Ladies, you all know I'm about 29 weeks along with another sweet baby girl and the two areas of my life that have suffered during this pregnancy have been gardening (I won't even post pictures this summer. It's TERRIBLE out there. Overrun with grasshoppers, weeds...shameful) and blogging.
I've also made a few changes in what requires my attention. I have bowed out of most ministry commitments at church not because I'm not interested or don't love the people, but because I'm only one person with almost 4 kids. Yes, everyone is busy but I no longer feel the need to "carry my weight". I serve in the church nursery and that's the extent of it. I'm friendly, I call folks for playdates or sometimes to come over for dinner. I make sure their pastor has enough time to prepare, I iron his shirt, I remind him of things should the need arise, I make him tasty meals and clean the house and teach the children.
My point is, fellow pastor's wives, I know I must very carefully decide what I'll commit to do. Yes, I will come to every wonderful MOPS meeting, but I cannot be the one posting flyers about it all over town. Yes, I'll attend every ladies' Bible study but I can't lead it anymore. Yes, I'll come to or suggest a women's ministry event but I can't be the one to plan it and carry it out. Yes, I'll come to church every Sunday and take my kids to Sunday School but I can't teach it.
There are lots of ways to show my support and commitment to our body of believers, but just because I'm married to the pastor doesn't mean I'm the go-to woman for every event. I've learned, slooooowwwlllly, that I don't have to be involved to some degree in everything that goes on. My ministry at this season of my life is to my family of small children.
Are there some days I wish I could do something "more" than that. YES. But I keep reminding myself of something someone said to me once, "The days with small children are long, but the years are short." Someday, when my children are grown, I'll be the one helping plan the picnic, the ladies' event, the Bible study, whatever.
But for now, I just can't.
And that's OK.
I thought this was a fantastic post. Even though it has to do with children's ministry, the truths apply to all church members.
Here's the link.
My friend has written such an articulate post about worship that I absolutely had to share it tonight.
Well done, my friend!
How I'd Like To Do Church
I really, really liked this book.
When a Barna poll suggests that 7 out of 10 children from evangelical homes leave the faith by their freshmen year of college, it seems that we are all doing something wrong. That's the basic premise of his book. We're not accomplishing what we want to, namely raising our sons and daughters to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Sure, our homes might be decent, where we give God our Sundays, even Wednesdays, but the other 5 or 6 days He's not even on our radar screen.
It is encouraging to see someone articulate what I believe about so many things, but he does it in a way that doesn't make me feel like the biggest loser if I've had trouble implementing some element of family discipleship. Baucham presents the case for a realistic solution to keeping our children in the faith: read them the Bible. Pray with them and for them. Take them to church and make it your first priority. Teach them Truth in every area of their education, whether it's within the context of a Christian school or a homeschool. Answer their spiritual questions honestly. In other words, form within them a biblical worldview so that when they leave your home they continue to cast situations through that lens. You might have a home with plenty of rules about media, clothing, dating, etc. but once your children leave home if all they've ever heard is what to do and not to do, but they've had no encounter with the Living Christ who has written His Word on their hearts, then they're going to go off the deep end. Our hearts are naturally inclined toward evil. When our son is off at college and there's no one to tell him not to let his girlfriend spend the night, what's he going to do? That's where a worldview becomes so important. I know there are people out there who have written better about this than I have, but these truths make me shake in my boots for my beautiful children and force me to my knees!
I will admit that there are some issues in the book that can be so counter-cultural, especially counter-church cultural, that it has forced me to seriously wrestle with how I view the role of the church in the spiritual training of my family. The church is essential, but it's also a more supporting role. I already agree that Sunday School, the origin of which was to evangelize the children of parents who weren't Christians, isn't enough spiritual food for my children. I already agree that the youth pastor's job isn't to teach my children all they need to know about Jesus. God gives parents the job of teaching Truth. My trouble is that I cannot imagine having my 8 year old, my 5 year old, and my 1 year old all together with me for Sunday morning worship. I might feel differently if I had my husband with me (remember, he's pretty tied up on Sunday morning). I know moms who can do it. But am I one of them???
It's true. If something happens at church that someone doesn't like, guess who they turn on? You can really never be separated from your husband's position.
Sad, but true, my dears.
Some churches debate if they should hold baby showers for an "unwed mother" who might be a member of their church.
"Would this appear as though we were condoning fornication?" they wonder.
Using this logic, then they would also never be able to bring the child cupcakes in Sunday School on his birthday because he was and (apparently always will be) a bastard child. He is forever marked as a "mistake", and under this shadow of condemnation his mother will live for the rest of her life.
I would instead liken the baby shower to the feast thrown by the loving father in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son:
Luke 15:20-24
"So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
"And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
"But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate."
Those who reject lavishing love upon a repentant woman remind me of the "other brother":
Luke 15:28-32
"But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him.
"But he answered and said to his father, 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured wealth and prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him.'
"And he said to him, 'Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'"
Pharisees hate when others receive God's grace. It feels unjust to them because they keep a talley of all the "good things" they do. Jesus called them white washed tombs, clean and bright on the outside, but full of dead men's bones on the inside.
In the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18, Jesus says that the tax collector, who beat his chest and bemoaned his sin, went home justified.
When we wrap our arms around a young girl who has chosen to keep her baby, as sinful as the circumstances around the conception might be, we are loving her like Jesus loved the woman at the well, the tax collector, and the disciple who denied him three times.
If she is a believer, I can assure you the guilt and humilation she feels are enough to push her into the arms of her loving Lord. If she is not a believer, but is crushed by the weight of her sin, this might be the very event that turns her to the cross for redemption.
If you shun her, she will grow bitter.
Her circumstances cannot be undone--unless she chooses to murder her baby to save face.
I'm not into your average contemporary Christian music. There are some artists I enjoy, but by and large, what you find at your local Christian megamart doesn't suit me. Either it's cheesy, trying to sound too much like some secular band out there (I'm sorry, but I grew up in the era of grunge and that guy who sings for Third Day sounds just too much like Eddie Vedder-I can't handle it.), or it doesn't say ANYTHING substantive (in other words, singing, "Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain" for 20 minutes doesn't say much about Christ and the cross, but maybe that's just me...).
With that said, a few years ago while at Seminary we stumbled across Indelible Grace music. In a nutshell, these are folks who take old hymns and put them to new music, and by new music that might mean new tunes or just a more folksy rock version of an old favorite. These people are part of the Reformed University Fellowship out of Belmont University in Nashville, TN. I've heard them three different times in concert and their music has become the soundtrack for my daily life.
There are four volumes: Indelible Grace, Indelible Grace II Pilgrim Days, Indelible Grace III For All the Saints, and Indelible Grace IV Beams of Heaven. The earlier albums have music that is more singable for a congregation (take note music minister's wife!). You can get on their website and download their entire hymnal (for free, I'm pretty sure!).
So if you want music that says something, that encourages you in your faith, then CHECK THIS OUT!
www.igracemusic.com
Let me know what you think!
Hiya girls. We start our new study of this next week. I'm pretty far ahead so I know what we're doing, but I've also ordered the DVD of Nancy Leigh DeMoss teaching. She is my FAVORITE Bible teacher (move over, Beth Moore) :).
I'm in the chapter now about grace. Check out this snippet from day 2:
"By His grace God did for us what we could not do for ourselves: He gave us life for death and pardon for condemnation. At the cross, God satisfied His own vengeance, met His own demands of justice, extended mercy, and then added the surprise of His grace. Having punished sin, God forgave sinners; then He went on to adopt all who would believe, making them fellow heirs with His only Son. Such is the extravagant love and grace of God." p. 87 Seeking Him by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Tim Grissom
THIS IS THE GOSPEL. This is much more than "asking Jesus into your heart." Think about this!
Here's our scripture memory verse (let's see if I can remember it without looking!)
Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16
(I got most of it, but switched a few words around. Better keep practicing!)
Great, great stuff here!
I love getting to dialogue with the cults. As I've mentioned, they seem to find me. Well, I was at the park today talking to an acquaintance of mine. Here's how the conversation went:
Me: So was that your mother-in-law [a devout Jehovah's Witness] I saw with you earlier?
Her: Yes.
Me: I think she's come to my door before to talk to me about stuff.
Her: Really? She'll actually talk to you?
Me: Yeah. She was very, very nice. I kinda like when they come to the door. I dated a JW in high school and he tried to convert me.
Her: Yes. She talks about it to me every chance she gets. I'll say something about some conflict I'm having and she'll pipe up and comment on how that was in the latest issue of the JW magazine. They have all this stuff they have to do. They get little rewards for completing so many door knocking presentations and stuff.
Me: You know, that's the difference between the cults like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. Those religions are about what you do, but Christianity is about what Jesus has done, saving us by grace alone. And we're not weird if someone leaves our church. We've had a few people leave for various reasons, mostly because they didn't agree with some teachings, but I don't act weird with them. I'm still nice, our kids still play.
Her: But doesn't that offend you, when they leave?
Me: No. I mean, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.I can't force someone to see things my way.
It's true. If someone has not come to know Christ as Lord, to see him as beautiful and precious, I won't help them along in their journey of faith with my own witness if I'm a jerk to them if they disagree with me. I can speak the truth in love, that Jesus is our only hope for salvation by grace through faith so no one can boast. And then I can pray that the Holy Spirit will lift the veil from their eyes. That's it.
So this gal was brought up in church, but doesn't go anymore. She married a JW who isn't very active in the JW congregation. So I invited her to our Seeking Him study. It appears that it will coincide with her schedule, so I pray that she'll come.
Once the conversation moves toward religious things, it's easy for me to chat. It's getting it there that's hard.
Has pulled their child out of the public school and is going to homeschool come January. They have a new baby coming soon, and their child is only 5, so they have some time. I'm very, very excited!
I was so excited that I was telling some church people about it, but they didn't seem really excited...maybe because one of those ladies is on the school board and the other is running for it...
Which makes me wonder: has homeschooling (or not homeschooling) caused any conflict in your church?
I know I whine a lot about feeling lonely, but in addition to being a pastor's wife, I'm also the only one in my town of about 2000 people who homeschools young children. We have plenty of buddies to hang out with during the summer and on weekends, but how I long for another family to do projects with, meet at the park for lunch, take turns watching each others' kids. I used to have a friend whose youngest was in half day kindergarten, so we got to go swimming or play in the afternoons sometimes, but now he's a first grader, she's working part time, and the only other homeschooling family in our church has teenagers.
I've also been feeling like I'm missing out on a lot that goes on at the school. It would be so easy to get involved, make a name for myself there. Be the parent who helps with everything and is always there. I guess I must admit that I have a need to be accepted and liked and popular.
Homeschooling here does not lend itself to those things, things I know are not important, especially when I look at eternity.
Meh.
You'll notice I added a link to the LEFT and be prepared to laugh HARD. I particularly like today's crummy church sign.
*laughing my head off*
A fellow PW shared this, and I thought it was TOO FUNNY. Remember, it's just a JOKE. Here goes:
The results of a computerized survey indicate the perfect minister preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 8:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $50 weekly to the poor. He is 28 years old and has preached 30 years. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens. The perfect minister smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls daily on congregation families, shut-ins and the hospitalized, and is always in his office when needed.
If your minister does not measure up, simply send this letter to six other churches that are tired of their minister, too. Then bundle up your minister and send him to the church on the top of the list. In one week, you will receive 1,643 ministers and one of them will be perfect. Have faith in this procedure.
One church broke the chain and got its old minister back in less than three weeks....so don't break the chain.
We've recently found out that one of our colleged-aged girls in our church family is expecting. She's taking full responsibility for her baby, though the father is out of the picture. She has all the expected fears and worries about the future, but even more so since she won't have a husband to share the experience with her.
Since I've been in her shoes, although I was able to marry the father of my baby, I want so badly to talk with her, pray with her, encourage her to use this for God's glory, and stand back and watch God move, taking our sin and shame and transforming it into something for his glory and our ultimate good. God is sovereign. This baby came as no surprise to him. And I pray that this baby will do amazing things for God's kingdom. I also pray for a godly husband for this precious girl, who will cherish her and her baby and provide for them both.
Yet, I have some suspicions that some folk in our church won't approve of a beautiful baby shower for this little one and her mom. And that makes me ANGRY. Spitting nails angry. I hope and pray I'm wrong about some people's reactions.
But if it were wrong to throw a church shower for an unwed mother, then it would be equally wrong to bring her son cupcakes for his birthday in Sunday school when he turns 5. And what of the alternative? Would it have been better for her to go secretly get an abortion and never tell a living soul what happened? Just so she and her family would save face?
This young girl must come to grips with the fact that yes, she has sinned against a holy God. But that holy God is also merciful, full of compassion and lovingkindness and seeks to restore her relationship to him.
My unplanned pregnancy in college is what opened my eyes and rocked me out of my complacency. I hope it does the same for her.
Sometimes I'm the sentimental type who feels sad that something big and exciting that I've planned for is done. I felt a twinge of that tonight at VBS--but mostly I'm just glad it's out of the way for the rest of the summer!! YIPPEEE!!!
We had 57 different children attend. Our highest night was 46 kids. I'm thrilled with these numbers, even though it's not all about numbers.
We were able to teach them that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and hopefully, one day they will decide to follow Jesus as their Lord. We are very careful not to manipulate them into making a decision. What do I mean? Take this scenario:
VBS teacher: Who doesn't want to go to hell?
Kids: Me! Me! ME!
VBS teacher: Who wants to go heaven?
Kids: Me ME! ME!
VBS teacher: You're all saved! Look how many decisions we had for Jesus at our VBS!
Or this one:
VBS teacher: If you'll just pray this prayer and mean it, then you'll be saved and will go to heaven when you die.
Kid: OK. [prays after his teacher]
VBS teacher: Welcome to God's family! You're saved! If you prayed this prayer and walked this aisle, then you know you're saved.
We could have coerced, one way or another, every kid in there to fill out a card, raise his hand, or walk an aisle. We could have inflated our successes and said, "We've had 25 decisions to follow Christ at our VBS!"
What we did instead was to preach and teach the Truth of Who Jesus is, why He came, and what that means for us as sinners. All we can do is tell the Truth and pray that the Holy Spirit will do a work in the hearts of these kids. God begins the work and finishes the work. He lets us in on it as a privilege.
I hope that our VBS will help us reach out more to our community. I plan on helping a lot with the follow up contacts.
In the end, I'm pooped and glad it's over (except we still have to undecorate the church!).
Our town is heavily Mormon and only about 2200 people. That leaves a lot of kids OUT because even though the Mormons market themselves as Christians, they won't send their kids to our VBS (hmmm...maybe because they know deep down inside that they AREN'T Christians?) Anyway, our first night we had 37, our second night 46, then our third night 44.
I got an idea to write an article about it for the newspaper and send a photo. Hubby's doing a cool photo/video DVD for our Thursday night closing program. I feel like the paper article will be great free publicity.
I'd say tonight was a success. Hubby and I haven't been able to debrief much on it because he took firstborn fishing afterwards but l think it went great. We had about 37 kiddos, and are expecting some more tomorrow since some of our own kids were out of town. Not too bad for such a small town. Sweet baby girl did GREAT, considering she was up way past her bed time, of course, I just heard her crying so I'd better go upstairs and check! See ya!
We start ours on Sunday. Hubby's the "storyteller" meaning, he will do all the teaching. It's a lot on him, but we know that the gospel will be proclaimed and our volunteers can relax a little and help reinforce the story at the different stations.
While we love the Quest curriculum from Concordia Publishing House and they've been soooo helpful in getting our stuff here on time, when hubby called to ask if there were any "Lutheran distinctives", the customer service representative said, "No." Well, when we started reading through the lessons, the lesson on Jesus' baptism deals with sprinkling and teaches baptismal regeneration (meaning your salvation is tied up in faith AND your baptism). Being in a Baptist church, this isn't quite what we believe so we've had to alter the story a bit. It's not that big of a deal, but we did ASK beforehand and got a different answer. We believe our Lutheran brothers and sisters are Christians, but this has been an example where theology and doctrine DOES mattter.
I'm in charge of publicity so I spent the last two weeks making phone calls and putting up signs around town. Our director says advertising hasn't made much difference in the past, but I hope I can prove her wrong! So pray we have an ovewhelming number of kids and that they would decide to follow Jesus. I will be glad when next week is over, though...
Hey PWs out there--do your church folk only come when there's nothing else going on that weekend? Do you find they're out camping, fishing, vacationing on Sunday instead of observing the Lord's Day and worshipping with His people? What do you do? What does your husband do? Does he preach about it from the pulpit? Pray more? Go to individuals privately and inquire why church is such a low priority?
I don't think people realize how their absence affects the entire body. I would notice if I didn't have one of my hands for the day.
We've started a new sport at our house that would ocassionally require us to miss church on Sundays. This is not an option. At all. And it doesn't matter who tries to convince us otherwise. In fact, one of the more seasoned members' mother told me today on the phone that in the long run, missing a Sunday here or there doesn't really matter.
Missing a ribbon or trophy that will eventually just collect dust in a box in the attic DOESN'T REALLY MATTER.
My son's soul, his spiritual well being, his need to be fed the Word and fellowship with God's people, these are eternal things.
THESE MATTER.
A friend of mine, whose husband is a minister of music, said that her senior pastor remarked, "God doesn't bless churches that use hymns in worship."
WHAT?!?
What do you think about this? This absolutely floored me. C.S. Lewis called it "chronological snobbery", the belief that just because something is NEW it's automatically BETTER than what was before it.
Sure, there are hymns that are, in my opinion, poorly written or not theologically rich. And there are contemporary songs that are substantive and beautiful. I think the heart of the matter is this:
Does the song exalt Christ and is it biblical?
Thoughts?
