Photo by suedkollektiv

By Debbie Gin

“I want to go back home.  I want to go back HOME!” I remember screaming through sobs, while my mom—half bewildered, half understanding my deep sorrow—tried to console me.  It had only been a couple weeks since our move from the comforts of a burgeoning Koreatown, Los Angeles, to the then predominantly White Hacienda Heights.  I was going into 7^th grade, and my parents thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make this shift in environment the summer before my initiation into junior high school.  Never mind the fact that our landlord, also Korean, had hiked the rent to the point my parents could no longer pay it.  My transition to this new land shocked every part of my being:  I spoke like everyone else, but I didn’t look like everyone else, I didn’t dress like everyone else, I didn’t know what a “mall” was, our dad drove us to school in the church van that had the Korean writing on the side, and I wasn’t from any of the elementary schools that fed the junior high.  I was alone, and I surely did not belong.

My one haven was Sunday.  The family would make the 30-minute trip to Los Angeles, where the church would continue to be located for another few years.  There, I knew the other kids, many of whom were from my old neighborhood.  I could communicate with them in my broken Korean, and we would play and fight and play and fight.  I learned later, of course, that pastors’ kids aren’t supposed to fight.  But it was heaven, and I belonged!

Fast forward a few years.  I am now trying to console my mom, and I’m half bewildered and only slightly understanding her deep sorrow.  I’m barely a teenager, the eldest, and my mom is pouring her heart out to me (or so it seemed—I later realized that, in her momentary venting, she was still protecting me from the harshest parts of her lonely life).  She was alone.  I was her only community.

My husband and I often talk about why I find it difficult to build community among my peers.  The only place I feel I belong is among my family.  I sometimes longingly observe my friends, wishing I could build lasting and deep relationships with people outside my immediate family the way they do.  But after a lifetime of only being able to rely on and trust my siblings and my parents, I find it difficult to rely on and trust anyone outside that circle.  And so goes the journey of pastors and their families.

I’ve written previously about the sense of belonging that comes slowly for racially minoritized persons in predominantly White contexts.  But when I was given this topic to blog about, I kept reflecting on how pastors and their families feel about belonging, how they—we—create community.  My current work revolves around helping seminaries improve.  I wonder how many seminaries are helping their students (current and future pastors—both men and women) figure out belonging.  Are they helping their students form their congregations into people who the pastors can rely on and trust?  Are the congregations becoming communities that can be led by imperfect pastors with imperfect children?  Can the people in the pews welcome it when their pastor preaches out of his season of fighting with God?  Can he be transparent with his congregation, transparent about his fears and needs?  Will they “allow” such a conflicted pastor to counsel them?  Will they see him as belonging in that community, or will they expect him always to rise above the fray?

Because my mom resorted to confiding in someone a third her age, I’m guessing that my parents’ answers to these questions were all “no”.  My own difficulty in being able to build community with anyone outside my family seems to point to this same conclusion.  The pastorate is a lonely place, and for pastors’ families, this loneliness naturally comes with the territory.  But if the congregation is intentional, and the pastor is too, I imagine that building community can be a beautiful expression of belonging.  The congregation accepts their pastor as a fellow human being, warts and all.  The congregation embraces the fact that, though called to, and separated out for, this vocation, the pastor has a life that is just as messy as those in the congregation.  She preaches out of her angst, sometimes with no solutions, often with hope, always honest.  The congregation rallies around her in good times and in times that are complex and confusing.  She walks with those that suffer, and they hear her wisdom.  The church becomes a place of authenticity, where we don’t have to put up facades of perfection, where we all can name our hurt and brokenness and be healed.  In such a place, the pastor and congregation belong.  Together.  Beautiful.

Dr. Debbie Gin is Director of Faculty Development and Research at The Association of Theological Schools/Commission on Accrediting, the support and accrediting organization of most seminaries in the US and Canada.  She was formerly Associate Professor of Ministry at Azusa Pacific Seminary and Fellow for Faculty Development and Evaluation in the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at Azusa Pacific University.  She and her husband currently live in Pennsylvania.