keeping our children's hearts

"Mom, I'm so happy to be part of this family. I'm glad you and Dad give us consequences so we learn how to be better." 

Wow! Hearing those words from my 12-year-old son made me want to melt, cheer from the roof-tops and hug him like crazy all rolled into one! 

We've been struggling with pre-adolescent attitudes lately and wondering how to keep close while still keeping in control. These words made me glimpse a little bit that what we are doing IS making a difference.

As I was growing up, I had lots of friends that were PK's (pastor's kids). And now with the wonderful world of social networking, I've reconnected with many of them. Unfortunately, my heart is sad to see how things have turned out for them. Downhill. Totally living for self. What happened? 

But isn't that so often what DOES happen with pastor's kids? 

Why do PK's so often choose the opposite of how they've been raised?

These are questions that have been on my heart since my husband started pursuing pastoral ministry 2 1/2 years ago. We're in the beginning stages right now, with Brad taking classes towards his theology degree and serving as the assistant pastor at our local church. But we've already seen how demanding of my hubby's time this life can be. Very rewarding, but busy.

So, is it just something that I need to resign myself to? "Teens will be teens" and "Kids will be kids"? Is it inevitable that pastor's kids will go through rebellion, maybe finally choosing a different way than we so desire for them? Do our children have to go through that "stage?"

I submit that the answer can be "No." In reading a book by Steve and Teri Maxwell entitled "Keeping the Heart of Your Children," I've seen that it isn't necessary for our kids to have to go through a time period where they hate their parents and rebel. Yes, they will become independant, but they don't have to do that with an attitude!

Before going back to school, my husband was a boys' residence dean at a boarding high school. This was not a place for troubled kids, but so often we saw issues that the teens had that, as we worked with the parents, we saw stemmed from their upbringing. Scary! I'm sure you would agree with me that the greatest desire of your heart is for your children to be true followers of Jesus. 

So, how do we do it!!???

I don't have all the answers and there are very many days when I feel like I'm at the bottom of the expert pile! But I feel that God is bringing the subject of keeping my children's hearts to the forefront of my mind and giving me ideas of how to do just that. Praise Him for sure, since I tend to revert to how I was raised: hollering and yelling, when left to my own ways.

So... take some time today to think about your PK's. 

Do you have their hearts? Who would they rather spend time with the most? How do they respond to correction? Is their heart turned to God? Or is it turned to whatever their friends are into? How much time do you spend together as a family as opposed to how much time your kids are elsewhere?

Let's answer those questions in our hearts and then talk to God. Ask Him if there is something we can do to show our kids that above everything, we love them so much. We love them enough to raise them with a higher view in mind... heaven. 

It's really easy to let the world's ways and views take over in our own homes. Let's pray that God can put a hedge of angels around our children and protect them from the strong pull of the world, which eventually pulls them away from us as their parents and ultimately, away from God.

I'm praying for all us moms (and dads) who want to keep our children's hearts!

 © CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

introducing a new columnist:: AMY

Amy Foote Minett writes from the West Coast of the United States as a PW who is fairly new to all this, since her husband changed careers to become a pastor after they were already married with children.

The last couple of years have brought my husband (Brad) my 4 beautiful children and me through some big life changes. After 9 years of working in schools with teens, God impressed us to pursue pastoral ministry. 

So now we live in South Lake Tahoe, CA where we juggle my husband's college classes towards a theology degree and his work as assistant pastor of our church, my homeschooling the kids and my home biz with Usborne Books, and all the other things we just seem to say "Yes" to (including my first 1/2 marathon in May!!!).

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

the good stuff...

Being a PW is hard work. Some days are heartbreaking, other days bring joyous rewards.

In the middle of surviving the busyness, the taking care of people's needs, the serving others whether our own needs have been met or not, the living in a fishbowl... you get the idea.

In the middle of all that - it's easy for us to forget the great things about being married to a pastor. 

It's easy to get swept up in the chaos, or the sheer volume of need, or even the boring routine of it all - and forget that God led us to a special life of ministry. 

So, to help us remember, Fridays are hereby dedicated to "the good stuff" - at least for a while. To remind us as we head into the weekend, that there are definitely perks to being a PW. 

"the good stuff" is also an open forum. If you've got something about PW life that you're especially thankful for, send us an email and we'll post your good stuff on an upcoming Friday! 

Feel free to include a photo to illustrate. Please include your name, city/state/country, and a valid email address in case we need to clarify anything (emails will NOT be included in your post).

Send your "good stuff" to: clutchtalk (at) gmail (dot) com.

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

is your cart too full?

Sometimes as girlfriends in the ministry it's so hard to balance it all.

The cell phone is ringing, guests are coming over, the baby needs to be changed, and you have yet to get into the word or get plugged in for yourself. However we still find time to blog, twitter, check facebook (and let's not forget texting)! We seem to find the time for the things we want to do and desire to do, but the things that are most important get brushed under the rug.

Let's pretend our life is a grocery cart - or buggy, depending on the area of the country you live in. All the things that we're doing pile up as we shop through life. Daily tasks, business and life fill our carts, but at what cost?

We ask God to give us things, not just material possessions but also ministries, and we ask for opportunities. Then when he gives them to us we end up pushing these carts that are full to overflowing. We've lost the simplicity of "drop everything and follow him". Our carts are so full that we have lost sight of our neighbors, the grocery clerk, and the moms in the park.

I know in ministry our lives are already so full, and we share our husbands and we are under a microscope, but do we count the cost? We can always take our carts and walk back through life and put things back on the shelf.

We want and we want and we want - but so often we don't think of what the cost is going to be. We walk through life thinking we have to have this ministry or we have to have this item and the fact is we can't afford it! In our spiritual lives are we really ready for what we're asking God to give us? Can we really afford it? We each determine what our cost is going to be.

Luke 9 talks about the cost of following Jesus.

"As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

He asked his disciples to leave it all and just follow him.
No procrastination.
No backward looks.

You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day. Girlfriends, it may mean taking the coffee date with our bff out of the cart to make time to meet with a single mom. It may mean inviting someone into our home that will stay all day. It may take you emptying your whole cart and putting it on the shelf and having a zero balance at the register so you can be available.

It cost Jesus everything for you and me to be free, what will it cost us to see just one other person follow him? Are we being personally effective and making a difference? Or, as my friend Brandi Wilson posted recently, are we only effective by association? Wow.

In Matthew 7 it says we will be recognized by our fruit. Are we counting the cost and bearing healthy luscious fruit or are we allowing our carts to fill up and squash the fruit? What are our priorities?

So here are my questions:
Is your cart full of the things you have asked God for?
Are you effectively counting the cost?
Are you willing to leave those things behind and put them back on the shelf to follow his commands in the uncomfortable places where no one is looking, and where your effectiveness is not based on your church?

Can't wait to read your responses!

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

bon voyage!

lessons from the bus (part 1)
mapping = community connection

Four months after arrival in this French-speaking country, we finally had enough French up our sleeve that we were ready to try the city bus system.

This may sound a little strange, but there is absolutely no bus map and limited information on where the buses go, except for the bus windows and some limited information on the bus website. Each bus has a number and a sign saying where its final destination will be, so you would think that was helpful. Yet, our city map did not have those destinations and what if we wanted to get off at a different place?

We explained our plight to a few people, but they only told us “Oh, just take the Car Rapide on that street and get off at…” Okay, so there are four types of buses here: The regular blue city bus, a smaller white city bus and two other buses that would be a hybrid system of city bus and taxi, one of which is called Car Rapide. So, their responses didn’t help because the Car Rapides are not marked and go wandering all over the place.

The easiest thing was just keep trekking all over the city on foot, as we had been doing, or take a taxi. The first is not always time efficient and the latter is expensive.

One day, our French professor gave us a few of the main blue bus numbers and their general route. Wonderful! Armed with this information we headed out for a new adventure. All too soon we found out that it wasn’t as easy as our professor made it out to be. Was this because of the system? Or was it because of our Western mindset?

I wanted a neatly mapped-out set of routes that told me where all the stops were. As I looked around I began see that maybe I was the only one who needed a neat map that fed my individualistic culture.

As our experiences (more of those later) on the bus system have broadened, over and over I see the need to get out of my shell and ask the people. Everyone here knows something about the bus system and with each person talked to, a more complete map is created. Not on paper, but in our minds.

I cannot help but think of our lives as Christians, and even as PWs. How often do we prefer a neat map for our lives or our roles in ministry? A map that clearly defines what, when, and how we should do something while also setting some boundaries for others on our time and space?

Yet life in ministry is more akin to African culture. It flourishes best with community. When the time is taken to stop, listen and talk with our parishioners and learn from their experiences and observations, we soon find we have a much better working map in our minds of the church congregation and our role.

I am drawn to John 14:1-9. Here Jesus builds up to the verse “I am the way...no one comes to the Father except through Me.” And then he delineates further. Clearly the map to heaven is a relationship. Is it possible that the map of ministry is relationship as well?

If this is the case, this is good news indeed! No need to be intimidated by what a congregation will think of us, our husbands or our ministry. Build a relationship with Jesus, build a relationship with the people and the map will be made clear.

It is not easy and will require getting out of our comfort zone. Yet that is what we have been called to do: serve others through relationship.

This is only one application of my experience. I am interested to hear other applications that you may see from this mapping = community connection idea. Let me know what you think and how this can apply to our everyday life.

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

introducing a new columnist:: LaRAE

LaRae Coleman Papendick is our second new columnist. LaRae writes as a missionary wife and young mother serving in West Africa.

I was born into a family that was uniquely positioned to give me the best of so many worlds. I am the youngest of four kids by eight years, so I had the best of siblings and the best of being an only child. My dad is a pastor and  was a chaplain in the Air Force, so I had the best of pastoral ministry in its usual sense as well as the wonderful side of military life. 

We lived in many places but always visited our relatives who never moved, so it was like coming home every time we visited them, while still being able to see the world.

My whole life has been one of twists and turns so that at each new phase I start to see the fitting together of the jigsaw puzzle of my life. For example, I met my husband once while in high school. We had a half hour walk together and then did not meet again for seven years. Just under two years later we married. It will be five years here this May and I am increasingly thankful to God for working with my stubbornness to bring us together because we are a perfect match. He is also a pastor’s kid and we have many common experiences and friends from our growing up years, though we lived in different states and countries.

We have a two and a half year old 100% boy. Need I say more? He is super amazing and constantly amuses and frustrates me all at the same time! Why God would ever allow us selfish humans to raise another human boggles my mind. My constant prayer is that God will change my heart so I can be the mother He wants me to be.

My husband and I are Public Health Professionals currently starting a project in West Africa. It is a project the evolves from day to day as we learn to wait on God for His leading. Maybe someday I can share this aspect of my life journey with you. Though we are not exactly a pastoral team, we find that due to our upbringing and personal experiences we identify more with our friends who are in pastoral ministry than we do with being parishioners.

I have so many interests that sometimes it is hard for me to focus. I love piano, horses, beaches, sunrises, sunsets, reading, organizing, traveling, experimenting and my nephews and nieces. I'm also learning to love sewing, cooking, writing, and inventing. And I am taking up the new interest of language learning. French, Arabic and some tribal languages are on my plate for the next few years.

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

DEAR ABIGAIL::biblical advice for young PWs

DEAR ABIGAIL is an advice column where young PWs can ask for biblical wisdom about their situations, challenges, and difficulties.

ABIGAIL was a woman known for her generosity, intuition, industry, discernment, hospitality, loyalty, strength and wisdom.

DEAR ABIGAIL is about learning to become young pastors' wives with the same qualities, as we journey in ministry with our husbands.

Email your DEAR ABIGAIL inquiry to: clutchtalk (at) gmail (dot) com. 

Subject heading: DEAR ABIGAIL.

Letters and answers will be posted on the CLUTCH website.

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

don't blow it!

Oftentimes in ministry it is easy to get stirred up and angry. As women we often go through our day working in our offices, changing diapers, and figuring out when we can get the next thirty things done on our to-do list.

With our crazy, busy lives we often end up with a short fuse and hurt the ones we love because we have exhausted ourselves to the point of becoming a snapping turtle. Yup, biting everyone’s head off. I have to admit that I can be an angry woman sometimes. Does that hurt me? Absolutely.

I find myself upset at the silliest things and able to pacify a smile to everyone I come across. However, pretending to all of them that I'm a peaceful woman can only last so long. Once I snap, my poor babies and husband look at me like a firecracker just went off. I find myself anxious and angry and looking in the mirror asking myself is this what God wants of me? Is this how he wants me to behave? Ask yourself the same thing; it stings.

Ephesians 4:26 says "In your anger do not sin." So does this give me permission to be angry and upset? I almost got a smile but then I decided there had to be more to do this and I must be missing something. So I decided that yes, I can be angry as long as I'm not sinning... how long do you think that can really last? My thoughts exactly!

Sometimes you just have to walk away from your anger. Jesus did. In Exodus we find him telling Moses to take the Israelites into the land flowing of milk and honey, but He also said "but I will not go with you." He called them stiff-necked people whom He might destroy if He goes. So even Jesus knew that sometimes you just have to walk away.

Ephesians 4:26-27 goes on to say "do not let the sun go down while you’re still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." First Peter 5:8 talks about the devil roaming around like a roaring lion... waiting to devour you! It also says "be self-controlled and alert." If you are sinning in your anger then your self-control is gone. Lions hunt at night. Hmm maybe that is why we are instructed not to let the sun go down on our anger, because He knows the devil will be hunting for us in our sleep.

Sometimes you just need to proclaim Psalm 4:8 over yourself before you go to sleep."I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone o' Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Sing in the morning! "I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in time of trouble."

So today I invite you, when you feel that short fuse being lit up, to remember what the word of God tells us.

I may not like the circumstance or have control over it but I will not sin in my anger, and I will walk away and not give the devil a foothold. I will cling to His safety and sing of His love in the morning!
--
Rachael

© CLUTCH, 2010 unless otherwise sourced.
Use allowed by express written permission only.
Tweets, trackbacks, and link sharing encouraged.

Read more...

columnists

Click any columnist to read their posts.

CLUTCH is currently welcoming new PW column writers. We especially need columnists to write about:

• how to's
• funny stories
• devotional/inspiration
• young PW profiles
• a word from the wise (interviews with older PWs for advice & mentorship)

Got a topic you'd like to see in a column?
Got a topic you'd like to be a columnist for?

Email: clutchtalk (at) gmail (dot) com!

Read more...