”If our church weren’t so small, I wouldn’t feel like it’s up to me to plug all the holes in the dam. There are so many urgent ‘leaks’, sometimes I feel the pressure to head off problems to keep this thing afloat.”
“When we grow, I’ll be able to do what I feel like God has gifted me to do instead of filling the need of the moment. I often feel like it’s up to me since I know what needs to be done and I know how to do it. Plus, my husband trusts me and knows it will get done right.”
“Sometimes I wish we could go back to when the church was smaller and things were simpler. I knew my gifting and could build and serve where I felt God had called me.”
“Finding my space in a big church, when we didn’t plant it, is like Alice in Wonderland chasing a rabbit. I often feel like our staff sees me as either a spy or an advocate. They either push me away as one who will report to my husband the things that are broken in their ministries or they want to recruit me to be their spokesperson with “the boss” with their agenda. I don’t want to be either of these. I just want to find the place where God has called me to serve, using the unique set of gifts that He’s given me.”
Finding your space as a pastor’s wife can be complicated while juggling spoken (and unspoken!) expectations about your role from multiple sources. Maybe you feel the expectations from people in your congregation or your leadership. Maybe they are from your husband or your kids. But even more likely, the expectations are coming from inside you, where you’ve bought into the lie that “good pastors’ wives do this or that” and that those things are what God Himself is expecting of you.
When things go wrong, daydreaming about a different setting can take your brain and your heart on a trip to a non-existent place where no real Kingdom work can be done. Yet that temptation to think that it would be so much easier somewhere else is very real for many of us. So how do you find your space right where you are? Listen in on this discussion between Coletta & Julie Lynn from the viewpoint of big church vs small church.
Julie Lynn: When I entered our small church setting almost 10 years ago, I came in like a fire hose. (Was this a mistake? YES. Would I do this differently and listen so much more if I had it to do over again? YES.) I was so excited for a fresh start. I was going to be everyone’s friend, take a meal to everyone, comfort and check on everyone, go to all the funerals, be at every church activity, lead VBS worship, sing in the choir, join a small group, help the rescue mission team, fill bags of food for needy kids, and sit with people going through chemo. Just reading this now makes me tired. I think I invited 40 women to coffee or lunch individually or had them over to my house to get to know them and their stories. However, everything I worked so feverishly hard to build crumbled quickly a few years later when my husband had to fire a staff member. Suddenly, people did not want much to do with me because of who I was married to. It was like starting all over again with a million smashed pieces.
This shook me all the way down to my intentions. Why was I doing all of this? Was it so people would like me? If I was being really honest, was that the shaky foundation I had for ministry?
As I began a very slow process of rebuilding, there were days I mistakenly daydreamed about being in a big church setting. Maybe “over there”, I’d find more opportunities for my gifts, be invited in, have more influence, and see bigger things happen on my watch. That daydream sounded a whole lot better than standing in the pieces of broken glass that surrounded me. In examining my own thinking years later…these daydreams do not reflect the heart attitude of a Christ-like servant (Philippians 2) who has been assigned to a specific people and place by God (Acts 17:26).
Coletta, you’ve been in church ministry in churches varying from a church plant to a mega-church. What reality can you speak into my daydreaming about a big church setting and it being an “easier” place to find your space? What have you wrestled with in finding your space right where you are? Do you ever long for a small church?
Coletta: I remember some daydreaming that turned into a prayer. I was 25 years old, sitting at a Youth Specialties Conference with 6000 youth pastors, listening to someone ramble on and entertain. This was really tough because there was a huge room full of men and women, many tired and discouraged, who were pouring their lives out for teenagers. They desperately needed some meaty teaching from God’s Word that would give them the renewed strength they needed to stay the course. But the speaker was giving them nothing. I prayed “God, you’ve given Craig such gifts. Give him a place of influence, not for us, but for YOUR Kingdom”. God answered that. But He kept us in a small church, as a shepherd in a pasture, for 20 years. Our church was built literally in a pasture where cows had grazed for two centuries. Some years it flourished – some years it hemorrhaged. During our time serving in this out-of-the-way place, God cultivated in us a deeper faith, tenacity, endurance and integrity that could hold the weight of what He would ask of us later. We needed the time in the pasture to develop what we’d need in this bigger arena, where the weight of leadership and the seduction of size would be much more dangerous. In hindsight, I wish I could tell my younger self to not wish away her training time.
During our 20 years in smaller church, God taught us these lessons that would pay big dividends later:
- Creativity – how to take BIG DREAMS and shrink them into a small budget. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.
- Gratitude – doing ministry with little or no resources taught us to be thankful for every dollar that was the product of someone else’s sacrificial generosity.
- Humility – we learned to respectfully follow leadership when we’d have done things very differently.
Julie Lynn: Did you ever dream of going back to a small church?
Coletta: Absolutely I did. It does seem like the grass is always greener. I remember sitting in the back of the big worship center of what has become our home and praying, “God, how am I NOT going to get lost in this place?” That very morning, God met me and assured me that He wouldn’t allow me to get lost, but that He would make a space for me, because He sees me. But I still sometimes long to be able to know all the families that go to our church, to be able to walk with all of them through deaths and marriages, to do the ups and downs of real life.
Julie Lynn: What helps you be content where God has put you?
Coletta: When I start longing for “the good ‘ole days” where everyone knew my name and I knew them, God seems to give me an opportunity to do something that I would not have experienced had He not moved us. When I get to be a part of sending a team to a struggling church to rebuild its sound system or help it make payroll in the middle of Covid so that they didn’t have to lay off staff. When we get to send resources to build entire churches and child development centers in some of the least reached countries of the world. And of course, when I get to see God multiply my efforts with Alongside to serve over 750 pastors’ wives around the globe with free resources. God provided the resources to do all of those things by leading us to serve in our current home. The hard pieces of leading a large church are just the shadow side of the blessing.
Julie Lynn: I’ve been reading the book Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1954). He had a quote on this topic:
“Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community, and it must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter.”
Here’s what I took from this quote: allowing yourself to consistently daydream of what your community should look like in order to find your space and do your best work is what your enemy would want…your head in the clouds and not in the game. If you are daydreaming about a place that could be better, you aren’t as likely to dig in and invest where you are (and THAT is where you find your space!). Your enemy doesn’t want you to think of your current place as worth that investment…he just wants you to see it as “hopeless.” You can miss what is right in front of you…a place where your gifts and talents are needed…right now!
Coletta, how do you think we can take steps to fight against this thought pattern of daydreaming in order to find our space right where we are? How have you done this?
Coletta: I am a dreamer by nature. I am creative and love building things. I love thinking about what is “not yet.” I’ve had to fight to manage the tension between allowing “holy dreaming” that invites God to inspire new ideas and give me a picture of what He wants to do – and cultivating contentment that celebrates the opportunities that come with this exact place, space, time and people.
Here are some mindsets that help me cultivate contentment.
Understand the complexity that comes with your new seat
If you are moving to a larger ministry, like we did (moved from a congregation of 450 to one with 3500 – big change), realize that you are going to have to search for the blessings. Its shininess and impressiveness fades fast when you start to feel the new weight of leading a ministry this size. But understand that you have a new influence. My husband says, “Your whisper is a shout, Coletta.” I have to be careful of noticing and calling attention to things that are wrong, or maybe not done as well as we’d like. I’ve had to realize that there are many times when I’m welcomed onto ministry teams and I have the freedom to use my gifts. There are other times when leaders may have different motives for embracing or holding me at arm’s length. They may see me as an advocate – I’ll be able to take their cause to the next level. Or they may see me as a spy – if there’s something broken on their team, I’ll see it and report it. Neither of those feels great and I just need to be aware that they are there. Trust only happens over time.
Be patient
It’s like gentling a new horse, damage is done when we rush it. I need to build trust, see where there are openings and ask questions. Especially during the first year, I need to be a learner. I need to assume there are reasons behind why things are done the way they are (maybe they’re good, maybe bad, maybe unevaluated). And when I’ve earned their trust, I can begin to make suggestions – or better yet, ask a question.
See my boundaries as a designation for flourishing, not confines for preventing it.
If it seems God has laid out some boundary lines for you, reframe how you see those boundaries. David says in Psalm 16,
Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
And while I am waiting for God to reveal that space He’s carved out for me, when the doors I knock on seem to be shutting, or no one is even answering, I remember,
“You are not passed over but saved for” (Uninvited by Lysa Terkeurst). It took three years of “inquiring of the Lord”, searching, trying different ministries before God opened the doors for Alongside to begin.
So Julie Lynn, since you’ve been at your current church now for 10 years…how did you find your space right where you are?
Julie Lynn: I had to drop my overzealous planning/scheduling and start approaching ministry with open hands.
“God..what do you have for me today? This week?..Who am I to help, comfort or reach out to?”
That changed everything in a good way. I am dependent on Him for this whole thing..not on myself. I’m operating at His pace, His way, His timing..not mine. He continues to provide varied opportunities for me to be involved, but it is no longer harried and frantic like it was before. I’d heard Matthew 11:29-30 my whole life, but now I am living out its truth.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
So friends, wherever you are in the journey of finding your space, we can assure you that God sees you right where you are.
He has plans for you…(yes..with these people in this place).
He’s got you..under His wings.
Rest there with Him and follow His lead.
