Proclaimer Blog
Where do ministers get their fellowship?
Several of us are away at our Summer Wives conference and having, I trust, a happy time: Carolyn Ash preaching from the psalms, I'm doing Numbers. Rachel is doing the organising and, wonder of wonders, Mrs R is here too, part of the leadership team. Conferences like this are an important part of the pastoral care of a ministers wife; likewise our ministers conference serve a similar purpose for men. Here is a chance to spend time with those who are also in the unique ministry position that those who are not find very hard to understand. I suggested in my talk today, for example, that ministers and their wives are quite possibly most at risk of neglecting the gospel in the church. That will surprise many church members.
But it also needs to be said that the ministers primary fellowship, and that of his wife, needs to be in the church itself. The church is the thing in God's purposes and the minister or wife who seeks all his/her fellowship outside the church is cutting against the grain of God's economy. It requires wisdom and careful thinking of course, to make it work, but it must be the THE place where we find our solace and help. That's how God's made things. Roll with it.