People will always be able to find something to criticize. When your husband is a church planter, you may feel like you have a big target on your back. How do you deal with criticism? Do you and your husband discuss criticisms that you hear? Why or why not?
Archive for May, 2008
Planting and Pregnancy
The following post is written by Susan Lister. Susan and her husband live in South Carolina and planted a church two years ago.
I’ve decided that planting a church is a lot like the emotions you experience with an unplanned pregnancy.
1. Shock: When God delivers the news that YOU have been chosen to start this “new life.”
2. Joy: In sharing the news with everyone (after you get over the shock).
3. Excitement: In making preparations for the due date… What will its name be? Where is it going to be born? Who is going to help deliver it?
4. Anxious Anticipation: Of the arrival date and all the thousands who will be there to share in your joy.
5. Labor Pains: Setting up the nursery, the waiting room (with lots of refreshments), and even teh delivery room.
6. Shouts of joy: When the big day arrives and the new life is born… WOW, there is nothing like it!
7. Disappointment: After the new life is born and there are not as many people as you had hoped for that would share in your joy.
8. Anxiety: The cost of funding this new life with little or no income.
9. Fulfillment: In knowing that God is at work in this new life and other lives are being born again as a result of this wonderful gift from God… His Church!
Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY!!!
For another take on the comparison of church planting and having a baby, check out the first chapter of My Husband wants to be a Church Planter… So What Does That Make Me?
Staying Organized
Several of the church planter wives we’ve talked to have found a great tool for helping them stay organized is Amy Knapp’s line of Family Organizers. They’re inexpensive ($14.99) and very useful. The 2008 – 2009 version starts with July 2008 so now is a good time to get them. Click here to check it out. (Note: We’re not affiliated with them in any way, but just wanted to let you know about a great resource.)
Getting Ready for Sunday Morning
This post was written by Kim Edmondson. Kim and her husband planted a church in Clarksville, Tennessee in September, 2007.
I’m sure this will come as no surprise to many of you, but I find one of the most challenging parts of my week as a church planting wife starts on Saturday evening and runs into Sunday morning.
I don’t know why it took me so long to catch on to the fact that the stress level in our home started to rise on Saturday evening. Things like our children not getting along, my husband and I struggling with communication, and an urgent need from a church member seemed to be the usual for the Saturday evening line up. By the time I fell into bed on Saturday night I was physically worn out and emotionally frustrated to the point of searching for the enthusiasm to get up on Sunday morning and head to church. Sunday mornings were a test in themselves without Saturday evening. In order to make sure I was ready before my children were up and my husband scooted out the door, I would get up at the crack of dawn and work myself into a frenzy trying to get everything done for home and church. By the time I pulled into the parking lot I was a mess. However, I would paint on a smile and keep on keepin’ on.
Finally, a friend mentioned to me that my “smile” was not very convincing. So, I began to seek the Lord for His answer to help smooth out this rough time of the week. He reminded me that the evil one was all too happy to keep me distracted from looking forward to going to church. Who better to have stirred up and in a tailspin than the pastor’s wife?!?
His solution for me was to “delight myself in Him” in the process of getting ready for Sundays. Because I tend to be a Martha, I was getting caught up in the details of “what had to be done” and missing the “one thing that is needed.”
So now, I begin preparing for church and worship on Saturday morning. I focus my heart and my thoughts on what is to come on Sunday. I pray for our staff, volunteers and my husband throughout my daily tasks. I lay out everyone’s clothes on Saturday afternoon, (including socks and underwear…..I have all boys!). I pack the diaper bag, and set it next to the car seat, which is right beside my Bible, purse and keys.
I still get up early on Sunday morning, but I try to keep a quiet spirit and get some praise music going as soon as I head downstairs so that my heart and mind are filled with the purpose of this day of worship.
It has been such a help and blessing for me to learn that by removing the distractions throughout my day on Saturday I am more prepared for worship on Sunday.
Free Book for Church Planter Wives
In case you haven’t heard, we have a book written just for wives of church planters, featuring chapters by Kim McManus, Niki Roberts, Teresa Merritt, and even financial expert, Dave Ramsey, among others. Did I mention that the book is free? Send us an email (planterwives@namb.net) with your mailing address or download it here.
For those of you who already have the book, did you know that there’s also a discussion guide available that goes with the book? You can download the discussion guide (also free) here.
God Provides
The following post was written by Amy Colón. Amy has a facebook page for church planting wives. If you’re on facebook, do a search for “church planting wives” and you’ll find her page.
Two years into starting Cool River, my husband, Kevin, was working 2 jobs. We had raised support and that was covering about half of the bills. Then he was working as the director of an after school program at a school in our community to supplement our income. It was an ideal job for a church planter. It got him into the community, it was great hours and it provided retirement and insurance that we did not have otherwise.
But as the church grew it was becoming more and more obvious that Kevin needed more time to get to know people in the community and get things done like sermon prep and everything else that goes along with church. One day he came home to me (not long after our 3rd child was born) and simply said, “I think I am going to have to quit my job.”
Everything in me wanted to say, “Are you insane?” And then the list of reasons flooded my mind. We have a baby, diapers to buy, bills to pay… on and on and on. But when I opened my mouth, what came out shocked even me. All I said was “okay.” He was shocked. I was shocked. It was the confirmation that he needed to be able to go through with what he felt God was leading him to do. We hugged. We sat there in silence. And for days after that we just held out breath and waited for that last paycheck to come in.
Next to actually starting the church, it was the scariest thing we had done. But in our hearts we just knew that God was going to somehow take care of everything. He always had.
Then about 2 weeks later I went to the mailbox. I had become accustomed to watching for the $100 support checks that kept us going each month. But this time in my search for little white envelopes I uncovered a great surprise… it was not a $100 check, but an anonymous donation for $10,000!!!! Almost the exact amount of money that Kevin was going to be losing for the remainder of the year by quitting his second job!
So I say all of this just to remind you… God will ALWAYS provide when we are faithful…even when it sounds like the most ridiculous thing in the world that He is asking you to do. When He tells you to “go for it,”…just “go for it!” You might just get one of the biggest blessings of your life.
The Impact on Your Children (Part Two)
This is part two of a post by Beth Whitworth.
A church planting wife/mother always feels the impact of how this might affect her children. Will they resent the ministry? Will this lifestyle cause them to grow bitter towards church?
I found that if you develop the relationship with Christ and He is real to you, your children will see that you are following a person that you love, not a duty or religion. Your relationship with Jesus will spill over into your relationship with your spouse and children. Their significance will be secure by the way you put them in the right priority and they, too, will grow in a relationship with Christ. When this happens, you will be able to help them to see that God is interested in their lives and can use the experiences they face for their good.
As I look back I can see where my children are stronger in their friendship because, at times, the only friend that they had to talk to was each other. They are able to find their way around new places and don’t fear getting lost. They also have a real example of how God leads you and speaks to you. He is caring and active in your future even if you aren’t aware of it.
Our oldest is now serving as a children’s minister in her church. After her first year in school, our youngest daughter came home from college and wanted to transfer schools. She decided to save some finances and get her degree at the local college in Buffalo. After several months of getting to know a young man on our worship team, they went out on a date. A year later he proposed and four months after that, he answered God’s call to full-time Christian ministry.
We even have a great opportunity to help our grandchildren understand how to have a relationship with Jesus whom they cannot see because even though they don’t see us, they can talk to us and we love each other.
I’m thankful that when God called us to plant the church, He gave me the strength to say, “Yes, Lord!” Not only have we seen a great movement by Him and lives transformed, I have witnessed my obedience to Him have consequences that are more for my children’s future, than for my own.
Coming up… One church planting wife’s story of God’s provision.
It’s Not Your Imagination…
The blog does look different. Not all the features I wanted were available on my previous theme, so I’ve made a change. Hope you like it!
In Honor of Mother’s Day
The following post was written by Beth Whitworth. Beth has her own blog for church planter wives at http://cpwives.blogspot.com.
The Impact on Your Children (Part One)
It was a warm June day and the u-haul was packed with the household belongings and being driven by my husband. I was following in our car also filled with our belongings as we drove to New York to plant a church. We were about halfway there when the tears began to flow down my cheeks. On the radio the song by Phil Collins “You’ll be in my Heart” began to play. My oldest daughter had given me the single a few days before we said goodbye. The call to plant this church was the first time in our lives that God sent me and my husband to a new ministry alone. Our oldest daughter had married two years prior and we had a one-year-old granddaughter. Our youngest girl was headed off to college and wanted to continue in her job so that she could continue to work before leaving in the fall for Virgina. She made arrangements to live with her sister through the summer. That left us driving away from them instead of having them in the backseat going with us.
By the third measure of the song, I found myself driving beside the u-haul and flagging down my hubby to pull into a rest area because I could no longer see through the tears to safely continue driving. We got out of the vehicles and I sat down on a grassy bank and sobbed. Making the decision to follow God’s call and move away from our kids was a very heavy one for me. We had been in ministry a long time and our children had always been a part of it. Now, once again, they were being affected, but this time we wouldn’t be together to work through our feelings and changes that we were facing.
(Part Two Coming Soon!)
Questions: How has being the wife of a church planter affected you as a mother? How do your kids handle being church planter kids? What have been the challenges for them and how have you helped them work through those?
Links Added
We want to help you connect with other church planter wives so we’ve added some links to church planter wives’ blogs in the sidebar. Check them out. (If you’d like your blog added to the list, please post your link in Comments.)
