The life of a church planter’s spouse

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:09

Hey, welcome, everyone. This is unfiltered podcast. We are having real conversations about church planning Raw. Exactly. What you see is what you get.

But my name is Lee Stevenson and I have the joy and privilege of serving as the executive director of church planning for Converge. And we're also planning a church as well. So my co host here, I'm Danny.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:30

Parmalee, and I oversee church planting in Converge Mid America. And today we're going to talk a little bit about the church planter's wife and the role and what that is supposed to look like.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:42

Kind of a biggie conversation here, Danny.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:45

And it's. There's very specific things that a church planter's wife, right.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:49

They have to, oh, they got to play the piano. They got to, you know, serve in children's ministry, have to be a good cook. So. No, we're kidding.

But there are sometimes these, I don't know, expectations that are very unrealistic, if we're honest, that can be placed upon our wives.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:07

Yeah.

And I would say it's funny that you mentioned those, because when I was dating Emily in college and told her that I was feeling called to ministry and called to be a church planner, she said that the things that she would not do is play piano and do tea and crumpet meetings with other wives within the church.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:26

What she have against tea?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:27

Yeah.

And so we actually, we talked to another church planting wife, and one of the things that they said was really, really even helpful for her in the beginning in saying one of the great things about planting a church is that you do get to design your role a bit.

And so instead of like, well, the pastor that we had before, his wife always did X, Y and Z, and the pastor wife having that kind of, you know, expectation put on them, that is one of the benefits. And it's actually something that I think even starts a bit during our assessment process.

I know we did a whole podcast on assessment centers, but as an encouragement to the wives, we see a very broad spectrum. And I think that this is great. Everything from we kind of say co pastor. So the wife is literally very visible conversation. Very visible.

Maybe even, maybe even preaching, you know, to that extent to, you know, wife of the pastor. So maybe a little bit more behind.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:34

Yeah.

Danny Parmelee: 00:02:34

And much more in. In kind of a supportive role. But you know, what, how did it work? You know, our wives aren't here, so we kind of get to say whatever we want.

We'll invite them on, we'll invite them.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:46

As a follow up to this podcast so we can have A woman's perspective on kind of how they fit and how they saw their role. Because I think they would lend a great part of this conversation.

You know, for us, it's probably a little different than the typical church planner's wife, if I'm honest. Melissa is because her dad is a pastor. So she is. She's a pk. She's grown up in the church watching her mom fill this role as being a pastor's wife.

But not only was he just a pastor, he actually was a church planter that planted two churches as well. So she learned by osmosis, just because of her close proximity to the church plant, understanding world.

She understood, like, this is just what it takes. And early on, it takes a whole lot of extra work, time, energy, but can be a huge blessing as well to the family.

Like, she still thinks very fondly and favorably to those years growing up in those churches. And like, one church that they started, started in a Italian restaurant.

And she tells stories about, like, after church, they were filling salt shakers, you know, for the restaurant owner, when he opened up, you know, the next morning. And. And so I. That lends to itself a little different perspective than I think. You know, some wives may come to this, this conversation.

But I think part of what it's okay to voice is helping your wife understand what is she really actually called to do. Is she called to be your wife first and foremost? Is she called to love her family, or is she called to plant?

And so I think defining some of those specific roles is helpful early on in the conversation, even before you get to the pre launch phase, before you even get to an assessment center, have some hard sit down conversations and really begin to define, hey, I think this is what God's calling us to do. How do you feel about it? What do you like about the local church? What do you have a hard time with the local church?

And the more that you can be on the same page with those things, the easier it is to walk that pathway of planting a church.

Danny Parmelee: 00:05:05

Yeah. Yeah. I think for. For Emily and I, our situation was unique in the sense that we didn't have kids and Emily had a career. Actually.

She helped put me through seminary. So she said she got her PhD, the putting hubby through degree, which means, like, she cut your hair. And she still does.

She still cuts my hair to this day. And we even have a story when we were in seminary that we were kind of low on money, so I gave her a haircut.

That was the last time that she trusted me to do that. But those are, but she had a career and so she, she was fairly invested in, in that. And so she was a little bit removed kind of in the beginning.

And then the interesting thing is, is that then when she wanted to get more involved in the church, the church had grown to a place where all of a sudden I was like, oh my goodness, I don't know everything that's, that's kind of going on. And so it is just one of those things.

I think that it's constant communication with your spouse and checking in with them and how they feel because the train can get rolling pretty fast and you forget that you are also pastoring and ministering to them as well. And sometimes it can be easy to kind of either forget them on one side or the other thing. Is it because they, their your spouse that you over expect?

And it's like, well, we're short a person. And there were those times, there were times where we were short in children's ministry and Emily had to just kind of step in.

But you have to be careful of that because as soon as that kind of becomes the norm, you end up not only using people, but you're using your spouse to kind of, you know, move forward with things. So.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:49

Yeah.

How did you and Emily kind of navigate and did it change where she served her role in the local church from your grand opening moment into years down the road? How did she see her role and how did it shift?

Danny Parmelee: 00:07:11

Yeah, I think it changed for a couple of different reasons. Part was size of church, but part of it also was when she was working and then the amount of time that she had then was less. And then we had Stella.

So that allowed her to be able to. Yep.

So it's like she had to focus on Stella, but at the same time that allowed her to connect with moms that she could have never connected before with other moms. So that was actually huge. But during that time the church grew a lot.

So that was part of the time where all of a sudden it's like, oh man, what do I, where do I fit in this whole thing now and then, especially as we went to a multi site model, not knowing which location and which friends she was supposed to, you know, still connect with, which women was she supposed to pour into?

And I think that that was a constant battle as the church kind of continued to grow, it was constantly asking, where do I fit in this, in this whole picture? So. And I can't say that I did the best job with that either. You know, it's kind of like, to me, I'm like, well, again, we're moving along.

We're launching another site, or, you know, I'm going to move my office from this campus to that campus. And I remember it was like, wait, you are. Like, you didn't discuss that with me? And I'm thinking, how does that affect me? But it does.

It does with relationships and where she's going to worship on Sunday, should she be following me around from campus to campus or, you know, some of those different things.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:42

So just curious, like, in your marriage, who's more extroverted, who's more introverted? How did that play into roles within the church as well?

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:51

Yeah. So I am definitely the one that's more extroverted. And Emily is introverted.

She would prefer to have a smaller group of ladies that she trusted and that she invested in. And for me, extroverted would rather be around crowds of people and an inch deep. Right. Type of thing.

And even in our own personal friendships and how we had friendships or what we did on the weekends, that changed because I'm looking at biggest opportunity to have social touches with as many people. And she would have preferred to just have, you know, the same, you know, three couples or whatever, kind of like hanging out.

And so that was something that we even had to navigate, and I would say still navigate and try to figure out, you know, kind of a rhythm for that.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:45

Yeah.

Danny Parmelee: 00:09:46

How about you guys?

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:47

We're both fairly extroverted, and. And so Melissa loves to be around people as well.

I think part of the challenge for us is realizing how to live in a pattern and a rhythm that's sustainable.

Because sometimes as extroverts, when you're both an extrovert, you can just go and go and go, and you both then all of a sudden realize, like, I'm kind of tired of people right now. Like, I do need to sit down and recharge. And we have to be careful. Our daughter, specifically, is more introverted.

And so we just have to realize, like, she can't run relationally the same way the rest of us do. Our son loves it. Like, he's always looking for the next party, wants to, where's the next group of people? And so he feeds off that energy.

And so it's a weird dynamic in the home from us. From that standpoint, Melissa really felt called in the last church plan to kind of filling two roles.

One was she just loved serving in the nursery, and she saw that as a time to disciple other women because you're not preparing and teaching a lesson she holding babies. It gave her an opportunity to minister to young moms that had never dropped a baby off in the nursery before and a little nervous.

It gave her great opportunity to connect with the other women because they're just sitting and talking as they're holding babies and interacting. She really enjoyed the camaraderie and the discipleship opportunities that that presented.

And then as the church grew and the staff team grew, she really felt like God began to press on her a desire to minister to the staff wives and to give them an outlet and just engage them where they were at and just love on them, give them an ear. And so once a month she'd actually gather all the staff wives together and they go out and just have coffee for a couple hours and sit and talk.

And she said that that was good for her, but she found that it was really helpful for all the women to be able to connect because sometimes it can be a lonely place for any pastor's wife, whether or not it's the lead pastor or another supporting role to find their fit. And I think it was helpful for them to be able to have a place to have those kind of healthy conversations.

In this church plant early on, Melissa is planning to kind of fill the new child check in area.

She's really good at connecting with people that have no real previous church experience, but helping them, you know, feel like this is a safe place and even be excited about dropping their kids off. And so she just feels like that's a place that she can lend help to the, to the church.

But then she also wants to fill that role as the staff team develops and grows of connecting the wife and continuing to do that.

Danny Parmelee: 00:12:32

Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

I think for Emily too, as the church grew and there were staff, that was kind of her area that she just really enjoyed and like you said, it's of that mutual kind of encouraging type of relationship with other staff wives as well. I think for her too, one of the things is that she didn't have the expectation from other people, but sometimes felt like she wasn't doing enough.

And I think that that's something for church planners to again just be keenly aware of what those perceived expectations and for me, the support that she just gave to me and taking care of our daughters and running our household and it may sound like old fashioned or whatever, but for me that it really did give me this like peace and security and confidence that as I was doing ministry things that things at home she was really had an eye on, on those types of things and just so thankful for that. And she's. She's at times thinking that I'm wanting her to do more and to, you know, sing on the worship team or, you know, do X, Y and Z.

And I really wasn't. And so I think that's something for planters to kind of just. Just pay attention to and, and have those conversations.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:54

No, that's. That's great. And I do.

I tell the story this way that Melissa, for us in our home and has been since, you know, specifically kids change the whole dynamic. She's the thermostat of our home, meaning she's in contact. She knows when things need to be cooled off and when things need to raise in temperature.

And so she has the ability to control that and the rhythms of how our family operate. And so I've had to learn. I need to listen to her when she realizes, like, we've just done too much ministry and we need to dial it back.

We need to be at home and this is good for us in our marriage. It's good for our kids. Those type of things. I've got to pay attention to that, not continue to drive at the. At a crazy pace.

But what are the conversations that you have or how would you give advice, Danny, to a pastor who's going, I feel called to plant a church, but my wife doesn't want to do this. What kind of advice would you give them?

Danny Parmelee: 00:14:56

Chocolate usually will change her mind on anything. No, I do think that God does call the couple and so to be careful. I do think that there is a certain aspect where that's part of leadership.

And if God's called you to plant a church, there will be a part where maybe you're even leading your wife in that. But to make sure that you're just not running, not forcing, not forcing it and. Or that she's doing it begrudgingly for.

For Emily, when we were dating, as I. As I was saying before, she wasn't excited about that, but it was also some misconceptions that she had.

And there's a certain amount of fear, you know, like, how are we going to get financially? Like, is there going to be food for us and our children? And what happens if this doesn't work? And what if we move our. So all of those.

All those different things and to be patient with that, because even if God has. Has called you, it may take some time for your. For him to reveal himself to the wife as. As well, too.

Lee Stephenson: 00:15:58

That's great, great advice. This is just part one. We're going to continue this conversation with wives actually at the table in part two.

And thanks so much for joining us for unfiltered real church planning conversations. Peace. Until next time, guys. Keep it real.