While many spouses of clergy feel that they are not unsung heroes, they certainly face challenges that few outside the clergy would understand. FOCUS, or Families of Clergy United in Support, is a national organization that recognizes these challenges.

Bonnie Studdeford is the national organizational coordinator for FOCUS. According to Studdeford, FOCUS not only serves as an advocate for spouses, but attempts to promote awareness of the very special dynamic that exists for families of clergy.

FOCUS studies local church systems and divides them into three groups: clergy, congregation and families of clergy. It is the belief of FOCUS that wellness of the clergy’s family makes the clergy, and therefore the congregation, healthier. Wives and husbands of the clergy are in a unique position, one that can make them feel “marginalized,” Studdeford says.

FOCUS addresses four major concerns:

1. Visibility/Invisibility. Families of clergy are in very visible positions, but often without a voice.

2. No Pastor. Who does the family go to for counseling when a crisis occurs?

Studdeford says that there is actually a chaplain appointed in some of

the Episcopal Dioceses who exclusively serves families of clergy, with no

obligation to report to the hierarchy.

3. Lack of a safe place/trust and confidentiality. It is difficult for a wife to confide in parishioners who may look toward her husband

for guidance, or in the hierarchy of the church, who actually employ her

husband.

4. Inability to express Baptismal ministry the way you wish. For example,

most wives or husbands of clergy cannot handle the church’s money, so even

if a spouse was a CPA, she could not offer her services to the church as

treasurer.

Studdeford is even doing graduate work studying the wellness of families of clergy. She says that the fact that the families of a minister are not laity, or clergy, puts them in a unique and potentially isolated position.

Anyone interested may contact FOCUS at their website: www.episocopalchurch.org/FOCUS.