The phone rang at home late one Monday afternoon. The voice on the line said, “Mike, did you know Grace is being transferred by ambulance to Greeley for heart bypass surgery?”
I didn’t know.
Since I had to watch our two preschool boys while my wife earned our living, I couldn’t get away immediately. When she finally arrived, I raced to the hospital, only to miss the ambulance by minutes-another frustration for a full-time pastor at part-time pay.
Grace’s family later told me they hadn’t wanted “to bother me.” Bother me! A pastor’s job means being there in a crisis. But they didn’t call because they knew I was occupied watching my boys while my wife worked.
Many pastors don’t have the luxury of a full-time salary from their church. An informal survey of our denomination’s Rocky Mountain district revealed that fourteen of fifty-nine pastors work jobs in addition to their pastorate, five raise home mission support, and twelve, like myself, rely on income earned by their wives. Juggling job, family, and ministry can be frustrating.
We began our ministry in Laramie, Wyoming, knowing the church could not pay a full salary. We thought that would change. It didn’t. Laramie is a university town with tremendous turnover. The Laramie directory changes 4,000 of its 10,000 addresses every year. Although Wyoming ranks ninth among the fifty states in area, it is last in population. Pronghorn antelope nearly outnumber people. Families uprooted by economic swings in the oil industry come and go in their search for work. I often feel as if I’m preaching to a parade: people keep moving on.
It wasn’t that the church wouldn’t pay us more; it simply couldn’t.
My expectation of the ministry and the reality of my situation didn’t mesh. In seminary I learned and in my first pastorate I practiced a reasonable pastoral schedule: study in the morning, visit in the afternoon, attend meetings at night, and take Mondays off. Most of these expectations went out the window when I moved to a church that couldn’t support us fully.
My wife and I began looking for work. Within two days Robin, with her MBA, found an office manager’s job paying three times more than anything I could find. I would be the at-home parent while she worked.
Robin’s income eased our financial shortfall, but my schedule now revolved around hers. Pastoral ministry no longer fit so neatly into evenings and weekends. Once I reserved a Good Friday for sermon preparation, knowing Robin would not have to work. But her boss called her in to prepare sales figures for the store. Once again my schedule came second. Robin and I argued more than at any other time in our marriage.
Despite Robin’s job, I still worried about paying the bills. Several times the church couldn’t pay my salary. I would read Scripture, “Have no anxiety . . .” and become more anxious. Normally athletic, I turned my anxieties inward and ate myself up to 200 pounds.
I preached and practiced lifestyle evangelism and church growth, but when the church didn’t grow, I felt like a failure. My self-esteem rose or fell with the size of the Sunday morning worship attendance. No matter how well I prepared my messages, nothing seemed to happen. My prayers for growth went unanswered.
I felt jinxed doing visitation. People with whom I spent a lot of time and effort seemed to end up at other churches with larger programs. I considered applying to law school or getting a teaching certificate. I questioned my calling.
Yet despite these frustrations, I learned to do several things that kept me going:
 Redefine success. God reminded me of my original call to ministry; 1 Timothy 3 again spoke powerfully to me. Kent and Barbara Hughes’s book, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, helped me focus on biblical success: I could be successful in God’s eyes even in a small, struggling church.
 Scale back expectations. I focused on preaching and pared back other areas. I streamlined my study habits. Instead of translating an entire preaching passage from Greek or Hebrew, I zeroed in on key words and phrases. My preaching became more personal and less academic.
An Inter-Varsity staff member’s perspective encouraged me. He said, “Just to maintain ministry in such a turbulent town as Laramie is a tremendous accomplishment.” Instead of regretting what I couldn’t do, I began to accept what had been done.
 See the advantages. The extra hours with our two preschool boys enabled me to know them as few pastors could know their children. We developed special relationships, and Andy and Tim will often come to me first with their hurts and joys. I gained new sympathy for mothers of preschoolers. I could also identify with the student dads in town who also watched their own kids. I was a proud ministerial “Mr. Mom.”
I understood two-career Christian families as never before. I empathized with them as we crammed church, job, family, school, and recreation into too few hours. My philosophy of ministry changed accordingly. Our church board planned activities in which entire families could participate, such as hikes and picnics in the mountains.
To compensate for my time limitations, lay leaders in the church took on more responsibility. For example, I trained four couples how to lead our midweek home Bible study. A student wife cheerfully watched our boys two mornings every week. In addition, she effectively led our high school youth group. Another woman, an organizational whiz, coordinated church activities like picnics and potlucks. Two men handled our church finances in a professional manner. In a step of faith, the church began paying our health insurance premium.
Because we operated out of our home instead of a church office, neighborhood contacts were natural. We made close friends with several non-churchgoers. One couple, former Catholics, even asked about dedicating their baby boy in our church, which led to a fruitful discussion about what a real Christian is.
I began looking for other good things to be found in our circumstances and gained new appreciation for this part of the country. I climbed 13,000-foot peaks. I caught wild rainbow trout in pristine settings. I saw and smelled the Yellowstone fires of 1988 firsthand. I enjoyed the small-town college atmosphere with its educational and cultural opportunities. I became a rabid Wyoming Cowboys basketball fan.
My frustrations eased with the birth of our third son, Matthew. Robin returned to work six weeks later, but only part-time. Matthew, nicknamed “Chuckles,” possessed a delightful disposition. Andy began kindergarten in the mornings, and I felt freed up for more ministry.
I still live with tensions, however. If I’m not in the ministry for the money, why do I worry so much about it? Those same extra pounds still hang around my waist. Watching my kids still wears me out. I fight fits of depression about whether I’m a ministerial success or failure.
But through it all, God has been faithful. He held on when I felt like letting go and made it possible for me to be a full-time pastor in spite of part-time pay.
-Michael F. Coughlin
Snowy Range Evangelical Free Church
Laramie, Wyoming
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
