A monthly series showcasing different expressions and experiences of the role of a Pastor’s spouse. Stories span from the archives to the present. We invite you to contribute your story by emailing John Sampson at jcsampson406@gmail.com

Episode  4 – Part I: Preparing for Manse Living

Before her marriage Meryl Smith undertook a special program for prospective minister’s wives. It must have been successful because she and Lindsay are still married. I do not know if it worked for the others in the program but even if it did I do not recall that it was ever repeated. How do you prepare to be a minister’s spouse?

Here is what she has to say about it.

While our husbands/ fiancés/ boyfriends were busy learning homiletics, Greek & Hebrew, we girls-in­waiting were trying to support and encourage them as best we could.

Some women had children to care for. Others lived in the country where their husbands were in charge of a local church. Some even had paid employment (although this was normally discouraged once you were married).

Those of us who were engaged were usually working while we saved up for our glory box (most had 2 or 3 years to wait), and planned the wedding. We even surreptitiously passed over some of our hard earned wages to the man-of-our-lives so that they could take us out somewhere on the weekend. Films like Ben Hur, The Cruel Sea and Exodus could not be missed and fantastic live shows like Sound of Music with June Bronhill and Sentimental Bloke really needed our appreciation and applause along with the rest of the audience!

Even though the first Australian Baptist missionaries, Ellen Arnold and Marie Gilbert were sent out to Bengal in 1882 women were excluded from training for the ministry when Lindsay entered training. The nearest we females could come to those sacred halls of learning was if we undertook Deaconess Training. And I'm pretty sure that was only available to single women who were not involved in a serious friendship with a man. (There was an interesting twist here as Meryl’s future husband Lindsay was enrolled in the Baptist Training Institute in 1962, along with three other men Ken Green, Geoff Holland and Ian Staunton. Ken and Geoff were primary school teachers who completed the two-year B.T. I. course before going to New Guinea but Lindsay and Ian transferred to Whitley and became ordained ministers. Ed.)

Many of the women at the Institute came from interstate and while some prepared for work in the local churches as deaconesses others had nursing qualifications and were preparing to work with overseas missions. However, I remember that Mervyn Hymbury invited Jean Keyte to tell us what it was like being a minister's wife and he arranged for her to give a series of cold mid year lectures at Whitley.

Jean was the wife of the Rev Tom Keyte, a gracious, interesting and insightful lady who had years of experience. The only thing I remember her saying was that there were two kinds of ministers' wives. One fell in love with a man who was going into or was already in the ministry and the other felt a calling to be with her man in ministry. The first made a lovely home and did her best to help and support her husband, while the other had to be careful not to compete with her husband too much. The first could feel neglected when the demands of ministry interrupted her best laid plans for family life while the other could become so involved in ministry, either her ministry or their joint ministries that 'normal' (home) duties faltered.

Love and a calling were the words that expressed the attitudes of the early 1960s and they were so ingrained that we did not even think of it. All I knew that I was in the called group. When Lindsay started showing an interest in me, I called him out and laid it on the line – ‘I am a missionary kid with a different background, schooling and home life from you. I feel strongly called to be a missionary; therefore I am not ordinary wife material. So get lost! I am not interested in a romance’.

Where did I get such courage! I hate being different, but first things must be first with me. I would love a romance but not if it interferes with my calling. And besides I was just 16!

It turned out that he was also interested in missionary service and we ended up going to Tekin in Papua New Guinea, but I will talk more about that in the next article.

And that is how my journey to view the world from a manse started.

What is your experience of being a pastor’s spouse? If you would like to contribute to this series, please email jcsampson406@gmail.com

Source: BUV News

The BUV Code of Ethics for Pastoral Leaders provides us with a resource as we seek to be faithful to our calling and healthy in our practice of Christian ministry. It contains principles to aspire to and guidelines against which we are held accountable. The BUV Professional Standards Group has recently completed a revision of the Code. As part of that, Pastors were invited to provide feedback on a draft and that feedback was considered in the review process. Union Council has approved the revised Code and it is now in place.

Download BUV Code of Ethics

If you have any questions about our BUV Code of Ethics, please contact BUV Professional Standards Consultant, Brenda Williams at professional.standards@buv.com.au

Source: BUV News

After almost fifteen years in formal ministry, one thing has become very clear to Kathryn: You don’t need to know the end to have a start. Who would have guessed that a short conversation on the school bus as a seventeen year old would have been the catalyst for the life poured out hence?

Kathryn Jensen, Associate Pastor at Mill Park Baptist, has enjoyed a heritage of faith through the women of her family, passed down from her grandmother to her mother to herself. Alike Timothy, her sincere faith coupled with her leadership gift, gave her opportunities at a young age. On a usual trip on the school bus, Kathryn declared her interest in “getting back to church” to her friend after she’d experienced teenager-drift from faith.

Two years later, she had started a Bible Study, begun a Young Adult Internship at Crossway and was studying Christian counselling. Life was busy with possibilities and steep learning curves. Kathryn relished the opportunities to grow, through taking risks and having a go. Her church community at Crossway likewise was prepared to fan into flame her leadership gift, appointing her to a staff position in her early twenties. Entrusted with this leadership from a young age has engendered in Kathryn a desire to grow leadership in others. 

Her role as Crossway’s Young Adult Small Group Coordinator reflected her passion to see people loved and finding a place to belong. This sense of belonging is more than a positional state. Being in a neighbourhood does not equate to belonging in that community, nor does being in a family necessarily forge a sense of belonging. Belonging is the result of being seen and known by one another. And it is this ministry of reconciliation that is the underpinning of Kathryn’s efforts and prayers.

While on a prayer retreat, God gave Kathryn a memorable vision that began her life in ministry. “I was sitting on a swing with Jesus pushing me from behind towards the Father.” The vision remains with Kathryn as a picture of God’s work of reconciliation. And in her reconciled state, she takes seriously the message being committed to us.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

So, from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

For Kathryn, the message of reconciliation is evident in every aspect of daily life. In her own family, she is an agent of reconciliation, bridging gaps of broken relationships. She reflects, “In a sense, I was born as a reconciler in my family.” And likewise, she is a reconciler in God’s family. Her role as Care and Connect Pastor sees people being connected meaningfully into the life of the church.

It was also with her heart for reconciliation that Kathryn helped establish Mill Park Community Care(MPCC) in 2013 in partnership with Mill Park Baptist Church. With a growing need for Christian Counselling in the Northern suburbs, Mill Park Community Care is now a thriving professional counselling service for the community. MPCC is entirely self-funded and, six years on, there are second and third generation clients (referred by previous clients) who encounter God’s love in the arena of faith-based, but not faith-biased counselling.

In addition, Kathryn has fanned into flame the vision of others in her church community to create spaces for belonging, empowering those with a dream to establish a weekly community meal for the lonely and hurting, or to establish a conversational English class for the marginalised migrants, or to envision and implement an International Expo to celebrate ethnic diversity. It is those on mission together who show up week after week and continue to serve in this way that is stirring Kathryn’s heart. She calls them ‘Missional Remainers.’ They are people who have discerned that following Jesus for them, means staying put, showing up and being deeply committed to a small geographic place. Missional Remainers are more needed now more than ever. They help create stability and welcome as Melbourne’s suburbs dramatically change, uprooting people, and marginalising many. 

From a recent study trip with the BUV Mission Catalyst team, Kathryn visited flourishing communities, where Missional Remainers were willing to take risks for the sake of the community they serve. These Missional Remainers don’t show up on their own terms or in their own timing, but find the shape of their ministry in their community. The future of mission needs Missional Remainers who are deeply connected to place and people. They don’t do this work alone, but are empowered and inspired by the God of creation who became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood in order to reconcile that creation to himself.

When asked what advice she would give to anyone thinking of stepping into ministry, Kathryn offers a great challenge: “The thing you can’t stand in the world is what God is calling you to change.” This should cause us to pause. And ponder.

For Kathryn, it is people who are disconnected. Kathryn is driven to walk alongside the lonely, the broken, the immigrant, those on the margins. This is a feeling that Kathryn has known, from the displacement of her childhood years (7 schools in 13 years!) to the challenges of ministry as a single woman in a world where marriage and family are often in the driving seat. She deeply loves this Jesus who entered the world as ‘other’, leaving behind divine privilege in order to become like those he sought to save. This is what fuels her passion for God’s commitment to reconciliation. This ministry demands of us a commitment to people and a commitment to place where everyone belongs. Everyone has a place. Everyone is loved.

Source: BUV News