Do any of you have women in the church that acknowledge your husband, send him notes of encouragement, etc., but do not really give you the time of day? There is a group of women whom are genuine believers, but seriously schmooze him a bit. It’s a weird situation for me and because some of these women are friends with his relatives, it doesn’t seem that they want to or even desire to create any relationship with me. I have my own friends, and truly do not feel the need to be liked by everyone, but I just wish they knew that encouraging my husband, means sometimes encouraging his family as well.

Any of you get what I’m talking about?

I was so blessed to sit in a Q and A session with two amazing and experienced pastor’s wives, Kay Warren and Kathy Fields. They talked about the importance of taking care of the staff wives, because if they are taken care of, they are less likely to feel territorial over their husband’s ministry when things get messy. Unity serves everyone in the church.

So do you have that unity among pastor’s, elder’s, staff, or youth leader’s wives? What does that look like for you? I want to start meeting with our Pastor’s and Elder’s wives at our church but I’m not sure what direction to go in. Certainly we don’t all need another small group, Bible study, or ministry since we are all so involved already.

If it were you, what would YOU want most out of time spent with these significant women’s in your husband’s ministry? What would bless YOU the most and make you feel taken care of and supported?

It’s discouraging because lately, I feel like I don’t know who our friends are. We’ve been burned in the past few weeks finding out that people we thought we were close to are those who turn around and “murmer discontentedly” to others.

We truly feel like this is where we’re supposed to be and I think my husband is a fantastic youth pastor (and not just because I’m his wife!) but some days, it’s hard to remember that because of someone saying that we’re just here “because of his dad”.

Anyone been here before? I’d love to hear from you.

I too have questions about transition. When my husband got a job as the Pastor of Student Ministries in NH, both me and my son had difficulties with the transition. The church that called us up here, had a case of “buyers remorse” four months after and decided to threaten my husband’s position the week after we closed on our new condo. So, this took a huge toll on us as a family because it broke the trust and sense of security and inclusion with our new church family. It has now been 3 years later, both my son and I are on antidepressants and doing much better. However, the church leadership was abusive during our time there. So, even though we had a great relationship with the teens and children and families under our wing, that didn’t matter to the leadership. So, with the decline in finances, specific members of the leadership decided this would be a good “reason” to “down-size” my huband’s position. So, now he has been unemployed for 2 months and both of us are extremely discouraged and hurt. My kids are doing great, but my son still has occassional questions. The hardest thing about this whole transition is that we are hanging in limbo praying to God for a place in this world, since we no longer have a church family to support us (some friends, but we were so burned by the leadership, we can’t put our family through staying there any longer).

Courtney is is great to see that there are others out there feeling the financial effects too……I am so thankful to hear that you have a new ministry to go to. Just try to get as involved as you possibly can in your new community (inside and outside of the church) and the transition will come naturally, little by little. New friends will be made, new memories will be made. And God will see you through it all.

In the meantime, my hubbie and I are holding onto prayer and focusing on healing…..and hoping that there will be a job waiting for him before our “unemployment severance” runs out.

I look forward to hearing about all your new adventures in CA.

Great idea. I was thinking about how this would be possible too, so I am glad you figured it out. I’ve been wanting to get some input from all the MTYP ladies on ‘transition’.

My husband and I have been going through a church transition for the last few months, that we never expected. Our church in Illinois (like many all over the country) is going through some tough financial times, which is resulting in a staff down-size. In order for our church to continue to be obedient to God through finances, and not go broke, we have to down-size. My husband has been the Pastor of Student Ministries here for almost 7 years and he really loves it. To make a long story short, after much praying we decided that God was clearly telling us both that it was time for us to move on to something new. So rather than forcing the lead pastors to have to ‘fire’ people, my husband relinquished his position. After a few months of searching , my husband was hired last week by a church in Chino, CA (Inland Hills Church) to be their High School Pastor. We are super excited for this new adventure even though it will be hard to leave many friends and family members behind in Illinois. We are leaving our current church with no regrets, no hard feelings, and no broken relationships. We have total support from all of the staff and other people my husband has worked along side for the last 7 years. So… my question is this: Have any of you ever been through a transition like this? What was it like for you? Any certain things we should expect or not expect? I’d really like to hear some of your stories!