An Encouragement to Ministry Wives
In June 2005 I moved to a 2 ½ bedroomed house in Wolverhampton with my husband and three small children.
The first time I’d seen the house, the previous November, the duct tape holding a kitchen drawer together gave way and the drawer front came off in my hand. There were cider cans and vodka bottles stuffed into crevices where the alcoholic tenant had tried to conceal his habits. The bathroom was primrose yellow with cracked and stained tiles. The whole place was filthy. I don’t cry often, but that night I cried as I contemplated moving into a tiny space with too much furniture and three noisy kids. But despite that, we heard the call to minister alongside a great training incumbent in a multicultural area similar to the places we’d lived in South East Asia.
A larger house was promised to come (it really was far too small) but we put even more stuff in storage and took ourselves to Pencombe Drive, the cat meowing plaintively all the way up the M1 AND the M6 that June night as we left London.
So how to cope in a tiny and dilapidated house with tiny children in a place I’d only visited twice and a husband busy with a brand new role? Looking back, I can see that two things were key to flourishing in ministry in a new place with new people. We had a very happy time there.
Live Where You Are
Firstly, I learnt from experience that I’d had as an expatriate, living in Malaysia and Singapore over the five and a half years before my husband went to train for ministry. You have to live where you are, not where you used to live, or wished you were living. As I’ve had struggles in parish life over the years, Psalm 37:3 has been a real help in this regard:
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.”
We are physical beings, and when the Lord puts us in a physical space, it is for our good. So learn to live in the place where you are. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. So how can you dwell in the land where you’ve been placed?
Learn about it, spend time exploring. When we moved to Wolverhampton, I knew nobody and had three small children. My husband was busy learning the ropes of a curacy. So I walked around the parish, pushing the pram and getting to know local shops and parks, finding the best place for a coffee, registering at the library. I read the local paper (I’m still reading the Express and Star!). I went to church and talked to the congregation, I went to the things I could go to. I learnt about the culture and history of the Black Country, about canals and metal working and orange chips. Find ways to get to know your parish, and to learn its story. Live where you are.
Love where you are
We love many people (I hope!). We love our families, we love the church where we were sent from, and if training has been residential, we might love our training college community. We are called as Christians to “keep on loving one another earnestly” (1 Peter 4:8). And when we’re placed in a new church community, this is our challenge. Peter wouldn’t have written that instruction unless there had been failures to love.
There’s a book about preaching by Phillip D. Jensen which talks about “prayerfully expounding the Bible to the people God has given me to love”, explaining what everyday parish ministry is like. We don’t just find random people in the church family we’ve joined. These are people who we’ve been given to love. In our Heavenly Father’s economy, loving these people will be good for us. So pray for strength to love people. Pray for wisdom in how to know them well enough to love them.
These then are my top tips for beginning in parish ministry: Live where you are. Love where you are. (And make sure your husband takes his days off).
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