Ministry.... and newspaper article

I grew up wanting to be a pastor's wife....God only knows why....  I wanted to minister to people and help meet needs and point folks to Jesus....   I can remember God speaking to my heart about it as a teen lying in my bed at night. 

While in college, I worked in various ministries.  Interesting ones, from juvenile halls, to working with drug addicts, homeless, and prostitutes...  I did an internship in the inner city of NYC for a summer.  I also worked in a small rural church...the same one we are pastoring now LOL.  I met Jon when I applied to work as the assistant director of a homeless shelter.  Jon was the director and sparks flew :)   I still equate homeless shelters and romance LOL:)

Then we itinerated which meant we  raised our support to go as home missionaries to NYC.  In our denomination , the missionaries who jump through a million hoops to get appointed, then have to raise their own budget.   We traveled for a year and a half, with Jon preaching every Sunday morning and night and some Wednesday nights throughout the southeast mostly to raise the finances.  It was tough, in the end we actually went without raising our full budget.  We like excitement LOL Nothing like living on a wing and a prayer in NYC!!!

But that year of traveling, being in so many different churches, THAT was an eye opener....  The stories I could tell....remember we were quite young, like mid 20's, at the time we were the youngest appointed missionaries ever....we had little experience....  But the poor pastors and their wives would just pour out their hearts to us over lunch or dinner....If we'd had any sense, we would have ran then!   Oh the sad stories we were told.  I guess we were 'safe" we weren't going to be around again so they could just spew their heartaches over ministry.  And spew they did....  Poor things, hurt by their church members, their district officials, other ministers .... it was awful....   Back then I thought rather smugly, that won't happen to us....well LOL.....we haven't been through as much as many of them, mainly because of me.  God has given me a "double portion " of discernment or suspicion    or whatever you might want to call it. but I do not trust people. Add to it my years of working as a probation officer....  And it has worked for our good over the years...  My husband loves everyone...Me?  Not so much!  Although with 25 years of ministry behind him, my husband is not quite the same person he was 25 years ago.  He is a lot more careful and wary of others.  I'm glad of that.  I can remember Jon getting on to me for saying I didn't like someone...NOW he listens and then watches ....and time and time again I'm right. 

One time another minister wanted to include us in his ministry and I told Jon "no way" and then I told him the reason why I thought that....Jon thought I was being mean spirited .....UNTIL about 10 years later and the guy was on the front page of our newspaper for some criminal charges.....  for the very thing I'd picked up on.... ( you do know I said "I TOLD YOU SO!" don't you?)

But we have had some hurts, some misunderstandings along the way in ministry.  Not too many thank God.  One thing we have dealt with over the years is me being attacked and then someone trying to come between us.  Since our personalities are soooooooooo very different, some people think we might not get along.  That is not true, we actually have learned to work together in a way I'd never imagine years ago, we actually compliment each other and respect each other.  We are a TEAM who has gone through a few different rodeos....LOL   (as in this ain't my first rodeo) 

When we were newly married, and newly in the ministry, we did struggle with that a couple of times, I'd be attacked by someone and then that person would try and get close to Jon and talk about my lack of spirituality.... It worked twice...  but we learned from those two experiences.  Now if we sense ANYONE is trying to come between us, that is a HUGE red flag.  We stop everything at that point.  We had that happen a few years ago and rather than respond to each other negatively, we as a team dealt with the real problem (or what could have become a problem)  and it went away. 

I read a post lately of a friend of mine who is a pastor and he was given a "back handed compliment' along the line of "hey your last few sermons really stunk but todays' was good"  LOL  I was able to share a funny one that was given to Jon awhile back...   Jon visited someone who was a friend of one of our members and the fellow came to church.  After the sermon, he first complimented  Jon then said  " Man, I don't know how you get up and preach to empty chairs week after week"   It was so funny to us, just really cracked us up:)  It was not said mean spirited and the guy probably really meant it as a compliment:)   We've repeated it to each other on several occasions since:)  Sometimes you just have to laugh!


If I were to go back now to Bible school.....Oh My the classes I would teach.....  I learned a lot but I didn't learn a lot at the same time!  There is nothing like practical ministry to teach you the reality of your dream.  Some ministries like being a chaplain or working in a homeless shelter is what is called para church ministries....it means a ministry that comes along side of a traditional church in order to reach out to all members of society.   Para Ministries are a lot easier than pastoring LOL

When you pastor a church, you learn a lot about UNfaithfulness.....I could write a book on that subject alone.  You see silly power plays, even in small churches and you begin to despair of the human race at times LOL 

BUT you also see the faithful ones, who you know you can count on them every week to be there and to be HAPPY about being there.  We've had faithful folks, who were the biggest grumps in the world!  LOL  They were faithfully grumpily there...each week...Praise the Lord.....LOL

Then you have the jewels....real jewels of the kingdom.  The ones that give their lives for God.  We are so blessed to have several people in our church like that.  They are so faithful to God and to the church and to the pastor.  They are encouraging, happy and content in the Lord.  They take every opportunity  to minister to others...  We have some retired couples that are amazing.  One couple moved down from NY to live here full time to volunteer at the prison and be a part of our church...we love Ken and Lynn and so do everyone who meets them.  Our music minister travels an hour each way on Sunday and is so faithful and godly.  We have a friends who have just committed to being a part of our church that also travel about 45 minutes each way to be here and to be involved in the music ministry in such a faithful unassuming way....  No one has to pat anyone on their back or give them a parade, they are just here & faithful! 

We've been at this church for almost 8 years.  We weren't really looking to pastor when this door opened up to us.  But now we see God's leading in it.  There were some honeymoon years and a few years of dealing with things, growth, change and physical change as we remodeled every building on the property.  Just recently we have felt a new good change happening...some things we have prayed for, are finally happening here.  It's been amazing to look back over the time here and see how we have grown and matured personally.  Again the things I could teach at bible college.....everything from "Know and Love your church's constitution & By laws to how to get a poisonous snake out of the sanctuary "  yep those are not the things they focus on in bible college....they should LOL 

We felt when we came here, we'd be here maybe 5 years, that is what we committed to since we've never been anywhere any shorter time than that ...except one church and that is a funny story 

We were asked to take a church in the central Florida area before we came here.  It was before Sam was born so it's been over 10 years ago.   The leadership of our district called us in to talk to us about it.  We were somewhat interested even after we heard some stories about it.  Let's just say crazy church...crazy people....  it rivaled the church I grew up in as far as problems and how it would fight pastors...    Challenges never have made us flinch so we went and Jon filled in for one Sunday.....  I was still in recovery from the loss of the twins and the valley of depression I had walked through HOWEVER that did not stop me from saying "these folks are NUTS!"   We actually accepted the pastorate and Jon moved some of his books into the office.  The second week, things were like unreal...lots of Pentecostal "voodoo"   We hear folks were meeting and praying against us....lovely....then this grown lady has a melt down and is sitting on her step father's lap...ok....that raised a few red flags....   Jon was still a chaplain...that is his heart so we quietly moved his books OUT of the study and told our district "thanks but no thanks- in our opinion just shut the church down and sell the building"  That is exactly what happened.  Then next Sunday at church, Jon resigned.... and I shared a "word" I'm not sure it was from the Lord but it was truth.  Good truth from God's word about being about the Father's business and not living in sin.  So that was our big short time as the pastor of that church....   we laughed about it then and we laugh about it now.  Life is too short to waste valuable resources on people that don't want to do anything about the kingdom except play church games...and power plays.... 

Jon works full time for the Department of Corrections.  We chose years ago out of necessity not to take a salary from our church.  We did for several years but as we were faced with remodeling the church, we took a leap of faith and stopped taking a salary at all from the church.  It's been great and it is liberating.  God has been so very faithful to us in ways we could not imagine before.   I don't think we'd ever take a salary again from a church unless things were really different. 

We probably have a very different approach to ministry than a lot of folks have.   Jon choses to be bi-vocational as a pastor, we chose not to take a salary from the church, we have come to believe in family oriented services (which means children stay with their families in church-no separation or segregation)   For a rural church, we have some interesting people in our congregation.....everyone is welcomed and everyone comes....we love it!  I wish I'd taken pictures today, our church was full and we had people from all kinds of backgrounds in there worshipping God and some learning about God for the first time.  WE are not at all "seeker sensitive" and we don't schedule things to bring in folks.  So we are really "cutting edge" LOL  we just cut in a different direction than many churches these days do. 

Neither of our boys feel "called to ministry" and honestly I am so glad.  that sounds awful but I see what it takes and how hard it is and I don't want either of them to face it.  I guess I should be spiritual and say I'd love for them to follow in our footsteps but I surely don't want them to unless they had a CALL that they could look back on and KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were doing what God wanted them to do.  Jon and I both have a strong calling and never once have had any doubts about being in the ministry  That is a good thing LOL!    And even tho I am quite cynical, I do know that I am called into ministry.  I have never really wanted anything else and the same for Jon....if you know Jon, then you'd know that he is called to ministry.  There is nothing else he could do, not because he couldn't do something else, but nothing else has his heart but ministry. 

Ministry is more than just getting up and preaching....although my husband loves to preach!  It's visiting the sick, it's counseling, it's equipping the congregation to reach out....it's preparing for the sermon, praying over needs....it's making sure an inmate in confinement has a bible to read....sometimes it's cleaning the church....whatever.....it is it is unto the Lord. 

It's exciting when you start to see things happen in the church you pastor.  We've felt like we have toiled here through some dry periods but now God is starting to pour out blessings here.  I'm certainly not saying we have reached the mountain top but at least we have crossed the desert and can see the mountain:)   We've learned faithfulness even while going through our own personal agonies...   we've learned to be faithful.   That is not something that is necessarily taught at Bible college either!

Today we saw our church full and our parking lot full, that makes us happy.  Not just for numbers sake, but for the fellowship, the shared excitement, the fact that we as a body can do more together than one person can do alone....  I believe in church, I believe God's word command us to "not forsake the assembling of ourselves together" and I don't think that assembling of ourselves together is just two Christians getting together to eat lunch.  The early church had weekly formal church meetings (not formal in the sense people had to dress a certain way but formal in the sense that it was consistent and all together)   The early church followed the tradition of the Jews who also had weekly meetings.  I want to roll my eyes when someone says "we're having lunch together, we're having church, no need to get up on Sunday morning...."  Oh please....give me a barf bag...  I have YET to meet a strong Christian who was lazy in their church attendance.  Maybe God knew we needed that discipline in our lives. 

Anyhow these are just some of my thoughts on ministry.  It is a big part of who I am....I can't escape it:)

If I could be doing the ministry I wanted to do...I'd be in Ukraine in the middle of a special needs orphanage....our dream was to go back... work in the orphanage and start a church in that area...no evangelical church for miles....   Jon felt moved to start a church and I would have loved to have taken over the orphanage (some are going private) and raised money, gotten therapists over, brought in medical care and teachers....I don't understand WHY our lives changed so dramatically, and that will never be an option for us but we still trust God and do what He has entrusted us to do here and with our sweet family.  Maybe that was just a dream, but it was definably our dream.....

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Selah has had a good weekend.  Her nurse has worked with her as usual and she has had a lot of things to do to keep her occupied.  Her bi monthly treatment of Tobymixon is over :(  I always worry about her getting sick when she is on her 4 weeks off from it.  She did have to be taken home today from church to be suctioned out and she was grimacing....I guess she was tired of the preaching LOL

School starts tomorrow and we are all ready for more structure in our lives:) 

Hope you all have a good week!!!!!

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/family-of-girl-who-nearly-drowned-in-erie-canal-copes-with-new-challenges/2136787

here is the newspaper article about our family's fight with Blue Cross....