The pastor’s wife’s guide to the first year in ministry

Rule number one: DO NOT ENGAGE.

Hi, I’m Emily. I’m a pastor’s wife. Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re about to be one, too. Welcome to the club.

The first year after Call Day is a wild one. You’ll probably meet some lifelong friends and get to explore a new area, but this year is also critical to set up your entire life as a pastor’s family. (No pressure.)

This first year can be make or break. Make bad habits now, and it’s really hard to reverse them. Don’t worry, I’m here to guide you. Learn from my mistakes and tiny bit of wisdom.

1. Do not engage.

That’s right. Stay aloof…in the best way. The first year is tough because the whole dang place wants to get to know you and be your best friend. But, reality check, not all of them are going to improve your quality of life. My dad (also a pastor) used to call those people “alligators”. They hide in the weeds, get close to you, and then cause chaos in your personal life and in the church. While I encourage you to make friends and get to know people, stay a bit on your guard in the first year. Let people get to know you for you, but try to keep them out of your business as a pastor's family for now. Don't talk church business, and don't share anything too personal at first.

Along with holding people at a bit of an arm's distance, I strongly encourage you not to engage or get heavily involved in too many things. Or anything, if I’m being completely honest. When my husband graduated from seminary, our call director actually encouraged us wives not to join anything in the first one to three years of a call. One to three YEARS. He encouraged us to find our place on our own to really establish who we were as a family, as a person, and as a church member. After that first year or so, you have a better idea of what ministry groups you might want to be a part of or merely attend. It also keeps the church from holding you to really high expectations to lead a whole bunch of things. Once you get involved in something or start leading it, it’s really hard to get out of it.

2. Set firm boundaries as a family.

Whether you have kids or not, this first year is completely critical for establishing what boundaries your husband is going to have with the congregation. Those boundaries honestly begin with you. Before you even get to your first call, I strongly encourage you to have a heart-to-heart with your husband about the nitty-gritty of ministry.

What constitutes an emergency that he can be called away for?

What are the times when he would feel compelled to go into the office to finish something up?

Under what circumstances should his work day be extended?

How many nightly activities per week should he be a part of?

Will congregation members have his cell phone number or not?

What extracurricular church activities will he be part of or try to lead?

What things does he expect you to get involved in?

What boundaries do you want for your kids?

Are congregation members allowed to high five them or ask for a hug? And what happens if they ignore that boundary? Who steps in and what do they say?

It seems super overkill, but I promise you won’t regret having these conversations now, even if a particular boundary is never tested. My background is as a teacher, and I kind of equate the first year in a congregation with classroom management. It was always a better idea to start the year as a "strict" teacher with firm boundaries. Then, as I got to know my class, I could loosen some of those boundaries because they already knew what I expected of them, and I was a predictable force in their life. The first few months when I was an unknown entity, I had to show my students who I was and what my expectations were.

It’s the same with the church. They don’t know you or your style yet. Show them your boundaries. Have conversations with your husband about how he’s going to set those expectations with the congregation. And then as you get to know your congregation better, you can loosen some of those rules or make more exceptions because the church will know that your husband going out at 11 PM to a hospital visit isn’t going to be the norm for him.

3. Find your place in the community
   

I don’t mean the church community.

Take some serious time to figure out where your favorite grocery stores are and where the best places are to get Chinese food do some exploring with just you and your husband and whatever kids you might have at this point. Congregation members will try to give you all sorts of suggestions on where to go, and you can try out some of those things, but it’s also fun to figure it out on your own. You just spent four years of seminary doing what the seminary told you to do. Take a minute to just figure things out on your own and really plug in with the community at large outside of your church body.

For me, I was a new stay-at-home mom with a baby, so I went to a lot of baby story times at the local libraries. I met a lot of other stay-at-home moms, and some who even went to other Lutheran churches, but that hour a week gave me a sense of community outside of the place where my husband worked. I personally like not having my entire life tied up in the church so that I retain some semblance of a life as well. I do very poorly when my life orbits around my husband and his job, so I need these outlets. Maybe you might, too.

4. Have regular check-in times with your husband
   

Yes, I mean actually put it on the calendar and do it. It may feel awkward or forced, but in that first year, I wish my husband and I had more conversations about how things were really going for both of us. There can be a lot of resentment with finally getting that first call, especially if it was to a place that you aren’t thrilled about. I know when we moved to our first call, it wasn’t to a place that I was excited about. I harbored a lot of resentment towards my husband in that first year that I never expressed to him, and so it came out in a hailstorm of anger later on. It made me really resentful towards the office of the pastor, and I wish that hadn’t happened.

Take my advice. Sit down once a month or so and ask your husband how work is really going. What is he learning? What does he wish were different? What ideas does he have? What is he excited about? And then let him ask you the same questions. Are you liking the role or job that you’re in at the moment? What do you wish were different? What do you like about what you’re doing? Are the boundaries that you’ve established working well for your family? Do some things need to be changed? How are you feeling about Church? What needs do you see in the congregation that the church team may not notice?

5. Do life slowly.

Go on dates. Spend time doing nothing together. Chances are, your husband is going to be overwhelmed by this new role. If your husband isn’t in his first career, this is the first time he’s ever had to have a full-time job outside of school. It's the first time that September doesn't bring a new term of classes.

Realizing that really threw me for a loop. He’s been a student all of his life, and it’s a huge adjustment for him to figure out how to work full-time. He probably feels a lot of pressure, and if he’s anything like my husband, he might feel that he needs some extra time at work to figure it out. It might be your job to remind him (in love) that you come first. In these first couple of years, you have to really intentionally carve out time together because it won’t appear on its own. That might mean having a fight or two, but it’s worth it.

I distinctly remember a time when my husband and I had a huge fight because he wanted to skip our planned date to visit a congregation member in the hospital. I might sound very callous, but the congregation member was having a scheduled hip replacement that he hadn’t warned either of the pastors at our church about. I didn’t see why my husband needed to give up his off time to go visit her when it wasn’t medically serious; there were other times to meet with the pastors, and she’s able to pray on her own. We had to have a serious conversation about whose needs came first, and in the end, we decided that he would call her and pray with her over the phone, and then explain that this was his off time and he needed to go on a date with his wife, and he would check in with her after the surgery the next day.

I won’t lie, that was a really uncomfortable place to be in. But it also meant that he had that boundary in place for future events, so now, while the other pastor at our church is constantly running from person to person answering every whim of the congregation, my husband has firm work hours and only leaves family time in a real emergency.

There are many other things that I could say, but those are the five biggest takeaways I have from the first year of my husband's pastoral ministry career. Whether you’re working or you’re staying home, that first year is a crucial one. I hope and pray that you can set your marriage, your independent life, and his ministry up for success. Remember that you are more important than any work thing he has going on, and that in the long run, being a pastor is just another job. This job does not mean that the church owns your family, or your husband, or your time. It can be a beautiful blessing when you understand this, and a major crack in your family life if you don’t.

Blessings on your first year as a pastor's wife! I'm rooting for you!

Love,

The Pastor's Wife