Toward a social ecology of the minister's family

Abstract

The family life of the clergy has received scant attention in the published literature. Existing studies which may be relevant generally do not address the family directly from within an organized conceptual framework. This article proposes to set forth the broad outlines of an ecological systems model, in which the minister's family is to be understood as a social system embedded within a more complex web of interlocking socioemotional systems. The discussion will be organized according to Urie Bronfenbrenner's four levels of the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. In addition, the phenomenon of boundary ambiguity between the clergy family and the congregational family will be cited as an example of the utility of an ecosystem approach.