If you had been Ken Zimmer’s high school guidance counselor back in Denver, you might have questioned his desire to train for the ministry. A middle-of-the-road student who got along well enough but stuck to the shadows, his leadership skills were not apparent. He was not a natural mixer with people, and he tended to hesitate before he spoke. When he finally opened his mouth, he usually had something thoughtful to say, if you didn’t mind waiting.
Ken held to his course, however, went to Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs, and married Beth the week after graduation. It was a case of “opposites attract.” Beth showed spunk, came from a highly educated family, wanted to succeed, liked to organize things. She was eager to get started in the ministry.
Their first opportunity, however, did not come for more than a year. They kept their secular jobs until a church in Pueblo invited them to a part-time position in music and young-adult ministry. It was a church of a hundred or so, with a pastor edging toward retirement. Says Ken:
We were to come and help him make something happen, revitalize the church. For a hundred dollars a month this young couple would sweep in and really light some fires.
Well, that wasn’t quite what happened. That winter, in order to help the financial picture, the church asked me to organize a day-care operation. I got it going and found myself up to my waist in little kids twelve hours a day. Then the recession began to hit Pueblo, and enrollment dipped. The whole thing turned out to be a disappointment.
A string of supplementary jobs—selling water softeners was one—brought the Zimmers enough money to stay alive but a lot of frustration. By the end of the second year, Ken surrendered his title of assistant pastor and asked to be relieved of his weekday responsibilities in order to get full-time work. A baby had arrived by then, and the pressure to provide for his family overwhelmed his desire to continue in the ministry. He would continue teaching his class on Sundays and directing the choir on a volunteer basis.
Beth remembers her feelings:
I was sure this would be temporary. I was young and naive and optimistic.
But I felt bad for Ken, too. I’d never seen him so frustrated. The feelings of insecurity, you know—not making it at the church, your ministry not going anyplace … it was tough.
Letters to old friends in other pastorates produced encouragement but no offers. The only live option came from an unusual source: Ken’s older sister, who had just been named pastor of a church in the small town of Frazee, Minnesota. “Come on up and help me,” she wrote. “This church is just ready to blossom, and I really need your musical ability. It will be part-time to start, but with a lot of work, the position will grow. You can live with me in the parsonage to start. Expenses are quite low here.”
Ken wasn’t sure about that. For one thing, he dreaded patching together another combination of part-time jobs. Maybe they should just go back to Denver and get more education.
In the end, however, the pull of the ministry won. Pueblo must have been just a false start. Frazee would put them on track.
The church turned out to be only thirty people on an average Sunday, and even Ken’s sister was not drawing a full salary. The choir he had come to direct numbered six, not all of whom could read music. The Zimmers’ compensation turned out to be free housing, and that was it.
Meanwhile, Beth was expecting again. For a month, Ken could not land a job. He finally found a carpenter who would take him on as a helper.
The “choir” soon proved unworkable, and Ken ceased rehearsals, to his sister’s dismay. Communication between the two degenerated quickly.
I think she was really struggling for her own place in ministry as a woman. This was her first pastorate; she’d been in evangelistic work before and had had some disappointments, some real lack of respect.
But with every passing week, I was saying to myself, This is the wrong place. We’ve blown it. I tried a couple of times to tell her how I was feeling, but there just seemed to be no understanding.
Beth found herself the chief cook and maid for the household, and that caused its own tensions. She was not always sure whether her sister-in-law, who was used to the freedom of singleness, would show up for dinner. Yet Beth’s ability to control the size of the grocery bill for the household was criticized more than once.
In Beth’s reflections today, however, she tries to be generous:
I don’t want to make her look like a mean person, because when I look back on it, I can see I was very young and immature, and way too sensitive. The pregnancy didn’t help, either.
I’ve mellowed so much since then. I should have handled things differently. Now that we’re in our own pastorate, I know what she was going through.
They still remember an incident that happened one Sunday morning not long after their little girl had been born. Ken was on the platform with his sister. But due to the low attendance, he also needed to fill in as an usher at offering time. Once the money was collected, he hurried to lock it away before returning to the sanctuary to lead a hymn before the sermon.
As he came through the side door, his sister was already at the pulpit, awkwardly filling the void with an offhand remark about “It’s hard to find good help these days.” Ken was both embarrassed and angry at the crack. It symbolized the whole disaster of their coming to Frazee.
But where should they go? Did anyone want them? Was his ministry ever going to get off the ground?
In May he called his mother in Denver.
I hardly said anything; I just began to cry. I hadn’t intended to do that, but … I just said, “Is there any way we could just move back to the house? I have no place to go, and we can’t stay here. Talk it over with Dad.”
She said, “Fine—come on home.” She could tell I was broken, emotionally exhausted.
Within a few days, they packed up and left. Ken’s sister took their departure calmly. “Do whatever you think is best for yourself,” she said. Before long, she too left the church, and the ministry.
The next year was again a season of retreat to secular employment: painting, factory work. Again Ken’s feelers to the ministerial grapevine produced no invitations. The young family of four continued to live with his parents, who were gracious hosts, never pressuring them with hard questions. Inside, however:
I said, “I’ve had it with the ministry. It’s been six years, and we haven’t gotten into it full time yet. I’m going to go to school and see if I can support myself [permanently] some other way.”
I felt no one cared about my being a pastor.
Ken looked at his wife and wondered occasionally if she wanted out of this marriage. After all, none of the dreams had come true. He was nothing but a failure. She had lots of steam, initiative; was she maybe thinking of leaving?
In fact, she was not. She was too busy with two preschoolers to entertain such thoughts. Her commitment as a Christian wife held firm. She says:
The only emotion I felt at that time was relief that we were out of a demeaning situation. I didn’t understand what had happened so far and figured we must be doing something wrong, but at least we had bread on the table.
Early the next year, an old college friend mentioned Ken’s name to a pulpit committee in Sturgis, Mississippi, and he was called to come as a candidate. It was a rural church, but for the first time in Ken’s experience, they talked of a full-time position. The Zimmers are there today.
There have been struggles in this church, and the growth potential is limited. But Ken has overcome his shaky beginnings.
I said I was not going to quit here, go back to Denver, and be in the same spot again. I would stick it out. The Lord has taken all of that [early failure] and used it for our good.
I remember the pastor in Pueblo telling me that pastoring is sort of like a child’s punching toy. It gets socked and goes all the way down to the floor—but keeps coming back up again. In this work you have to have resilience.
Ken and Beth Zimmer’s store of resilience lasted just long enough.
Reflections
by Gary CollinsKen Zimmer is not a barn burner, but he is persistent. He’s one of those people who doesn’t show great natural talent but says, “I’m called anyhow.” Mission boards encounter these people all the time. You can’t knock persistence.
This couple’s experience shows the pressure of parenthood on top of everything else. A lot of young couples don’t recognize what adding a child does to a home. It’s one of the most stressful things you can encounter. It was certainly that way in my own marriage. We like our kids and have good rapport with them. But kids are demanding; they take time and money; they squelch your freedom; they’re messy; and you can’t read books very well when they’re around! If the pastor withdraws into his work when a baby arrives, the pastor’s wife gets hit even harder.
The Zimmers decided to minister with Ken’s older sister. I’m not completely comfortable with the idea of family members coming along to rescue relatives. Clashes often result, resurrecting a lot of baggage from the past. As a result, the relationship becomes difficult and the ministry suffers.
In this case, lifestyle conflicts developed. The sister’s comment in church one Sunday (“It’s hard to find good help these days”) is an example of how casual remarks among family members can be very biting. This is passive aggression; she is angry, but instead of coming out and saying, “Ken, I don’t feel you’re doing your job,” she says something pointed that also makes everyone laugh.
I remember hearing a student body president announce an all-seminary potluck one time. “Everyone be sure to bring a dish,” he said. “My wife will probably bring her usual burnt sacrifice.” Everyone laughed, including her (what else could she do?)—but what a powerful zap.
The more things fall apart in the Zimmer situation, the more Ken’s self-worth is devastated. He begins comparing himself with his wife, who has more drive and steam, he says. Soon depression and discouragement appear. Because of a lack of communication, he fears his wife wants out of the marriage.
He doesn’t actually know what she’s thinking. He may have wanted to talk to Beth—but what if she said, “Well, you’re right—I am disappointed in you, and I’ve got too many creative things to do in life to stay around”? Rather than risk that, he doesn’t bring up the subject. It’s like going to a doctor to check on a mole. We think we’d rather not know the facts.
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, we went through a similar experience. I’d read books about women’s sensitivity during pregnancy, and so I stopped sharing some of my pressures at work in order to make her life easier. Two years later, I found out what she really thought: He’s not talking anymore. He’s not sharing about work. He doesn’t find me interesting to talk to anymore. I’m putting on weight, losing my shape; he doesn’t find me attractive anymore. I bet he doesn’t love me anymore.
That was all in her imagination; none of it was true. But as she said later, “I didn’t dare bring it up for fear you would say, ‘That’s right.'”
Sometimes we let conclusions build in our minds that aren’t valid. Consistent communication can keep this from happening.
Copyright © 1985 by Christianity Today
