DEWCOM

Abstract

This study explored the impact of clergy relocation on families within the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), with particular focus on the experiences of clergy wives and adult children. Rooted in the Wesleyan tradition of itinerancy, relocation is often framed as an administrative necessity for mission and deployment, yet for clergy households it is also experienced as loss, disruption, and repeated grief. The research aimed to examine these experiences in depth and to propose a pastoral response that acknowledges both the pain and resilience of clergy families.

A qualitative design, situated within an interpretivist and phenomenological paradigm, guided the study. Semi-structured interviews with clergy wives and adult children enabled participants to narrate their lived experiences. This approach captured the emotional, vocational, relational, and spiritual dimensions of relocation. Findings revealed themes of vocational disruption, loneliness, and unacknowledged expectations among clergy wives, alongside identity struggles, loss of friendships, and exclusion among clergy children. A common thread was the absence of sustained support from church leadership, leaving families to navigate relocation largely on their own. Theologically, relocation was interpreted as a repeated cycle of grief, drawing on Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief, Worden’s tasks of mourning, Schlossberg’s transition theory and Pollard’s deconstruction model.

Building on these frameworks, the research developed a pastoral intervention rooted in Wimberly and Wimberly’s story-sharing model, emphasising healing through communal narration. The study contributes to pastoral theology by highlighting the hidden costs of itinerant ministry in Southern Africa and by offering practical strategies for pastoral accompaniment and institutional reform.