Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
Thomas á Kempis
Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.
Bob Krayning
When we candidated at our church,” said a pastor’s wife from Wisconsin, “I passed out cards and asked people to write what they expected of me. The answers were so diverse: inviting members into our home, chairing the women’s group, writing a column for the newsletter, teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, directing the Christmas pageant. Some others said, ‘We expect you only to concentrate on your family so your husband is free to minister to the church.'”
She concluded, “I thought if I tried to please the Lord I’d please the church. But it doesn’t always work that way.”
Children of pastors also feel expectations. One of the most common is the need to be everyone’s friend but nobody’s best friend. The pastor of a rural church in Kansas explained that he’d recently had to have a talk with his 8-year-old daughter, Shandra. She had a special friendship with her classmate Melissa, but another girl her age in the church felt left out. The other girl’s parents complained to the pastor that Shandra was ignoring their daughter.
“Shandra wasn’t consciously ignoring the other girl,” said the pastor. “She simply felt closer to Melissa, and they did things together. But I talked with Shandra and explained the importance of making everyone in Sunday school feel welcome. She’s conscious that part of our role in the church is to help befriend everyone.”
The Odd Assortment
The surveys and interviews identified some of the commonly felt expectations — some legitimate, some difficult, some impossible:
“They expect our family to be an example. This is legitimate and not a problem except when this means there are two sets of standards: one for the pastor’s family and one for everyone else.”
“My 3-year-old is ‘the church kid,’ with an abundance of spiritual aunts and uncles. Of course being a celebrity can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. With everyone feeling like they know her, they expect her to be friendly and give everyone a hug. Sometimes after church she’s tired, and people still try to get her to say something cute.”
“Our daughters weren’t wild about being expected to bail out teachers or youth leaders stumped by theological questions. More than once they found an adult turning their way to ask, ‘What do you think? Why did God send Abraham to Israel instead of India?'”
“They expect to see parents fully in control of their children.”
“They expect our family to be fully involved in the church and fully involved in the community. They expect my wife to be very active as a teacher, worker, etc. Because my wife works a full-time job, this isn’t always possible.”
“They expect me to be at meetings I really don’t need to attend. One Christmas we were expected to attend eight Christmas parties of different groups in the church.”
“They expect my wife and kids to be at every church function. We hear about it if my wife doesn’t attend one of the ‘women’s meetings’ or if my daughter opts out of the youth social.”
“They expect us to have the answers and to meet their needs. It’s hard for them to see us in the battle also. They think we’ve graduated!”
“They expect our children to attend Christian schools.”
“They expect us to always be available — seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day — to put their needs first, and to work for low pay.”
“I’m not aware of special expectations for the family, but they expect 100 percent availability from the pastor, and toleration of their demands from the family. They don’t understand that the pastor has a legitimate obligation to spend time with family away from church activities.”
One female pastor wrote: “My spouse and I used to go away for two days, one week out of each month. I got flak for this from one woman, who told me, ‘You’re only supposed to have one day off per week. You’re gypping the church out of twelve days a year!'”
When I asked one pastor’s wife if her congregation had special expectations for her and her family, she said thoughtfully, “I don’t know if the problem is expectations so much as lack of appreciation. Whatever my children do or I do, it’s seen as what we should be doing rather than an expression of commitment and service to the church just like any other family. Somehow people think it’s easy for me to teach Sunday school, host the youth group, lead the ladies’ Bible study, and plan bridal showers — while everyone else can beg off as ‘too busy.'”
It isn’t only adults who put pressure on the pastor’s family. The kids’ peers are sometimes just as guilty. Remembers one pastor: “One of our daughters used to complain that the president of the youth group would never begin the meeting until she was there, even though she wasn’t an officer. So even though she was usually on time, attention was called to the times when she was late. She resented this, because anyone else could slip in unnoticed. I’m sure the leader was not trying to embarrass her. He just felt more comfortable when she was there to help the discussion. But my explaining that to her didn’t make her feel any better. Young people as well as adults tend to think that ministers’ kids should behave better, take more responsibility, and be, if not more spiritual, at least more knowledgeable about spiritual matters than other children.”
Sources of the Irritation
Expectations come from a variety of sources: people’s preferences, their understanding of Scripture, their previous experience with pastors’ families.
Usually the problem is not that any one person thinks the pastor’s family should do too much — it’s that there are so many different ideas of what they should do and be.
“I find very few individuals with unrealistic expectations — it’s the composite image that gets to you,” says Mike Halcomb, who pastored in Milwaukee before assuming a denominational post. “And rarely does anyone outside the pastoral family see the composite.”
Sometimes the expectations of two different people are mutually exclusive, such as when some church members expect the pastor’s teenagers to be leaders, role models, and comfortable in the spotlight — and others don’t want them getting any special considerations.
Other times the demands, while not mutually exclusive, may pull in different directions. Jim Conway describes the strain this put on him and his family:
“Our first church after seminary was in a small town where a number of our families were farmers. I decided we needed to be up and going when the farmers started their day. At least I wanted the light on in my study before dawn. But the church also had businessmen who worked into the evening hours. So it was necessary, I felt, to please them by serving late at night with various business meetings, speaking engagements, and visitation appointments.
“One day our preschool daughter said to Sally, ‘I hate the church, because it takes my daddy away from me.’ When I heard that, it was like being stabbed. I was sacrificing my family to make the church happy with me.”
Pastors and their families cannot simply dismiss expectations, refuse to be what the congregation desires, and live as they please. If they do, they quickly develop an adversarial role, becoming oversensitive to violations of their rights, which often leads to an arrogant, independent spirit that hurts their ability to minister.
Expectations are part of any relationship. “My three sons have expectations of how we spend money, how we behave, and where we take vacations,” said Mike Halcomb. “All these have to be sorted, negotiated, and discussed. And that’s the way it is in the church family, too. Ministry involves creative redefining and redirecting of expectations.”
“It’s a fine line,” says Pastor Stuart Briscoe, “and requires open communication about what may be impossible demands.”
How do pastors and their families go about walking that fine line?
Handling Expectations
It helps to admit that certain expectations are legitimate. Congregations naturally will expect the minister’s family to fit into church life. It’s also normal for church members to watch the pastor’s family as an example of Christian parents’ trying their best to raise a Christian family. And many ministry families are happy to accept these expectations.
“We need to let our congregation know we’re a normal family with normal struggles but that we’re learning to work through these trouble areas,” said a pastor’s wife. “If a pastor’s family cannot give assurance that they find hope and answers in Scripture, how can they minister?”
One pastor put it this way: “Congregations need to know, and want to know, that the pastor’s family isn’t trouble free. But they also need to know it isn’t troublesome.” Between those two poles is where we must come to terms with expectations.
It also helps to recognize that expectations aren’t all bad; some are even beneficial. Joseph Stowell reflects on the shaping influence they were on him: “I think being a pk, being in the public eye, helped forge my life. What grated against me at the time actually became a part of my training. Learning to live with people watching you, learning to show deference to people, living with people who expect more of you than they would of others—I appreciate that now.”
For him, those expectations were a plus, something to live up to. “It was training time,” said Stowell, “because the rest of my life I was going to live in this fish bowl. When I graduated from seminary, I asked my father what I should do — be an assistant pastor? He said, ‘No. Go right into the pastorate. You’ve grown up in a pastor’s home. Go for it.’ Growing up in a pastor’s home is a seminary education in itself. You develop a sixth sense for the issues of ministry.”
Pastor’s wife Bonnie Halcomb discovered that the expectations of the congregation helped her to grow. “Occasionally people make requests of me — public speaking, for instance — and I’ll think, There’s no way! That just isn’t me. And yet I pray about it, decide to give it a try, and many times discover that not through my strength but the Lord’s, I am able to. It is a growing experience (and gives me even more appreciation for my husband). Sometimes expectations push us, making us grow in ways we wouldn’t otherwise. You can’t just automatically say no. Maybe God is opening a door.”
Other expectations may be legitimate, but only a minor consideration — the way the pastor and his family dress, for example. Said one pastor: “Our society is more forgiving now than it was years ago about clothing. But I’m still sensitive, especially when someone takes me to meet business associates or to a community group. Initial impressions are important. I don’t want my dress to detract from what I’m trying to do.
“But I hope we’ve gotten past the point where smoking a pipe makes you a theologian, growing a beard makes you a counselor, or wearing pinstripes makes you authoritative. Expectations about dress are legitimate but not very substantive.”
Still other expectations, however, may not be legitimate or beneficial, and the best way to handle some of these is with laughter. “We always laugh when we think of the time we announced we would be adopting our first son,” said Bonnie Halcomb. “One little old lady came to my husband and said, ‘That’s how every pastor and his wife should have children.’ She thought pastors should be sexless!”
Expectations become dangerous when they push a family to live a lie. One mother explained, “You want to please the congregation, and since you think they expect your children to perform in a certain way, you put pressure on them to do so, often without realizing it.”
As another mother put it, “There have been times when the kids had the feeling we were more concerned about our image than we were about them.”
Blending Expectation and Acceptance
Parents have discovered a key in helping children live effectively in the church environment is blending high expectations with unconditional acceptance. Both are important. If children sense only the high expectations without the acceptance, they feel alone, beaten down. If they receive only acceptance, even for subpar behavior, they can grow up unchallenged and spoiled.
Donald Miller, who grew up in a pastor’s home and went on to become pastor of a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Missouri, says, “As I was growing up, I was aware I was a ‘pk,’ and often the reason was that other folks reminded me of it. If I did something that the older generation didn’t agree with, they were quick to say, ‘Now we would expect that from other children but not from the preacher’s children.’ I didn’t get that kind of admonition at home. We were just kids like everyone else. There were standards in our home that other homes didn’t have, but it was explained to us that it was because ours was a Christian home, not a preacher’s home.”
At times even preachers’ kids will argue, “But the Smith’s are Christians, and they let their kids see R-rated videos at birthday parties.”
In the face of that kind of pressure, Miller’s parents didn’t relent, but neither did they hide behind the pastoral image.
“Rather than being reminded that I was a ‘pk,’ I was reminded of the importance of our name (‘we are Millers!’). I was urged to live in such a way as not to bring shame to the name and thus to the family. So at home we were treated like the growing children we were.”
How do parents show acceptance even in the midst of expectations? One practical way is making sure the children know their parents are easily accessible — even when church work is heavy.
“My kids always stop by the church on their way home from school,” says an Iowa pastor. “I’d rather be interrupted during my office work and hear about their day than to make them feel Dad was off limits. They don’t stay long, but it seems to be important for them to be able to walk in on their own.”
Another way is to know your children’s individual personality traits and to adjust the expectations accordingly.
Hank and Mary Simon, who minister in a Lutheran church near St. Louis, have two girls, Christy and Angela.
“Christy is extremely left-brained,” says Mary. “She’s very organized, almost perfectionistic, and places very high expectations on herself. She’s the one who will come home from school, automatically get out her books, and do not only her homework but extra credit and tomorrow’s lesson, too. We don’t push her because she puts so many demands on herself. Christy is socially tentative when meeting new people.
“Angela, on the other hand, is right-brained. She doesn’t worry about details. After a spelling test, for instance, she may say, ‘I’ve got the right letters in there; they’re just a little mixed up. What’s the big deal?’ But she’s very intuitive and good with people. It’s no big deal for her to go up to people at church and give them a hug. But we’d never ask Christy to do that.”
Identifying and accepting the particular traits of family members is the essential first step in determining legitimate expectations to help them stretch.
Adjusting Expectations
At times, we learn to live with expectations. At other times, however, it’s necessary to adjust the attitudes of the congregation.
One pastor’s wife gives a concrete example of one situation most ministry families face:
“A constant interruption in our lives is the telephone. Besides the normal calls that any woman receives, the pastor’s wife must take a large number of calls for her husband. If he is not at the church, people call the house for him. If he is not here (which is usually the case), the caller often asks his question of me. Likely as not I have no idea what the problem is about, but I have to listen anyway.
“There also seem to be a number of people in every congregation who always call the parsonage first when looking for the pastor. In spite of the fact that his study is at church, they seem to have the idea that he spends his time hanging around the house. When they are told that he’s at the church, they act surprised. And the next time they call the house again.
“I have been late for appointments on many occasions because of phone calls at the last minute. I often think I should take the phone off the hook while I am preparing to leave, and quickly put it back before I go out the door. But I never do.”
One pastor’s wife, realizing her housework and other obligations were suffering, began to keep track of the time spent on calls for her husband. In one two-week period she spent an average of three hours a day listening to people who really wanted to talk to her husband.
What can be done about this kind of expectation? Can you adjust it? Of those we surveyed, 58 percent of the pastors (and 42 percent of the spouses) said they had tried to change congregational expectations for their families. How did they do it?
1. Brief the congregation. Many pastors tell the congregation they expect their family to be treated like any other family in the church — no more and no less than any other church members. This message, most often, is communicated to the search committee and the church board before accepting a call, although some pastors communicate the message even more widely.
One pastor told the entire congregation: “My biggest fear and greatest challenge is to minister well both to my family and to you in the church body. I don’t want to be forced into a situation where I must choose between the welfare of my kids and the well-being of my ministry. But I want to state publicly that if that ever were the case, I would choose for my kids. You might call it a ‘previous commitment.’ I want you to know that now.
“And secondly, I want you to know that we’re human. And that means there will be times when my kids are going to embarrass me. You can count on it. And my kids want me also to say there will be times when my behavior will embarrass them. I think that’s what they call a well-balanced family.”
This pastor has found the light-hearted reminder has been well-received and helps defuse some of the over blown expectations.
Donald Bubna, who pastors a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in British Columbia, has also been very direct with the congregations he has pastored. He reinforces his message almost annually. “My wife was raised in a parsonage, usually right next door to the church. Because of her somewhat negative experiences with that, we determined that we would be frequent in extending hospitality, but that our home would be our home, a refuge, not an extension of the church, not a place for church business. Therefore, it was not a place for phone calls unless they were of a social nature or an emergency.
“So every year at the annual meeting, after I make my report, I make a statement of appreciation for the people’s love for our family. And I’ll say something like, ‘And I want you to feel free to call me at home any time there’s an emergency and you need me. But if it’s not an emergency, please call me at the office during regular hours.’ I put it very positively. And in the last fifteen years of ministry, I’ve averaged perhaps one phone call a night. It hasn’t been a problem.”
Bubna also took steps, while his children were growing up, to neutralize the expectations on them.
“At elders’ meetings, from time to time, I’d thank the board members for accepting our children as they were and not putting pressure on them to be different from their own children. But I’d go on to say, ‘Your acceptance means so much, and so does the fact that you believe in them. You believe our children will not ultimately fail, and therefore they won’t.’ I tried to create a climate that balanced acceptance and positive expectation. And they responded well to that.”
2. Demonstrate your values. Mike Halcomb says, “I was criticized for announcing a service of house blessing soon after we bought our home. It was with Bonnie’s consent, but some women in the church thought I’d done it behind her back because we had the service before we’d cleaned thoroughly, and the house needed some fixing up.
“But we wanted to communicate something. First, our home is an extension of our ministry, a place of ministry. Second, if we wait until everything is in apple-pie order before inviting others over, we’d probably never practice hospitality. We wanted to dash right away any expectation that our home would be picture perfect. We’d rather model something else — hospitality amid the clutter of living — perhaps giving people freedom to use their own homes as places of ministry.”
3. If necessary, politely but firmly make your concerns known to key people. One Kansas pastor’s wife says, “Our daughter was always the one expected to do the prayers or devotions for church meetings and even 4-h clubs. She said she wished they’d let someone else be the ‘priestess.’ I eventually talked with the leaders and asked if they could pass the responsibility around. Fortunately, they were very understanding.”
4. Don’t live for the church alone. Most pastors periodically remind themselves, yes, God is the head of the church, but the church is not God. He is the only one worthy of our souls.
One way to keep aware of the difference between God’s interests and the congregation’s is deliberately to develop hobbies and friendships outside the local church.
“We have found other professionals, such as doctors and business people as well as pastors and laity from other churches, to be good stimulators for us. They remind us of what God is doing in the larger world,” said one pastor.
Others find that joining a computer club, a community organization, the pta, or Little League not only helps keep this perspective, but also builds significant ties to the wider community.
5. Focus on what’s truly important. It’s easy to be distracted by expectations. In his book The Little House on the Freeway, Tim Kimmel, who ministers in Arizona, has a highly personal approach to keeping perspective:
“In my desperation to remember my priorities, I have set six individually framed pictures across the upper shelf of my rolltop desk at work. The picture on the left is of the Jameson Memorial Hospital in New Castle, Pennsylvania. That’s where I was born. The picture on the right is of a six-foot-high granite monument that stands in the middle of the Graceland Cemetery just outside this same town. You can’t miss the word kimmel carved on its side. The earth beneath it conceals the remains of several generations of my family. The four pictures that sit between these two outer pictures are of Darcy (my wife), Karis, Cody, and Shiloh (my children).
“What we do for a living has a way of absorbing our attention. Its demands are so great and its ego satisfaction so intoxicating that it can easily become the focus of our lives. I love my work, but I don’t want it to become the heart of my existence — my reason for living. That’s why I have those pictures strategically placed on my desk. When I look up from my studies, I come eye level with a reminder of my purpose. Stealing a peek at them several times a day has a way of keeping my work (and my life) in proper perspective. In the brief moment it takes me to scan them I receive a message in the cluttered back rooms of my brain.
“The pictures say, ‘Don’t forget, Tim, this is where you checked in (the hospital), this is where you’re checking out (the cemetery), and these four people in the middle are why you are here.‘”
All in all, expectations benefit us when they cause us to examine our priorities, when they sensitize us to our faults, and when they bump us out of personal ruts. They harm us if they keep us from being true to the Lord or to our calling.
Copyright ©1988 Christianity Today
