no apparent reason.  Sometimes it’s a discount on things, like the dentist knocking off a percentage of what we owed for my root canal or the furniture store in Buffalo that sold us a television armoire at cost.  Still other times, the cost savings are enormous.  For example, at our last church we had a contractor who made several repairs to our home and only charge us for the materials he used.  A married couple who owned a golf course gave my husband free membership.  And we have had not one but two chiropractors over the years who refused to charge us anything out of pocket.

It’s something I appreciate, believe me.  Most professionals with the level of education my husband has tend to make a lot more money, and having people do this kind of thing for us helps to fill the gap, especially since neither of us are very handy (it’s why we bought a townhouse here).  But I sometimes think that these kinds of gifts would better serve people who are in much greater need than we are.  We could do without some luxuries and pay for those things out of pocket, but there are many who just can’t afford them.

It’s something I started to think about when I worked for a Christian social work-type agency.  There are a lot of people living in poverty, and if there were more church members who were willing to give to those in need out of a love for Christ, it might make a difference in their lives.

Now, I realize that the reason people do this for us is also out of a love for Christ, and they want to do something to show they appreciate the service my husband is doing for them.  I am always grateful for that.  But it’s hard to not feel guilty when it’s something we don’t ultimately need but others truly do.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that I get to tell others how to give or who to give things to.  It gives me more motivation to give to those in need when I can, because we have been so blessed.  You know, paying it forward (as cliched as that sounds).

Funny Looks May 11, 2009

Every once in a while, when I’m in a conversation with someone at church, I get the funny look – you know the one, where the person is taking a step back with their face, obviously stunned, surprised, or shocked by something you said.  The strange thing for me is that these looks often come in response to seemingly innocuous comments that I’ve made.  Maybe it’s talking about a movie I enjoyed, or a restaurant we went to.  I am then left to attempt to guess what minor offense may have occurred.

With movies, telelvision, etc., I’ve found that when I get a reaction, it’s because the person is either bothered by the content (i.e., the movie is rated R or the show has a character that acts immorally, which is pretty much true of all television these days) or else because they abstain entirely from television, movies, and the like.  Jason wrote a post about telelvision a few weeks ago, about how things that aren’t necessarily bad are not always God’s best for us.  And I agree, but I don’t believe that I should be prompted to give up my entertainment choices by someone else being surprised at the pastor’s wife indulging.  I’m working on making changes as God prompts me to make them, not people (not that God can’t use other people to do this, but in my life it rarely seems to work that way).

Sometimes with talking about frequenting a business, I have to review the conversation in my mind.  Did I say something about how I didn’t like the place?  Maybe the restaurant I criticized is a favorite of the person I’m talking with.  Or perhaps I mentioned it being expensive.  That’s one I have run into a few times since we moved here, because our new congregation is on average much more affluent than we are.  I found the opposite to be true before we moved.  At our last church, if I talked about a great new restaurant, I’d get the “I can’t believe you eat out so much” look.

One day in passing I was talking about Crocs with a couple at church, those ugly, comfortable plastic shoes that seem to be everywhere.  I mentioned that I liked them for things like camping and amusement parks, anything outdoors/messy that would be hard on regular shoes, and then said that you can just throw them in the dishwasher.  The woman looked horrified, and I realized that she was envisioning my mud-encrusted shoes taking a bath with our forks and glasses.  I quickly covered by saying that I wouldn’t wash them with dishes, but she still looked mystified.  Ok, maybe that one was weird, and I swear I’ve never actually washed them in the dishwasher, but I remember reading someplace that you could.  And I’ve used the dishwasher to clean other things that weren’t necessarily dishes, like plastic baskets and dog dishes.  If you think that’s gross, that’s fine, but I just don’t see it as a problem when you run separate loads for these kind of things.  If I got panicky about that, I would have to have a second washing machine for rags and towels so I wouldn’t potentially ruin my clothes.

Maybe I take these things too personally. I have a hard time when I’m starting to get to know people and I feel like I’m not making myself understood.  I wonder if the thing that person will remember about me is that I spend too much money, or worry too much about money, or watch “bad” movies or can’t keep house properly.  First impressions are important but I’ve learned that they aren’t generally accurate.  I’ve learned that in my life, but I don’t always know if others have the same ability to re-think their initial reactions.

Sabbath May 8, 2009

For most people, weekends consist of Saturday and Sunday.  We live by a different set of rules in our house.  Because of the obvious Sunday commitments, my husband takes Fridays off, and we have our week run Sunday through Thursday, with Friday and Saturday acting as the “weekend” for us.  In some ways, it works great.  We run a lot of errands during the day on Friday, when most people are still at work.  Or we enjoy sleeping in.  It makes things like appointments and going to the DMV easier to schedule.  But in other ways, it can be frustrating.  For instance, we have Memorial day coming up.  For many people, that means an extra-long weekend.  For us, it just means we spend the entire week following the Monday off feeling a bit out-of-whack, because Monday feels like Friday and I lose all awareness of what day of the week it is.  Also, Sunday is the big day.  I’d compair it to most people’s Mondays, but it’s a good day and enjoyable, so that doesn’t quite fit.  I know a lot of people dread Mondays, but we don’t really dread Sundays.  Travis is at his best when leading worship, and it’s the high point of his week.

So why title this post “Sabbath”?  It’s because for many people, sabbath rest comes on Sunday.  Not so with us.  Usually Friday or Saturday ends up being that day, the day to relax, recharge.  And sometimes, sabbath is needed sooner.  I’m so thankful we are no longer bound to the rules of the Old Testament, where sabbath had to be on Saturday, period.  No taking a different day if that was needed, no moving it around in order to accomodate travel or life or health.  Nope, you rest on Saturday.  Don’t rest any other day and don’t you dare work on that day.  Jesus had to work on that with the Pharisees, and he never really got through to them.  It’s not about restrictions.  God’s laws have always been intended to protect our freedom.  He knows we need rest, and He knows that sinful people who get caught up in the attitude of “it’s all up to me” (a form of idolatry, by the way) will work 24/7 without rest unless He commanded otherwise.  Yet the leaders didn’t get it.  They saw the law as a way of controlling the people.  They walked around with their clipboards checking off who was messing up and how badly.  The funny thing is, they never looked at their patrols as work, even though that’s what they were doing!

I could go on and on about their sin, but the truth is, I’m the same way.  While I’m glad we can move around our sabbath rest today, I don’t always take advantage of it.  Sure, I’ll rest, but I don’t rest in the Lord.  Sleeping in, being lazy, watching television, all of these things are great for taking a load off, but they don’t really help me to recharge the way prayer and reading Scripture can.  It’s an area I continue to struggle with in my life, and probably will for the rest of my life.  That’s ok, because I know I’m a work in progress.  Thanks be to God that He doesn’t sit up in heaven with an almighty clipboard.  When He looks at me, He sees Jesus.

The Other Woman May 7, 2009

So, I was laying awake the other night and musing about this blog and my hopes for a book, and I think I’m going to work around the title of this post, something like The Minister and the Other Woman:  How to Cope When Your Husband Serves the Bride of Christ.  I like the idea of it because the title is eye catching and semi-shocking.  I’d be curious about it.  What was your reaction to the title of this post?

The thing is, I’ve never felt like it’s a big deal to share my husband with the bride of Christ (aka the church).  I stumbled over an old journal entry about that last week, where apparently someone from church had apologized to me for keeping my husband away from me due to a family crisis.  What I wrote then and still believe now is that God has called me to give in that way.  Unlike my husband, who is gifted with helping people and knowing what to say during a crisis, I tend to do a lot of standing around, not knowing what to say, acting generally stupid.  And I also think a lot about myself instead of others when I’m supposed to be helping them.  That’s not helpful.  But the way I can help, and not be self-centered, is by giving up time with my husband willingly.  It’s all God’s time, really, and me putting demands on the situation doesn’t help anyone who needs it.

I came to that place the hard way, after a couple of funerals that were scheduled during “inconvenient” times in my opinion.  I had to learn to get over myself and realize that my husband, the family, and God were not conspiring to keep me from having fun with Travis.  The situation doesn’t appear every day, or even every week or month.  But on the occassion that someone needs him, I am more than willing to gladly share my husband.

That other woman will always be there, on the other end of the phone, at the office, filling my husband’s evenings and working hours.  But I know my husband has eyes only for me, and will never stray.  Because of that, I can share him with the bride of Christ.  She’s already got a husband waiting for her.  My husband is merely the groomsman assisting during the time leading up to the wedding feast of heaven.

Christian businesses May 5, 2009

My experience with businesses owned by Christians is rather small.  Prior to living in Ohio, it was pretty much whatever Christian book/gift store was available, plus a couple of online publishing houses.  But now, we’ve been getting to know the wonder of doing business at chains that are Christian in action without necessarily pedaling Christian merchandise.

For example, Chick-fil-a.  My husband loves eating there.  It’s fast food chicken but way better tasting than fast food.  And they have a value of friendliness, evident by the hyper-happy employees who will greet you and even chit-chat as the money changes hands.  They are closed on Sundays, which is an awesome value for their workers but a bummer for us since we usually like to grab some quick food after church.  So we try to frequent the place on another day of the week.

Another such place is Hobby Lobby.  I had always liked the store in Lincoln, Nebraska (where some of my extended family lives), so we went into the one near our house shortly after discovering it.  It’s got crafts and yard stuff and home decor, but the tip-off was the plethora of crosses.  Crosses for the garden, for the wall, for whatever purpose you want.  And they, too, are closed on Sundays.

It makes me think of the movie That Thing You Do.  The main character is a drummer in a band during the 1960’s, and his father owns an appliance store.  As the dad checks out an ad in the newspaper for a competitor, he reads that they are open noon to six on Sundays, and says, “I don’t believe I want to live in a world where you have to be open on Sunday to support your family.”  Oh, to have that value back.  I realize that it’s unrealistic, but I will definitely continue to support businesses like Chick-fil-a and Hobby Lobby, because they are showing that you don’t have to be open on Sundays to run a successful business.