Holly Furtick

This weekend at Elevation we had eGroup sign ups. I loved when they read a letter from a girl who said even though she walked alone in the halls of her high school, she felt like she had an army behind her. I love that.

Being a part of a small group is essential to belonging to a large church. It can take a few tries to get in the right group. But when you do, you can find relationships that will push you and encourage you and stand by you at just the right time.

Check out this video our team made.

Easter is an amazing season.  I am so looking forward to the creative gospel presentation at our church (I have had a sneak peek and it is going to be incredible). But on a bigger scale, I can't wait to hear about all the unique ways different churches all over the world are celebrating Easter.

There is something about Easter that people are just more open to coming to church.  And as the Church, we will proclaim the gospel to each and every person who comes through our doors.  The Enemy knows this too.  He will attack in every way he can to stop us.

He will attack our families in any way he can.  If he has to attack our health, our outlook on life, or even our attitude towards each other, he will.  He will try to distract those who are far from God and have had someone invite them to church.  He will do anything he can to stop people from hearing the gospel, and anything he can to stop me from praying.

Sometimes, I forget this.  It's like I get so bogged down in the day to day affairs.  While my husband is working extra hard this week, I am trying to maintain all the actual details.  I just get sidetracked.  Not this year. 

I'm taking today to focus on really praying.  I am praying for my husband as he prepares to invite people to give their lives to Christ.  I am praying for my pastor's wives friends all over the country as they support their husbands and ministries.  I am praying for our staff.  I am praying for all the people who will come.

And I want to pray for you.  If you are on staff at a church, I want to pray for you and your church by name.  If you have invited someone to church who is far from God, I want to pray for them by name.  I am excited to think of all that God is going to do this coming weekend all over our nation and our world.

If you would like for me to pray for you today, leave a comment or mention me on twitter.  I will be checking them all day long and lifting you up.

I am excited that the JustONE Conference is back!  Lori Wilhite and the team of Leading and Loving It have brought their innovative conference back for a second year!

The JustONE Conference is a free virtual conference for all Pastors’ Wives and Women in Ministry. This 4 week conference will include over 20 speakers sharing from their personal lives and leadership.  I am so honored to be included among the incredible line up of speakers that include Kay Warren, Lysa TerKuerst, and Lisa Young (click here to see the full schedule).

Each session will be shown 4 times during the week.  So find a time that is right for your schedule, and join in!  The conference begins Monday, January 23 and Tuesday, January 24 and is offered both morning and evening… 11am EST/ 8am PST and 9pm EST/ 6pm PST both days. 

This year the conference is based on a beautiful passage of scripture, 1 Timothy 4:12b-16  (The Message) “Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed–keep that dusted off and in use. Cultivate these things. Immerse yourself in them. The people will all see you mature right before their eyes! Keep a firm grasp on both your character and your teaching. Don’t be diverted. Just keep at it. Both you and those who hear you will experience salvation.”

You can register here for the conference.  Although registration is not required to participate, registering will allow you to receive reminder emails and links directly to your inbox.

I was having lunch with a church planter's wife the other day when the topic of relationships came up.  She talked about how she was afraid of forming relationships within their church and staff because what if she opened up to them and they left the church?

I wrote a blog a while back called Don't blame it on the ministry.  The blog was written in the context of raising kids in the ministry. How we can give them a negative image of the church when we blame everything on the ministry.

So to piggy back off of that thought, I want to call this post, Don't Blame it on the Ministry, Relationships Edition.  Here is the thought I want to throw out there… Relationships come and go in life but you cannot live without them. 

If you never spend one second in full time ministry, I guarantee that you will still experience many failed relationships during your lifetime.  It may be that you lose contact with your best friend from childhood.  It may be that you move back home after college and lose touch with your sorority sisters.  Or maybe you move neighborhoods or change jobs or schools.

Then there are the unfortunate and painful times when things go south and you stop contact with someone.  You could even lose the most sacred relationship of all, your marriage.  In fact, if you think about it, besides family relationships (which can often be more rocky than non-family), most people do not stay in contact with their childhood or even high school and college friends.

I think you get the point I am trying to make.  While some relationships fizzle out and others end dramatically, losing friends is a part of life.

So would you go throughout your life never having relationships at the risk of losing them?  You can't.  And you can't do it in ministry either.

Will people leave your church?  For sure.  Will it hurt?  Of course.  We must always remember that there are seasonal relationships and there are forever relationships.  My husband, my children, my parents, those are forever relationships.  They won't always be perfect, but they're the longest term investments in my life. And while I have dear friends that I love and confide in, I must always remember that they are not guaranteed to last forever. Still, that does not mean that God can not use them in my life today.

You have to risk relationships because it is in relationships you find encouragement, camaraderie, and challenge, even if they are just for a season.

I don't regret forming relationships with even the people who hurtfully left my church and my life.  God used those people in my life for a season.  And really, whenever someone leaves my life, I find God usually replaces them for a reason that I'll understand later—either in their life or in mine.  My husband says, "Sometimes God has to delete stuff from your hard drive to make room for an upgrade."

Don't blame lost relationships on being in the ministry.  It is a part of living life.

 
I am honored Holly asked if I would share with her blog followers what it was like to go from a businessman’s wife to a pastor’s wife. From a regular church member to a staff member. This was definitely a transition for myself, my husband and I as a couple, and also for my family. I am Angie Blackson and my husband Josh (Operations Pastor at Elevation Church) and I have 3 sweet little girls. My oldest, Alyssa, is 6 ½ not 6 and is in the first grade. Kaitlyn, our middle, is 4. And our youngest, Karis, just celebrated her 3rd bithday. As my girls like to tell people, “Daddy is surrounded by girls” and he is spoiled with attention and admiration because of it!

3 years ago my husband and I made the decision to change the course of our field to the ministry. I never dreamed I would be a Pastor’s wife in a million years. It is just not a story I ever considered writing up for myself. Our life of 7 years before making this decision was very typical and completely within the boundaries of my comfort zone. My husband worked a 5 day a week 9-5 job with a set salary that seemed crazy high for a 22-29 year old. We spent our weekends volunteering at Elevation Church, leading community groups, and hanging out with friends.  We had a great life!

Then God called us to join the staff of Elevation Church. I was excited but deep within me there was this feeling of uncertainty. I feel so guilty stating this but I hope this is helpful to someone out there. I was so comfortable and happy with our life I felt like this could be taking a step in a more difficult direction. My perspective was what the American culture has trained it to be. As you get older your pay increases, your house gets bigger, your vacations become more extravagant, your cars get nicer, you even get to tithe more, you get to spend your weekends and holidays however you wanted, and so on.
Thankfully, my husband had the vision during his years in the business world to put us in a position where, when the opportunity came for us to be on Elevation’s staff, we were able to say yes to God’s will.

The first huge transition we faced going into the ministry was our budget.  I first need to state that Pastor Steven and Chunks (Executive Pastor) do a great job taking care of their staff financially. They took time looking over our budget and crunching numbers to make sure the salary they set for my husband would not leave us in a deficit. It was well above the industry standard. But it was a little less than we had gotten used to making in the previous few years. It took my mind getting use to the fact that Josh would not come home announcing he got promoted and with the promotion comes a $10,000 pay raise. My perspective had transitioned to when Josh gets a bonus we can put a fence in to now planning ahead and saving for big ticket items. According to Dave Ramsey planning ahead and saving is the better route anyways. Pastor Steven is also very creative in how he financially supports the staff. One example is how he invests in our marriage with sending Josh and I out for a date at no expense to us. And honestly, I have never been a part of a culture that puts more emphasis on generosity and taking care of its own than Elevation.  Still, it was a different framework. One I had to work to get used to.

The second major transition we made was what our family time looked like. We started out by doing what we were use to doing, Friday night thru Sunday family and date time. It took me about 6 months to figure out that our “family” time was non-exsistent. What I ended up doing was sitting down with Josh and writing our detailed weekly schedule out. I am a visual learner. Once our schedule was written in front of me I was able to get creative with what our family time looked like. In the beginning there were nights the girls and I would bring dinner to Josh and we would eat as a family at the Elevation offices. Our dates often times ended with checking on construction sites. Before you say that does not sound like family time or a date night hear me out. I had trained my girls and myself that supporting Josh is our number 1 job. We get to be a part of what he is doing! We loved going to the office and seeing the people he works with. I loved seeing the progress of Matthews and Blakeney as they were being built. I guess it is all in what your expectations are and mine were simply to be with Josh and be able to be a part of what he was doing each day.

The last major transition we dealt with when Josh became a Pastor was the way the outside world looked at us. In the beginning we had a hard time admitting Josh was a “Pastor”. Not because of shame. We noticed that when we shared what Josh did people would visibly put a wall up. Our neighbors stopped asking us over for dinners or social gatherings. It was as if they had in their minds we were judging them because of our new position. I can’t report that this has changed completely. I think we will always deal with this. But God is good! He has taken our position and used it over and over for his glory. I stopped worrying about what people thought of us and chose to love in a way that is true to who I am. Time has shown that our neighbors respect us. There have been times they come to us seeking advice or prayer. And since being on staff at Elevation we have seen 3 families in our neighborhood give their lives to Christ and get baptized. God has given us a platform at church to be able to speak into so many lives.

My role as a wife and mother remains the same whether in the ministry or in corporate America. It took God taking me out of corporate America to change my perspective. I wish I had lived in corporate America the way I live now. It makes complete sense to me now when Pastor Steven says everyone is in the ministry full-time. Pastor’s wife or Business Man’s wife I should be viewing my budget in a way that stretches each dollar and spends each penny wisely. I should be intentional and creative with my family time. I should choose a radical lifestyle that causes people to wonder what it is that is different about me.  And I should be intentional about encouraging those God has brought in my life.

What started out seeming to be a major sacrifice has actually turned out to be one of the greatest upgrades of our lives.