Itinerant Ministry is the bees knees!
If you are a faithful reader of this site you know I am a United Methodist Pastor. Right now I am in my second appointment but this is my first one that includes a house, called a parsonage. Parsonage living is brand new for me. I love what I do but this whole idea of living in a house that isn’t mine is new to me. It isn’t like renting because I don’t even pay rent and if something happens that I can’t work I have to move. This is strange for me.
So I have to mow the lawn because I live here, but the mower belongs to the church, and I have to keep the house clean because I live here but this isn’t my house. I can have friends come over but I also have to do work in my office in the basement. If the refrigerator needs replaced, I can’t just go and replace it, I have to call the trustees who have a meeting and decide if it is important enough to spend money on, because it is their house not mine. It even goes to the point that I don’t have property insurance on the house, the church does because it is their house and I have insurance on the contents of the house. And when I leave this church I leave the house behind.
Maybe this is what Bible means when it says “be in the world, not of the world.” and “This is not your permanent home.” Maybe this is how all Christians are supposed to act (except for the trustee part). If more Christians believed that everything we have is not ours and belongs to the one who paid for it, maybe the earth wouldn’t be as polluted? Maybe families wouldn’t be so broken? Or maybe it would just mean that more people would mow their lawn.
Perhaps if Christians understood that we are all itinerant it would make us stop and think before we bought something we couldn’t afford?
I don’t know, maybe I am wrong. When I tell other Methodist pastors that I believe itinerancy is a ministry of all Christians they usually laugh at my face.
I’m not saying I enjoy finding new doctors or changing my address every time we move (don’t even get me started on packing) but it is something as Christians I think we need to understand more and be willing to do.
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Hi Pastor:)
I have a similar experience. We live onsite at Meadowcroft. Our home is a part of the exhibit….
The idea that no one truely “owns” anything because it belongs to God…we are merely stewards…caretakers….,would change the world if it were accepted…
I think…realizing our need to cooporate and accept guidance from one another requires trust and sometimes personal sacrifice…but…it could lift a certain amount of the burden of accountability…a shared burden is a lighter burden…
Hi BT,
You’re right. Parsonage living is different, but I have found it to be a rich blessing. In the two parsonages I have lived in so far, I have found great joy in seeing how the church has taken care of me and my family. When I decided to pursue God’s call to ministry, it meant that my family and I decided that we were going to trust God to take care of us. The parsonage system is just one of the many ways that God’s people – the church – have shown us God’s provision for our lives.
And praise God for trustees. The process may seem slow and strange, but when you’re as unhandy as I am, trustees are a real blessing!