I’ve been in a rather fascinating microcosm for the last three and a half years, watching Unitarian Universalist seminary students turn into ministers. My vantage point is an odd one, as the spouse of one of them, where I’m not really in on the process, but not entirely outside of it, either.

(I’ll point out right away that what I have to say here about this process is from my own personal experience, observation and anecdotes from others, and not meant as any sort of infallible universal statement - I’m certainly not the Pope!)

The Unitarian Universalist Blog Carnival invites us to explore the idea of “Authority” this month, so here goes nothing, from the perspective of the seminary spouse.

One of the issues that all of these student ministers seem to deal with at some point, usually going into their Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), where they work as chaplains in a hospital or retirement community, or sometimes a prison, is the notion of the authority of a minister. Many seem afraid that they simply do not have that authority, that they are playing some kind of a role that they don’t really inhabit. Many play that role too vigorously, particularly when they preach, using overly “Minister-y” type vocal delivery and declarative statements, as if they need to prove that, yes, they have some kind of ownership of ministry.

I am encouraged by these things, because it seems to me to indicate that they come to ministry not from ego but from a deeper calling, and aren’t quite sure how to balance it all yet.*

Thankfully (at least from a worship standpoint), along the way, something changes with regards to how a student minister sees themselves. I suspect it’s typically during CPE, when wearing a badge that says “Chaplain” automatically causes lay hospital patients to assign some kind of authority to that person, that s/he realizes that ministerial authority is not completely dependent upon their specific actions and words, as important as those are, but that the role of a minister is much bigger than the individual playing it. Student ministers who have worn clerical collars for public ministry experience the same kind of thing (like the time my husband didn’t have to pay for his coffee and doughnut when the shop didn’t take the debit card). Internship seems to really “seal the deal,” along with passing the Fellowship Committee.

As the spouse, I’ve found that some of that ministerial authority rubs off on me, too, which is just plain weird. I’m not really sure what to do with it.

In Coffee Hour after my husband has given a service, there are a couple of distinct camps that people who talk to me tend to fall into. One is the “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” type, characterized by questions like, “Wow, he must have been up late last night writing that one…” or “You must be his biggest critic/inspiration, right?” These folks see me as the one with the inside “scoop” on the humanity of the minister, thinking they’ll get the inside story.

Then there are the more traditionally-thinking people, who see me as more of an extension of John’s ministry, as his right (or left) arm rather than my own person. They like to relay messages through me - along the lines of, “I know he’s so busy with everything, so I thought I’d just tell you how much I enjoyed his message today…” It is very hard for me to remember to not just take such things with a cheerful “I’ll let him know,” which is what my Coffee Hour persona is wont to do, so that people don’t get in the habit of communicating with him through me. (These are also the people who are more likely to expect me to be serving coffee or directing the choir, bless their hearts.)

There are others, too, and those who just treat me like me and not part of John, thank goodness.

What’s really interesting is when I’m conversing with someone who doesn’t know who I am in relationship to John, and then they find out during the conversation. Sometimes their entire manner changes, as if they think I’ll report back to him their every fidget. Sometimes they try too hard to make me think that it’s no big deal to them. Sometimes, no matter what we were talking about to begin with, they’ll immediately change the subject to talk about his sermon or questions about his progress toward ordination and settlement.

The hardest thing for me will be to resist that assigned authority that rubs off from being the minister’s spouse. It’s an all-too-human response to feel good when someone butters you up and assigns you power, no matter how icky you might feel about it later upon reflection.

And that leads me to thinking about authority as an issue of assignation much more so than something a person can command. Going back to watching student ministers come into their own, I’ve observed that the ones who try to broadcast their ministerial authority before they are comfortable with it are the least effective and actually command less authority than those who just get up and lead worship. Their actions say, “Look at me! I’m being a Minister!” rather than, “Here’s something you can learn about the world from our shared experience.” I am much more likely to take the latter seriously and with more weight than the former.

*It would be interesting to see if the same kinds of behaviors are apparent in Christian seminaries, where the faith that the minister leads comes from a higher authority (God), in comparison to Unitarian Universalism, where we’re not all that sure where to assign theological authority. That’s another post entirely, as is an exploration of what ministerial authority really is, anyway, from the lay perspective.