Homeowners

There’s something a little surreal about standing in a house and realizing… no one is going to form a committee about the dishwasher.

For the first time in 25 years of ministry, as I transition to a new appointment, I am not moving into a parsonage.

Now, before anyone gets nervous on behalf of parsonages everywhere—let me be clear: parsonages can be wonderful. Truly. When they are well cared for, they are generous, grace-filled spaces that make ministry possible in ways that matter. Clergy who sometimes move to rural areas with little to no accessible housing absolutely need well taken care of parsonages. I’ve lived in some lovely ones. Homes where my kids took their first steps, where laughter echoed down hallways, where casseroles appeared on counters like miracles when I had an emergency appendectomy with a not quite yet one-year-old.

But they were never quite… ours.

Because living in a parsonage means living in a space shaped by many hands and many opinions. It means the flooring isn’t just flooring—it’s a subcommittee decision. The refrigerator isn’t just an appliance—it’s a line item. The “simple fix” is never quite simple, because it has to travel through the sacred (and sometimes slow-moving) process of church trustee approval.

There was that one time—glorious, unprecedented—when we got to choose between two parsonages. It felt like being on a very niche episode of House Hunters: “Clergy Edition: Limited Options, Strong Opinions.” We were giddy. Two choices! One with a working sump pump, the other with air conditioner!

And yet, even then, we were choosing between “theirs” and “theirs.” Not ours.

But as of yesterday, that has changed.

Marshall and I are homeowners.

I keep saying it out loud just to see if it still sounds real. Homeowners. The people who have to fix things when they break. The people who can paint a wall without filling out paperwork. The people who, apparently, now care deeply about phrases like “water heater age” and “roof lifespan.”

The responsibility feels enormous. Like, wake-up-at-3am-and-wonder-about-plumbing enormous.

And still—somehow—I feel free.

This morning we met our realtor at the house and just… started doing things. We replaced door locks. We made plans to fix a toilet that rocks (which feels like a metaphor for something, I’m just not entirely sure what). We replaced some lightbulbs and bought some new fixtures. We scheduled appliance deliveries —appliances we picked out. We confirmed installation of the carpet in a few weeks.

No meetings. No motions. No seconding required.

Just us. A committee of two.

Working side by side, making decisions, laughing at how wildly unglamorous some of those first homeowner tasks are. No HGTV moment here—just a frustrating sliding door lock and a growing sense that this space is becoming ours with every small act of care.

It’s not that parsonage life wasn’t good. It was. It held us well for a long time.

But this?

This feels different.

This feels like putting down roots in a new way. Like stepping into a kind of stewardship that is both heavier and more personal. Like freedom wrapped in responsibility, and responsibility wrapped in love.

We don’t move in for about a month. There are still boxes to pack, goodbyes to say, and the tender, complicated work of leaving well in Silverton and Stayton. That chapter is closing even as a new one begins in Vancouver, and I find myself standing in the in-between—grateful, a little (ok a lot) overwhelmed, and deeply aware of how much life can change in a single signed document.

A house.

Our house.