Family and Training
Many members of the YMC share their homes with partners, relatives, friends, colleagues and many have children. Their feelings about your ordination are important, and must be carefully and fully explored from the start. Don’t be alarmed if their reaction is mixed.
Your DDO or equivalent will want to be a part of the family discussion. (The Ministry Division publishes a helpful document, Ministry & Family Life, which you may be given). Remember that there is no single ideal model for a minister’s domestic life and family relationships.
What does the Course do for Families?
During part-residential training, the primary support for Course members’ families will continue to be your local church and community, and that is as it should be. But to that is added the network of Course members. The staff offer whatever friendship and support they can and are available to you: more important support may come from fellow-students and their families. Each group finds its own ways of sharing the experiences of the Course with those at home; this may include sharing meals or events, and prayer support. You may be surprised to discover that on part-residential Courses the sense of community and commitment to each other is strong, and develops rapidly.
This form of training can be demanding for families as well as for the course member. We recognise and value the contribution that the household makes to the successful completion of the training programme. The Course has no right to make any specific demands of members, partners or children - they are not the ones who have been recommended for training! However we do try to offer some opportunities for partners, and to a lesser extent children, to link into the pastoral, spiritual, academic and social life of the Course if they want to. Partners can enrol for the weeknight modules if they wish, and are also invited to come to certain Course weekends. There are occasional days for partners too. Keep watching News and Events for details.
A helpful website (as recommended by a partner) for both clergy husbands and clergy wives is cucumbersandwiches.org