by Sharon Howard
I for one am grateful that God has put it on the heart of our district leadership for Eastern PA to be all about “developing kingdom workers for increasing Gospel impact.” I am especially excited that one of the areas we focus on with that development is relationships!
Having the privilege of being around a lot of “kingdom workers” has been a big part of my life for 60+ years. I grew up in a pastor’s family. Nate and I served as pastor/wife for 40 years in the US and in South America. We led ministry teams overseas, have been part of debriefing our international workers, and these last two years God has allowed us to travel the district and meet you beautiful people!
We know a lot of “kingdom workers.” From observation, it seems two common stressors people in ministry experience are:
First, stress from strained relationships in their church family, their church leadership, with their neighbors, in their extended family, in their household and last but not least in their own soul.
Second, stress about: “Who can I talk to about the pain and complexities of these broken relationships” and “Where can I go to personally be equipped to walk out healthy relationships?”
Take a few minutes to read through these ten statements and check the ones you would say are true for you.
I definitely deal with some “hard to work with people” and would be blessed to have other safe ministry people to process with.
I feel stronger navigating what I do in ministry than in navigating relationships in my home.
I would love to find a way to invest time to strengthen my marriage.
I feel a need to grow more healthy relationship skills so I can lead others into those as well.
Sometimes I feel so busy in ministry that don’t have time for healthy community for myself.
I tend to feel isolated or alone in ministry and would like to get to know some of the other ministry people in my region.
I sometimes find myself hurting in my marriage but don’t know who to talk to about it.
I have been in ministry awhile and have some long-term hurts/frustrations/bitterness from broken relationships and I am not sure what to do with it.
I serve in an ethnic church and would like to build more relationships with workers in our district.
If there was a pattern of answering “yes” to those statements I would like to ask you to consider choosing the relational breakout session at district conference this year. In our session called “Better Together” you will be encouraged from testimonies of people who have already been growing in the area of relationships. You will also find out more about the opportunities that will be available in our relational development area this coming year including both our tracks: Relational Groups and Marriage Cohorts.
You can register for district conference today at www.epdalliance.org/dc20.
Could it be that this next year God would want to bless you with a safe place to develop greater relational health?