Your home and your ministry

Almost certainly as a clergyman you work mainly from home and you are expected to use your home for some extent for your ministry.

Ideally you have your study and a loo next to the front door and you may be able to shut this part of the house off from the family-space, but perhaps not. It might even be helpful to lock the work part of your house for your day off - and maybe get your spouse to hide the key!
 
Probably you will regularly see church members, parishoners and others in your study. You have a study, not an office, by the way. How many of you can meet there in comfort? Is it reasonably clean and tidy? Is it easy to serve tea there? And can you hear the kids if they wake up in the night and you are meeting a wedding couple and your spouse is out? Do you need one of those child monitor thingies?

How much will you use the rest of the house for ministry? How many can you fit in your sitting room and dinning room? Will using this part of the house necessitate extra setting up, tidying and cleaning and putting back? What are the options if you want to show a DVD? How many people can see the telly? How much will using the rest of your house inconvenience your spouse, children, cat and dog? Whither will they be exiled? Do you operate a booking system for rooms in the house?!

If you are going to host a meeting regularly in your house, say, the monthly prayer meeting, will it still be there if you can't make it? Is your spouse happy to host? What happens if you are both busy or away?

Will you have a work phoneline and a home phoneline or just one? Where will they ring? And where will the answerphones be? Whoes going to answer and when? Do you answer the phone and or check messages on your day off? Durring meal times?

Is your house marked as "The Vicarage"? Is it next door to the church? What are the pros and cons of that?

Is it easy to find the Vicarage? Can one park? Will your visitors block you and your spouse in?

Does your doorbell work? Will people walk in without knocking?!

Will you meet with children or vulnerable adults or people of the opposite sex at home and if so whom will you have with you?

Will some parts of your house be private? Are they easily shut off from the rest of the house?

How will all this affect your Heating, Lighting and Cleaning and your expenses? If you regularly use the sitting room for meetings will the PCC be making a contribution towards your next carpet?

Are people expected to take their shoes off on entering the house? Can they cope with the cat and the dog?

Will you be hosting regular garden parties, barbecues and football matches in your garden as part of your ministry?

Is your garden a disgrace to the gospel?!

What other places might you use for meetings? The church? The hall? The pub? The coffee shop?

Where else might you work? The local library?

What home security do you have? Will the Diocese or the PCC help out with the cost of that?

 Are the Diocese good at responding to problems with the house? Do you know who to call if there's an issue? What about in an emergency?

 Do the PCC fulfill their responsibility to decorate the house? How is that done and negotiated? A room a year might be reccomended but do you want the upheaval and the hassle? Are you happy with church members trooping in to paint the downstairs loo?

Do people call at the door asking for money? Or for access to the church?

Do you have sufficient privacy? Is the churchwarden recording the movements of your curtains?

Will you spend some of your holidays at home and how will that work?