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To: TWohlford
Tell the pastor to take care of themself FIRST... and their family SECOND... with their job somewhere after that.

You are right. The responsibility to set reasonable and workable limits and boundaries is the pastor's. Unfortunately, too many pastors are ill-trained and instantly become over-involved in their work. Then some years later their marriage goes belly up or they burn out, and wonder why their life isn't what they ordered when they finished their M.Div's.

44 posted on 04/01/2006 7:51:52 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: hinckley buzzard

"Then some years later their marriage goes belly up or they burn out, and wonder why their life isn't what they ordered when they finished their M.Div's."

Actually, many marriages don't survive the M.Div process. We had 3 file for divorce IN ONE CHRISTMAS BREAK in a student body of 300. Two of them were Dean's List students. One more month of seminary and I'd have lost my marriage (we were talking about divorce).

Pastors confuse lots of things.

First of all, one is CALLED, not ADDICTED. There is a difference.

Second, it is NOT health to have no bounderies between ones professional life and ones personal life. This situation is aggrivated beyond belief when one lives in a parsonage / manse. When I left the ranks of clergy it was a relief to rent my own place, even if it was subsidized housing.

Third, there is a difference between your JOB and your relationship with God. NEVER forget that. Pastors seem to believe that failure as a pastor (or leaving the profession) is a failure in their relationship with God, possibly causing them to be damned (talk about works righteousness!!!)

Strangely, after I stopped being clergy, I stopped getting passes from women. I went literally 10 years after leaving the ministry until I got my next pass. When I was a pastor I got them weekly.


46 posted on 04/01/2006 7:57:29 PM PST by TWohlford
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