Preparing Well for More Couples in Ministry

It still amazes me how many couples I see now who are serving together in ministry. Actually, it’s probably better to say that it amazes me how quickly that became a normal part of church life. When my wife and I were dating and discerning what a life would be like together as young ministers, we had very, very few models to turn to. When we started our seminary coursework, we did so under the full assumption that one of us would be working outside the church in some ‘creative’ fashion. We were honestly shocked – and joyfully surprised – when a church called us both as co-pastors less than ten years later.

These days, we work alongside a lot of young people who are preparing for some kind of ministerial life as spouses, and they are facing some fairly unique challenges. My single friends in ministry face a lot of unique challenges too, though one of them would be better qualified than me to address those. Though having couples in ministry is becoming more common, I regularly encounter opposition to that model, usually because it’s a more collaborative model than what most churches are used to. A ‘two-headed monster’ is what a denominational official called it within my earshot once. In more charitable iterations, we’ve fielded questions from folks who genuinely wanted to know how the ministry of a church would function. How are meetings held? How are budgets approved? Who does what?

Approaching twenty years as one half of a couple in ministry, I’ve found that these questions come from a good place and are usually assuaged as a congregation experiences the gift of a couple in ministry. Like any other decision that couples have to make together, the decision gets discerned and I’ve found that another perspective helps me when I’d make a decision with blind spots. I’ve also found that congregations can come to see co-pastoral ministry as a gift when it’s viewed from a strengths-based approach. The church we served as co-pastors thrived and when our time there was done, the church asked for another couple. Rather than one set of strengths, the office of the pastor has more, and if a couple uses that well, it can be a gift.

Not all couples are in co-pastoral assignments, of course, but there are more couples entering into vocational ministry, and the numbers of pastoral spouses who are called to ordination are also on the rise. With many of the young couples I’m around these days on my mind, I asked a few ministry couple friends what they would want churches to know that would be helpful and supportive, and I’ve paraphrased their responses here. My hope is that it will not only help couples be received well, but that the church also benefits as it postures to allow the gifts being given in a ministerial couple to allow it to flourish. Here’s what they said:

1)    Taking a Strengths-Based Approach Helps

A strength-based approach looks at what a person is gifted to do and works out of those strength areas. The idea is that the same amount of energy you’d put into shoring up your weaknesses to see moderate growth is better spent enlivening your strengths, where you’ll see astronomical growth. If one person has a set of strengths, another person has more, and the more aware of these you become, the more the ministry can be arranged to play out of those strengths. Does one spouse have administrative strengths? Does the other have relational strengths? Try to arrange ministry along those lines. “My husband and I split responsibilities based off of our strengths,” one friend said, describing how she took on more of the administrative work and how the ministry was better off when they were working in their strengths.

2)    …But Don’t Forget to Differentiate!

“It’s important for couples in ministry together to pay close attention to their own personal development in addition to their development as a couple,” one friend said. In other words, being married to someone with a particular strength shouldn’t mean they are the only one to ever grow in that area. In my experience, it’s been fun to be challenged by my own spouse in areas where she is strong. But a couple will need to be aware of that dynamic and give each other appropriate challenges and opportunities for growth. While strengths-based models are helpful for teams, it’s important that they don’t shut down growth opportunities, my friend cautioned.  “If you’re a congregant of co-pastors,” another friend offered, “don’t be afraid to ask just one of them for lunch or coffee. It doesn’t have to be both of us all the time!” Because the friend who offered this is a woman, she said that having another woman in the church to talk to was a way of building relationship that also offered differentiation.  

3)    The Process of Learning to Minister as a Couple is a Sanctifying One

“There are landmines that will go off,” another friend contributed, “as one’s blind spots hurt the other, but working toward mutual hospitality, giving space and honor to each other is ultimately edifying for both the couple and the people they are serving.” As I took in these wise words, I couldn’t help but think about the reality that couples in ministry are also modeling the virtues that caused Christians to see marriage as a witness to Christ’s own life. At its best, marriage is a means of grace, making us more like Jesus. Humility, mutual love, edification – these are all virtues of the Christian life. And so, for couples, I’ll add that it’s good to pay attention to these realities. For churches, how might enabling a couple to model this offer a living witness for the sake of our own sanctification?

4)    Cultivate Friendship with One Another

“Most people marry because they became friends who imagined building a life together, which includes play, conversation, and intimacy,” another friend mentioned. “It can be wonderful to be colleagues in ministry,” they continued, but giving attention to building a friendship will be a necessary component. “We are children of God first, spouses second, and collaborators in Christ third.” The implication for couples here seems clear, but for churches, how might you encourage and enable a ministry couple to be friends with one another beyond the daily tasks of pastoral ministry?

5)    Be Careful to Not Force a Previous Model

Two decades in, I’d say that one of my primary pieces of advice to couples and churches is to be sure you aren’t forcing a couple into whatever model came before. I strongly recommend churches ask what kind of ministry arrangement works for that couple. If forced into an arrangement that doesn’t work for them because that was how it was done previously risks doing harm to the couple. One couple told me that because the previous two youth pastors had been male that the husband in their marriage was the ‘main’ youth pastor. Calling a couple has incredible blessings and benefits, but the as best they are aware, the couple needs to be honest about the kind of ministry arrangement that works for them, and the church should be diligent to ask, rather than assume based on what came before. “It’s ok to approach either of us and ask us which responsibilities we take in the job,” a friend in youth ministry told me, going on to mention that they felt very seen when people asked how ministry is best arranged for her and her husband. “I would advise lead pastors who have a couple team on their staff to make themselves very comfortable with talking about and describing the responsibilities of each person so that they can aid the congregation understand what this looks like, especially if having co-pastors on the staff is new to the congregation,” she said.

Are there other things that could help couples and churches navigate a changing dynamic with more couples entering ministry? Yes! But that’s probably for a book and not a blog. If it helps, I’ll be joining two other couples in ministry for a webinar sponsored by Zondervan Publishing to discuss this in more detail on April 2, 2024. You can tune in by following my page here, or watch the recording later as a bonus for pre-ordering Know the Theologians, a new release from fellow ministry couple David and Jennifer McNutt.

Grief as a Theological Virtue

Over my years in ministry, I’ve seen a lot of theology be done in and alongside grief. The pain of loss is evocative. It evokes questions. It calls for answers. It can enrage and soothe, hurt and heal. When we are hurting, we want answers for why we find ourselves in this pain and how we can get ourselves out of it. We Americans, especially, tend to want to microwave our grief, truncating it into a manageable package that somehow fits into our busy lives. Grief, as I’ve often seen it, is considered an intrusive presence, an unwelcome guest that must be dealt with as efficiently as possible. Have we, however, ever considered the possibility that grief may be a kind of theological virtue? Could the way we grieve help us to know God better?

These are the questions that motivated my turn to Martha and Mary in Walking the Theological Life. (If you’d like to help launch this book, along with a fuller exploration of this post, please let me know.) The longer I sat with them in their grief, the most astounded I became at what opened to them, and what they now open to us.

These women were sisters, if you’re having trouble recalling them, and they lived in a town called Bethany with their brother Lazarus (John 11). When Lazarus got sick, word got to Jesus, who makes some enigmatic comments about Lazarus sleeping and how a delay in going to Lazarus’s side was somehow going to help the disciples who followed Jesus with their belief. In short order Lazarus died, and it was only then that Jesus decides to make his way to Bethany.

On his way into town, Martha goes out to meet him. She leads with a question, familiar to those who have ever sat with grief: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” I don’t think we should read that softly. “Where were you?!” is probably just as likely a way to communicate her question. Grief often evokes questions of where God is when a loved one has died.

In the conversation that follows, Martha checks all the boxes for orthodox belief. She voices her ascent to some of the convictions that have become pillars in Christian faith: resurrection from the dead, Jesus as the Messiah, and so on. None of her answers were wrong. In fact, she’d probably ace my course in systematic theology. But there is virtue beyond affirming all the right answers, and in fact, there is more to be known of God beyond naming ‘correct’ answers to theological questions. By no means are Martha’s responses bad. Her affirmations don’t press Jesus further away from Bethany, but her belief in resurrection isn’t going to raise her brother back to life.

Mary is next. She finds Jesus at the outskirts of town and leads with the same opening line: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Though the conversation opens with the same line as her sister, it takes a different kind of turn. Jesus, seeing her tears, asks where Lazarus has been laid to rest, and Mary’s response continues to astonish and shake me. “Come and see,” she said.

“Come and see” is a repeated phrase in John’s account, loaded with significance. It’s a repeated invitation that not only taps into John’s light/dark, sight/blind motif, but also has been reserved as an invitation for people to learn about Jesus – until now. This is the only time it’s directed at Jesus. He is being invited into the heart of Mary’s grief. It’s an invitation that opens the way for Jesus’s own tears. And, of course, I can’t resist the theological implications: what kind of a God weeps over the death of a beloved friend? If our concept of God doesn’t have room for the tears of Jesus, I fear something has gone wrong in our theological formation. If we don’t see the tears of Jesus, we’ve probably got God wrong.

What might have happened if Mary had not invited Jesus into the heart of her grief? Is it possible that grief, rather than an unpleasant and unwelcome houseguest, could be stewarded virtuously, in a way that helps us know God better and make startling discoveries, even if those discoveries shake our concepts of God? We can put it another way: the pain of loss can be stewarded toward theological virtue, or it can be aimed at vice. When it’s a vice, I think it looks like grieving in isolation, trying to ‘get over it,’ or even stuffing it down so we don’t have to acknowledge the loss we’re enduring. Grief as theological virtue, on the other hand, is probably something more like inviting God’s presence into the very heart of our grief, and when we do so, being astounded by what we see God do there. “Come and see,” Mary teaches us to say. “Come and see the heart of my grief.”

Courage as Theological Virtue

For generations, courage has been thought of as virtuous.  But what makes courage a theological virtue?  In other words, how might we enact courage in particular ways for the sake of knowing God well?  Miriam, I think, has a lot to teach us about this.  She’s one of the figures I’m examining in a soon-to-be-released book called Walking the Theological Life, and if you’d like to join the launch team, please let me know!  Miriam, especially, demonstrates that a theological virtue of courage is more than dogged determination; it names God’s activity in the face of an unknown future. Theological courage sings the song of God’s faithfulness as we face a frightening wilderness.

The waters of the sea had just receded into place, swallowing the world’s most powerful military force, hot on the trail of a terrified and exhausted group of newly freed slaves, clinging to whatever they could carry with them. Against all odds, Israel survived their escape. Against every expectation, a vulnerable and frightened people watched the waters of the Red Sea cover up their pursuers, drowning the threat of their swift, violent, and immediate destruction. It was then that Miriam began to sing.

“Sing to the Lord,” she begins with tambourine in hand, “for he is highly exalted. Both

horse and driver he has hurled into the sea” (Ex 15:21). Her song is short, but it is courageous. With the Red Sea at their backs and the vast mystery of wilderness in front of them, Miriam’s song is what sets the tone for these first steps into an unknown future. Without food or water, this people’s path is anything but certain. While they may not have certainty about the days to come, they have Miriam’s song, singing them into a wilderness journey with no lack of theological courage. Her song recalls the past events of divine faithfulness, propelling them into God’s future. I like to imagine Miriam, tambourine in hand, boldly carrying their song of deliverance out into an unknown wilderness. There, between nearly certain destruction and the unrelenting possibilities of danger, Miriam sings. In her song, we find a virtue of the theological life.

The Courage to Sing

Theology can be worshipful proclamation of God’s activity in the face of an unknown future. At times, theology is a summons to dance to the hope-filled song of God’s salvation. In Miriam, we see the courage to sing of God’s activity and dance boldly between the realities that threaten to unmake us. Her life reminds the theologian that our work, in part, is to have the courage to sing of God’s salvation so that God’s people can dance into the future. It is to create an eschatological culture by staring down uncertainty with a song of God’s faithfulness on our lips, calling people to dance defiantly in the presence of possible destruction. It is to step boldly into the days to come, propelled forward by a song of God’s past faithfulness.

The philosopher Aristotle famously defined courage as acting to grow, move, or become. For the musician, practicing one’s instrument is an act of courage. For the student, courage is found in picking up a book and challenging oneself to learn. A failure of courage, Aristotle argued, was to stay as one was, to be stymied in the status quo. Letting Miriam’s witness go to work on Aristotle’s understanding of courage offers us a perspective that sees theological courage as the virtue of proclaiming God’s actions into the way things are, expecting that God’s actions will change them in an uncertain future. In Miriam’s case, it is staring down a reality where her people have no home, no food, and no water, and speaking of what God has just done to the world’s most powerful military force, bent on her destruction. Her circumstances were real. The threat of annihilation was a bona fide possibility. But the things Miriam saw God do will not let that possibility be her reality. God’s activity gave her a song, and to that song she courageously and joyfully danced into the wilderness. When the very real circumstances of our world press in, sometimes it takes a theologian to remind the community of God’s action, pick up the tambourine, and invite others to join the dance into God’s future.

Courage At the End of the World

To live with theological courage is closely related to eschatology, the theological study of the purposes and conclusions of history. Eschatology has taken many forms in both ancient and contemporary theology, and it is important for us to remember that there is not a single approach to eschatology that has come to be officially recognized as the orthodox approach. When we are setting out to do the work of theology, though, it is important to raise a level of self-awareness of how our eschatological leanings will shape the kind of the theology that results.

In a salvation-historical approach, theologians often draw a link between God’s past activity and the unfolding of events yet to come. In other words, the reality God is bringing about will be consistent with God’s past activity. For theologians who take this approach, eschatology is not as much about predicting forthcoming events as much as it is about recognizing the type of reality God is bringing into being. This also signifies that the future God is bringing will be a good and fitting conclusion to God’s previous and ongoing work of creation rather than an arbitrary destruction of the creation God loves. While eschatology does study the end of the world, it often has a keen eye to the fulfillment or completion of the world rather than its cessation. As I often remind undergraduate students, there are two ways to end one’s college career. One of them involves withdrawing from school, while the other ends in earning a degree. Both are an end; only one is a fulfillment.

When theologians take a fulfillment approach to eschatology, they tend to read God’s activity in history as moving creation toward a good and complete fulfillment of everything God intended for creation. Sometimes this calls for an act of theological courage in the face of daunting circumstances. We might think of the kind of theological courage that fueled Martin Luther King Jr. to proclaim a bold, eschatological future in his “I Have a Dream” speech. In those sixteen historic minutes, King cast a vision of a creation that was more complete, allowing for the flourishing of Black Americans, created in the image of God. He spoke boldly into an incomplete reality, singing a song of what God had done in the past and reminding a people that God’s activity would continue in the same direction, that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  With the Red Sea of slavery and Jim Crow at his back, King turned toward an uncertain wilderness with a theological vision of God’s future that remained unrealized, riffed on Miriam’s song, and invited a nation to dance.

These approaches to theology exhibit a Miriam-like virtue of speaking courageously into a real situation. Even as we await the fullness of God’s realized time, theological courage is boldly singing of what God has done in Jesus Christ, speaking it confidently into a world that is yet unfulfilled. The Christian life, we could say, is the dance Miriam teaches us, our bodies moving according to the hope of a God who has acted to bring salvation. In this way, hope is anything but wishful thinking about a favored future reality. Hope, rather, is the Christian act of living now in light of the reality that is yet to come in its fullness. It is looking toward the fulfillment of creation and living its dynamics now because of Christ’s empty tomb and the empowerment of the Spirit that Jesus breathed on his disciples (Jn 20). Hope is an approach to the work of theology that calls the Christian community to live now in light of the end of salvation history or, as it is sometimes called in theology, realized eschatology.

Tambourine in hand, Miriam sings us into an unknown future, confident of what she has seen God accomplish in the past. The saving acts that rescued them from the grasp of slaveholders will be consistent with the acts that will sustain them in the wilderness, where there is no food or water. Her theological act is singing of God’s salvation in real-life situations, even in the face of uncertainty. To be sure, the work of theology often involves proclaiming the goodness of God’s activity when we are faced with harsh real-life realities. It is to recall with boldness the activity of a faithful and living God rather than shrinking back in the face of difficult—even seemingly impossible—realities.