Chapter 21 - Married to the Minister

I have a confession to make. This book has bothered me from the beginning and I have never been quite sure why. As I was reading Chapter 21, it hit me.

I know why the book really troubles me. It’s not that the book isn’t well written. Daniels and Copenhaver are gifted writers and the book bears testament to their skills. It’s not that the subject matter of the book is boring. Who among us wouldn’t be entranced by a study of what it means to be a minister of the gospel in today’s world? It’s not even that the book is boring. It’s not. It’s an easy, entertaining read. No. My disquiet has nothing to do with craftsmanship, content or readability. What really gravels me about it is that it is so depressingly, soppingly self-indulgent.

In Chapter 21 Rev. Daniels has shared with us her take on what it means to be the spouse of a pastor. As I read it, I wanted to scream “What in heaven’s name makes you think things are any different in any other two-career marriage?”

I was a lawyer for 35 years. My wife knows all about 75-hour work weeks; vacations interrupted or cancelled by the vagaries of some judge’s trial calendar; dinner dates missed because some client’s son chose the night of our anniversary to see if a six pack really screwed up his ability to drive; school events missed because a client’s plant picked the night of the 6^th-grade play to explode or catch fire. For 35 years she had to live with the fact that I could never talk about my work or even about how my day had been because to do so might betray a client’s confidences.

In the first 10 years of my legal career, we moved three times, each time so that I could take a new job. With each move, my wife went to the final interview. My wife went on the tour of homes and schools. My wife had to endure the same boring chamber of commerce lecture about how “life in our fair city is just about as good as it can possibly be.” With each move we had to deal not only with my new employment but how the move would affect her career. I’m pretty confident that these moves were no easier for Julie than they have been for Daniel’s husband, Lou.

Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to make light of the difficulties faced by anyone who goes into a career in the ministry. It is a difficult, emotionally draining enterprise that takes a huge toll on everyone who chooses to engage in it. I am afraid, however, that we have perpetuated a myth among ourselves that somehow our calling is more difficult or emotionally and physically costly than other careers. In so doing, we have put ourselves on our own little islands. This enislement, it seems to me, is a dangerous thing. By indulging in this kind of self-centered isolation, we hobble our ability to identify with and minister to our congregations. And it is just this sense of separation, this idea that somehow we have it worse than everyone else, that Daniel’s work encourages.

Sure, ministry is hard. But so is just about every other way of making a living that you can think of. There is, after all, a reason why they call it work.

Tony Stoik