Have you struggled with deciding what role to take in your spouse’s parish, negotiating time away, setting boundaries about visitors to your home, or strengthening and nourishing your partnership amid the pressures of ministry? Maybe you’ve wished you had some kind of user manual to help you navigate the puzzles and challenges of this gig. Here’s the book you’ve wished you had: How The Other Half Lives: The Challenges Facing Clergy Spouses and Partners, by Johnna Fredrickson. This surprisingly little-known 2010 book is a thorough-going coping manual for the distinctive issues facing Episcopal clergy spouses (worship, careers, housing, rest, relationship, parenting).

Conversations on the Partners' Path Co-producer Laura Jackson encountered this work for the first time while doing doctoral research into the experience of clergy spouses; in the great sea of writings about the clergy spouse life, Other Half is the most recent and comprehensive work addressing practical issues from a psychological perspective. On March 7, Johnna will discuss with Laura what she learned while putting the manual together, and what’s most helpful in surviving and thriving.

Johnna plans, leads, and writes pandemic edition curriculum for learners of all ages as the Interim Director of Christian Education for Christ Church Parish in Plymouth, MA. Her focus is to foster others in their educational ministries so that she is no longer needed. For the past eight years, she has been the Wareham Free Library’s learning gardener, fostering the love of gardening and reading, and connecting what is on the plate to what is on the page and on the vine. How the Other Half Lives came out of many discussions with other clergy spouses and partners, particularly Elizabeth Lindsey and Cheri Smith. She has learned and taught in many contexts, including seminaries, retreat programs, and regional denominational offerings. Johnna has a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary in Practical Theology, with a concentration in education. She lives with her husband, Dave, and has two grown sons. Her reflections can be found on her blog: apenandaprayer.org. 

Laura Jackson is Executive Director of The Partner’s Path, a nonprofit formed to connect and nourish local communities of lay partners of ordained Episcopal clergy. Laura is a Leadership Coach and D.Min. candidate in Spirituality, studying the spiritual lives of clergy spouses.

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Conversations on the Partner’s Path is a new series of web conversations designed to provide a place of connection, spiritual nourishment, and gifts discernment for spouses of Episcopal clergy. Join us the first Monday of each month at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT/6 pm MT/5 pm PT as Cathy Tyndall Boyd welcomes different guest for 60 minutes of deep conversation engaging the challenges and gifts of being a clergy person's partner.  

These live, interactive, heart-to-heart engagements are the brainchild of Laura Jackson, MDiv, MA-C, Ardelle Walters, LPC, and Cathy Boyd, MDiv. They are presented cost free by The Partner’s Path (https://thepartnerspath.com) and Pathways for Baptismal Living at Bexley-Seabury Seminary (https://bexleyseabury.edu/pathways).

Recordings of the most recent program are posted on the Pathways website and an archive of all our recorded programs can be found on the Pathways for Baptismal Living vimeo site.