I had the honor of getting to know Jennifer Barker during my time as a teacher in Coleman, WI. Her family was heavily involved with the small Christian school, as their church was one of two that supported the school. I was able to spend some time talking with and learning from her about ministry life, especially in a rural context. One way in particular that she challenged me was to really learn the culture and become a part of it. That challenge has helped me open myself to the people in my church in ways I hadn’t before.
- Where did you grow up? How did where you grew up contribute to preparing you for life in small-town pastoral ministry?
Answer: I grew up in Pound, a small town in Northeast Wisconsin. My parents were very active in our small rural church and passed on a love for serving in church ministry. I had big dreams of being a missionary in Mexico as a church planter, but God knew that He planned for me to work alongside my husband in small, rural towns and prepared me for it right from the start. I am thankful that I can relate to and understand the people I am living around. It helps me have compassion for them because I am one of them.
- Where have you served in ministry? Can you describe the particular culture in those areas and how that affected your ministry there?
Answer: I helped my husband as he served at my home church as the youth/assistant pastor for 9 years then as the senior pastor there for 10 years. Becoming a pastor’s wife at my home church was challenging in many ways- my family was in the church and many of the church members had been my teachers at one time. Our previous pastor and wife were very busy putting on programs, promotions, and banquets and the pressure to keep up the “traditions” though we were at a different season in our lives and had different gifts, led to many conflicts at first. However, God used this time to reshape our whole philosophy of ministry according to our searching for answers in the Scripture.
Today we have a ministry guest house in Northern Michigan where we host pastors and their families for free. We desire to encourage others in ministry, particularly younger families, with the truths God had taught us during our time in Wisconsin. We are also in our third year of a church plant in our town, and are excited to watch God build His church as we approach this effort with those philosophies God developed in us during our difficult years.
- How did God bring you to a place of serving in small-town/rural ministry? Did you have any sort of “calling” in this? If so, describe the circumstances.
Answer: When I was around the age of 12 we had a missions conference at our church. During that week, as I heard the testimonies of the missionaries, I felt God calling me to live my life to share Jesus with others and surrendered to serve Him in full time in ministry. As a teenager I had the opportunity to go on three mission trips and thought God wanted me to be a foreign missionary. I went to college with a major in missions, but it was there that I met my husband. As I got to know him I knew God made us to be partners in ministry together, but he was planning on being a youth pastor, not on the foreign field. At first I struggled with the thought of going back on my commitment to go to the mission field. After all, I thought God had a hard time getting people to go to the mission field, why would He NOT want me to go when I was so willing. My view of God’s sovereignty was so small at the time, but I really believed Scott was to be my husband and I was to be his partner in ministry. Even though I didn’t understand it, I trusted God and we were married. After I got married, determining God’s will for my life became easier because now I had a husband to lead me as we sought God’s will together. We ministered in the youth group at my home church during our college years. After graduation and our wedding, the church hired Scott to be the church’s first part-time paid youth/assistant pastor.
- How did God bring you and your husband together to serve in this way?
Answer: God used our ministry to bring us together as a couple. Though I planned on being a missionary even in my high school years, I was dating a guy who was not planning to be in full time ministry. He was a nice, Christian guy and I enjoyed doing things with him, but I found myself having a hard time breaking off the relationship once I was in college. It caused me to question if I really was called by God to be in full time ministry or not. My feelings were confusing my faith. I decided to switch majors to biblical counseling so I could still prepare for a ministry but open up my options. I also transferred colleges so I could be closer to home and closer to my boyfriend when he came home on leave from the Marines. At this new college we were required to serve at a local church, so, naturally, I chose to go home on the weekends and serve at my home church. Scott had already been going to church and working with the youth, along with two other guys from our college. Since there were no female college students helping, they were happy to have me along and got me involved immediately. It was a very cold winter that year and we drove an hour to church every Wednesday night and every weekend in Scott’s rusty Chevy Citation. The heat didn’t work in his car but there was some heat that came off the engine and kept the people in the front seat a little warmer than those in the back. The guys were kind enough to let me sit in the front, so Scott and I had many hours that winter to talk and get to know one another. It didn’t take long for both of us to realize that God was bringing us together to serve Him together in ministry.
- Did you have any particular areas of ministry in which you served in your church and community and what led you to those decisions?
Answer: For pastors’ wives in small churches I think the question should be “what areas of ministry did you not serve in.” I began in youth ministry and children’s church with my husband and we both taught a few classes at the Christian school in our town. But as he became the senior pastor and we had kids, my ministries changed to nursery coordinator, choir director, Sunday School teacher, secretary, nursery coordinator and worker, kitchen committee overseer, Ladies Bible Study overseer, hospitality ministry etc., etc., etc. I heard a phrase that helped me sort through what areas I was to get involved in and what I needed to let go of. It was this phrase: “The need is not the call.” There are so many “needs” out there, but I had to figure out what God was calling me to do. Realizing my spiritual gift was in the area of encouragement, I spent the majority of my effort on counseling, encouraging, and just being a friend to other women. But as far as a “named” ministry, ironically, the thing I ended up loving the most was an area that I least wanted to do – teaching children. When I first began teaching, I was kind of frustrated that there was no one else that would do it. After all, I was with my kids all day, every day, and now I couldn’t even go to church and get a break. I wanted to fellowship with adults and drink coffee with them, but, even if I didn’t teach my children, I’d have to sit in the nursery with them because there was no teacher. I’m not saying that there was no one else working with the children, but when you have Sunday School, Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night services, in a small church, there just aren’t enough workers. So, I asked God to provide workers or change my heart. It took a few months, but God chose to change my heart. I began noticing verses in the Bible about how precious children were to Him and I started seeing them as little souls that I had the privilege to help mold into truth lovers. Even though I started by teaching the preschoolers, I was struck with the importance of being accurate in presenting to them a correct view of who God was. And then, as I moved up to teaching a class of all aged children, I was amazed at how excited and awed they were at God because I got excited and awed at Him when I studied and taught. What a privilege to be able to lay a foundation of truth in a child’s heart!
- What has been one of your greatest challenges in this ministry context and how did you persevere in it? What did God teach you through it?
Answer: One of my greatest challenges happened 5 ½ years ago. I had many responsibilities at church and it was a time that a few of my closest friends in the church were going through some very hard things in their lives. My children were ages 12, 9, 7 & 6. We took on the task of hosting a foreign exchange student, who ended up being more work than I expected simply because he was young. About two months after he was living with us, I began having some chest pains. They weren’t real bad so I didn’t say anything to anyone. As Christmas time approached, I felt more heaviness, but I was in charge of a Christmas cantata at our church so I figured it was pressure from the extra responsibilities. But when January came and the Christmas events were done, I still noticed my heart racing quite a bit. I tried exercising more, cutting out caffeine, and changing some of my eating habits, but things didn’t improve. I started waking up out of a deep sleep with an adrenaline rush that wouldn’t go away. Several times I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. My husband didn’t seem too concerned that anything physical was wrong with me, but he encouraged me to go to the doctor anyway. I was put on a heart monitor for a week and that seemed to escalate my problems. One time during that week, we were in a different state visiting my sister, and, again, my heart was racing and wouldn’t stop. I called my doctor to see if she thought I should get it checked out. My doctor wasn’t in, but the nurse I talked to mentioned to me the words “panic attack.” This was the first time I had thought about that. I had heard of panic attacks, but imagined them to be different than what I was experiencing. I began researching and by the time the week was over and I had my follow up doctor’s appointment, I was convinced that I was suffering from anxiety attacks. My doctor was so gracious to thoroughly check me over just to give me the peace of mind that, yes, I was physically healthy. I was relieved on one hand, but at a loss on the other hand. Now what do I do? I was only 38 and I knew I could not live the rest of my life that way. God was so good to answer me in my trouble as I cried out to Him for answers! The whole next year was a journey of change, a journey of discovery about myself, a journey of rest, a journey of a deeper love relationship with my God and my husband. I praise the Lord that today I feel better, have a healthier lifestyle, a healthier outlook on life and am a much happier person because of the healing journey God took me through. God used that very dark time to bring about our move and our new ministry to pastors and their wives and families, and I have been able to share my story of hope with many pastors’ wives that have come to our guesthouse.
- What has been one of your greatest blessings in this ministry context and how has that affected your perspective of small-town and rural ministry?
Answer: Again, in a small church you can get so busy doing everything because there just aren’t the people, especially when ministries were started in a day when the church was bigger and the pressure to keep things going the way they have always gone is so great. But, when you finally get to the place when you have to give up because you just can’t do it all, whether emotionally, physically, spiritually or mentally, you are finally still enough to see “God Is There!” To realize it is and was all along His Church and He is growing it to be the way He wants it. To sit back and watch Him work in ways you would have never thought possible. To see Him change a life you never thought would change. To see Him bring about fruit in places you thought were deserts. These are the joys and blessings for anyone in any ministry. Though I have never been in a ministry at a large church, so I don’t know for sure, I think the benefit of a small church is being able to know the people so much better. When we really know people, we usually know the bad with the good, but then to watch the Word of God and our prayers for them change them as it has changed us, is a very exciting thing.
- If you could give a piece of advice to other rural and small-town pastors’ wives, what would it be and why?
Answer: My advice to those working in small town or rural churches is to be careful to adapt to their culture. People in these communities have their own culture that has been developed over generations. Get to know the people you are ministering to. They will trust you more and listen to you more openly if they see you caring about the things they care about. Especially if you come from a city or larger church, be careful not to expect methods to work the same way in your small church as you have seen them work in a larger church. Be content with who God has given to you to minister to and value each one. If our goal is to seek the masses or reach big numbers, we may miss the one or two souls God wants to save or become His next servant leader. Growing up in a small-town church myself, I’m so glad God sent a minister to share the gospel with me!
- Other info you might want to include:
Answer: I’d like to pass on our website for anyone interested in looking into our ministry guesthouse. www.beulahlandretreats.org
