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Anyone have a husband in Youth Ministry and you don’t wanna be?
And by that I mean that you don’t want to serve and be a part of the Youth Ministry, really at all. Maybe because of kids, or a job, or serving in a different ministry, or simply because you just don’t want to. I feel like I am hearing more and more stories of wives serving right along side their husbands, but don’t want to. And as a wife still want to support and love that this is what their husbands are called to do. It has to be hard to know what to do with those feelings. I would love to give some encouragement to those women.
Being married to a Youth Pastor, or anyone in the church for that matter is truly a unique calling. When a wife is married to a Doctor no one expects her to scrub up next to him and help preform surgery, or a lawyer…you’re not expected to show up and defend a client. This “job” our husbands have comes with many hidden expectations of us as the wife.
I would love to hear your story, your voice about how youth ministry works for you and your spouse.
Maybe I need to get over myself and realize that I will be behind the scenes…? My husband (he’s orginally from Seattle and me from PA…. we met at a church on an internship in OK in 2004 and now live in MS) has been at the church for 5 years this Sept. We got married last November. And I moved here to MS a year ago (after we dated for 7 months long distance while I was in college in FL) and man, my reception here wasn’t as welcoming as I had hoped! Every time I visited, I was a celebrity… “Oh look, that’s Pastor Troy’s girlfriend!” but the second I moved here, people (adults, parents, students) got upset. Now they can’t have him to themselves anymore. I’ve been here a year and married for 9 months and it’s been so rough. A year later and we are still hearing complaints like… “well, BEFORE you got married you did suchandsuch” and mostly by the younger teenage girls too!
A month ago I would’ve written how I loved serving alongside my husband… how my heart is drawn towards the students & the “high” I feel when really connecting with one of the teen girls. … Fast forward to today and my heart has been stomped on one more time. Hubby got blindsided and fired from his position. This will be the third church we’ve left (the first one was our choice/moved to new church, second was incompatibility w/ the SP/dh resigned, and this one was money reasons “plus”/we were shocked and hurt). I am ready for a break from ministry. I’m not sure I can put my heart out there one more time… ultimately, I do believe that I have been called to serve alongside my hubby. God has given me a love for teens. That’s why losing the position suddenly hurt so much. We were suddenly yanked out, told he was done, with no warning to us or the students. Our heart hurt for us… and for them. I know that one day God will move us on to another church, after helping us heal through this. The draw is too large for both him and me. However, ’til then, I’m gonna be a little “gun shy.” For now, we need to find a new church in the area and allow our hearts to heal and to serve elsewhere, as just a lay person.
But, back to your ultimate question… we just had a baby in November (our second), so I was having to step back out of some of the activities. I still was committed to the regular weekly activities (& led a girls smallgroup) but passed on many of the extra “fun” activities built in each month. I guess, to me, that was a balance between the higher priority of my personal family and a lower priority of church family.