League of Pastors' Wives

Armed and Dangerous

2010-10-30T14:46:00.000-06:00

Many of us have recently discovered a community designed especially for Pastors' Wives and Women in Ministry - Leading and Loving It. These gals are awesome! Lori Wilhite and the crew over there have a real heart for supporting and encouraging pastors' wives.

Leading and Loving It recently hosted the JustOne Virtual Conference for Pastors' Wives and it was fantastic! The JustOne Conference is now all archived for online viewing: http://leadingandlovingit.com/media/

A while ago, I blogged a bit about my involvement with Leading and Loving It and the Virtual Community I'm a part of. Lovin' it for sure! :)

I just thought I'd let you know about the group, and about an event they have coming up.

They have a retreat, Armed and Dangerous, planned for May 10 and 11 in Nashville, TN. It's 2 days designed to connect with and support other pastors' wives, a time to have some fun, and to encourage one another. I'm seeing if there's any way I can get to this retreat. It will be a great time!

Anybody else interested in going? Let me know what you think.

REMOVE the BlogRoll

2010-10-06T14:30:00.000-06:00

Because of some issues associated with malware blogs using blogrolling lists, the content of our blogrolling code may be viewed as suspicious by certain internet browsers, even though none of the blogs in the LOPW blogroll are malicious (that I've been able to discover).

At this time, it is necessary to remove the blogroll code from our blogs, perhaps permanently.

For more information about how to do that, please visit: http://status.blogrolling.com/

By all means, leave the LOPW Button in place with a link to this blog: http://league-of-pastors-wives.blogspot.com/ - there should be no issue with that!

THANKS!

Sad Statistics on Pastors and their Families

2010-07-13T12:12:00.000-06:00

Shasher over at Shasher's Life has written a great post that is worth sharing:

It is God Who Builds His Church

She's hit the nail on the head. The stats are indeed sad, and I'm sure many of us have felt these frustrations ourselves.

More Connected

2010-07-12T18:18:00.000-06:00

Now that I've moved all my blogs over to Blogger/Blogspot I'm feeling much more connected with this blog, too.

That lead me to a question...

Would you ladies be interested in more connection through this site, or is just the blogroll enough? I have no idea what 'more' might look like for sure, but I'm just wondering.

I have toyed with the idea of spotlighting each one of our blogroll members on here. What do you think about that?

I'd love for us to be a bit more connected, especially since some of us can feel very lonely as a pastors' wife.

Comments changed back - Check the BLOGROLL

2010-06-17T11:12:00.000-06:00

Well, I was pretty frustrated with the comment system I had added (JS-Kit which became Echo) because so many times when you commented, I didn't get an e-mail address or blog link. So, it's back to the original blogger comments.

There are a few people who I didn't get links from on the "To Be Added to the Blogroll" post. Check the blogroll and if you requested to be added but you're not there, PLEASE let me know so I can get you there!!

Thanks for your understanding. :)

Voice from the Back Pew

2010-05-17T09:24:00.000-06:00

There was a preacher whose wife was expecting a baby so he went before the congregation and asked for a raise. After much discussion, they passed a rule that whenever the preacher's family expanded, so would his paycheck.

After 6 children, this started to get expensive and the Congregation decided to hold another meeting to discuss the preacher's salary. There was much yelling and bickering about how much the clergyman's additional children were costing the church.

Finally, the Preacher got up and spoke to the crowd, "Children are a gift from God," he said. Silence fell on the congregation.

In the back pew, a little old lady stood up and in her frail voice said, "Rain is also a gift from God, but when we get too much of it, we wear rubbers."

And the congregation said, "Amen."

I think we all can relate

2009-09-13T17:44:00.000-06:00

I saw this video recently. Francis Chan is a great pastor and speaker and author, and he's a funny guy. This video is one I thought we could all relate to, as pastors and pastors' wives. I really did laugh out loud when I watched this the first time! No offense meant, but I do think we can relate!

2.5 weeks later

2009-08-09T13:18:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update -

I posted some pictures and details about my recovery from my incident with a line-drive foul ball at a baseball game.

2.5 weeks later - an everyday miracle

I am doing much better. Hopefully back into the swing of things just in time for our VBS at church!

Thanks to a foul ball

2009-07-26T11:53:00.001-06:00

this is a copy of the post I just put on my regular blog.

Reflexes are great!

We were at a Western Canadian League baseball game on Thursday night, sitting in the patio. I got hit with a line drive foul ball right into my face - I got my arms up in time to take most of the hit on my left forearm. You can see the impressions from the stitches on the baseball around the edge of the bruise, it hit me so hard. My arm WAY swollen, and SUPER sensitive to any touch. My nose/upper lip is a bit swolen and super sensitive, too.... The ball was hit by our own pitcher, so I got 2 balls out of the deal - the one I got hit with, and the one that he signed and sent over to me before I left. He felt really bad for taking me out! (I might post pictures next week or so)

The ball went from his bat to my arm/face in no time flat.... We were sitting in the patio, just off the 3rd base line, at about midway between the 3rd base and the back wall. We had just been talking to friends about why my sweetie had his baseball glove - at a previous game we had seen foul balls go into the patio, and we thought we were prepared. Just minutes before, the 3rd baseman from the other team had made a nice catch of a pop-fly foul ball by leaning over into the patio to get it, right over some people's heads. I'll pay for grandstand seats next time I think!

While I was not sleeping a lot on Thursday night, I thought about how glad I was that none of the kiddos got hurt.... they were in the very front row in the patio, right on the fence, with nothing but their heads and shoulders sticking up behind the top rail and table top there. I was sitting back toward the back of the patio, up on a bar stool at a high table. I think about the possibilities and am just so thankful that it wasn't one of them.....

But, that being said, I'm also hurt pretty good myself. I do have a mild concussion. My arm got most of the force, but the ball still hit me in the nose / upper lip area. I have had no serious symptoms (nausea, slurred speech, dizziness, etc.), just headaches, noise and light sensitivity, a bit of agitation, mostly. SO, now I have to take care of my head so it will get better. Limiting TV, Computer and reading, as well as resting lots for a couple weeks at least.

So I will not be online much for the next little while. MUST take care of my head so it will heal. Looking at a computer screen aggravates my headache and overloads me real fast.

I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty bored, so I'm hunting down audio books. Thankfully our local library has a good selection. I'll just need my sweetie to pick them up for me since I can't drive for a little while either... And all the things I have been wanting to do with this blog (LOPW) will have to wait, too. Hang in there with me ladies! THANKS!

Trying New Comments

2009-07-24T13:54:00.000-06:00

Hi Ladies!

I am trying out the new CommentLuv comment system on this blog. Among other things, when you post a comment to a post, included with your comment will be a link to your latest post from YOUR blog. It's a nice way to keep us connected to each others' blogs.

If you have any difficulty with the comments, please let me know. I'm not sure I can do anything to help, but will try, and if there are too many issues, I'll go back to the regular Blogger comment system.

So, bring on the comments. Let's see what this CommentLuv will do!

Where do WE go to rest, and how can we AFFORD it?

2009-07-19T21:51:00.000-06:00

One thing we, as pastors' families, need on a regular basis is down time, vacation, retreat. But, who can afford to both take the time and pay to go somewhere?

Our ministries need us to be refreshed and ready to serve, but don't often leave us feeling like we have enough time to get everything done AND take a break. And while our every day needs are provided for, we're never quite sure we can stretch our budgets far enough to include adequate 'away' time and space.

So, what do we do? Where do we go to rest, and how do we plan the time and the money to be able to do it?

My husband and I started researching retreat facilities when we were looking at going on Sabbatical last summer. We found some really neat resources that I'm going to try to dig up over the next little while and share with you all here. There are places all across the USA, Canada, and even worldwide, that provide low cost, discounted, or completely free accommodations for pastors and their families looking for retreat. I will not be able to form a complete list here, but I'll list every place I can find.

If you know of any retreat facilities for pastors and their families, please send me an e-mail and I can add that to the list. I think it is extremely important to have this information available so that we can find the time and space to rest and retreat with our families, and with that rest to be better prepared as spouses, parents and ministers.

Online forum for Pastors' Wives

2008-10-14T17:46:00.000-06:00

I know there are LOTS of resources out there for Pastors' Wives. Well... maybe not LOTS, but there are some good ones. I'm not touting any one as better than another as I am not personally familiar with most of them. But there is one I can vouch for and say that I just LOVE the community there, and the ladies are GREAT!

Pastors' Wives Forum Online is a great place to just hang out and be yourself. There are multiple categories - places where you can share about your favorite book, posts to 'vent' about the happenings at your church, even a category for crafters and weight loss issues, among many others.

I've met some fantastic women through that forum, and best of all, it's a SAFE place for us to be ourselves. We don't have to preface anything by saying, "OK, I know that I shouldn't feel this way, but..." or "Please keep this in confidence..." or anything like that.

The forum is very easy to get around, and you can change your settings so that you get updates anytime someone comments on the threads you are interested in following - that way it's easy to stay part of a conversation you get into. It's also easy to turn all those e-mail notifications OFF, if you so choose.

So, come and check it out over at the Pastors' Wives Forum. We'd love to have you join us there!

Drop Down BlogRoll

2008-09-22T10:58:00.000-06:00

Many of you have requested a Drop Down BlogRoll for your blogs. These save space while still allowing you to be able to include the blogroll in your sidebar. I have found one solution for this, and will continue to search for others, possibly with the ability to scroll through the list rather than just a drop down list.

Using flooble, I've been able to generate this expandable box:

League of Pastors' Wives Blogroll

[−]

this expandable content box is made using a
free javascript from floobleBlackjack Guide

It shows up wider here than it will be on your sidebar. It will fill the space wherever you put it (here it's a large space so it's a large box!).

There are two parts to including this on your blog:

Step 1:
Copy and paste the following code into the top of your page (either right after the "BODY" tag, or inside of the "HEAD" ... "/HEAD" tag). {Look for <> instead of "" around those words.} Do this only once per page, even if you are putting more than one box with expandable content onto that page.

Step 2:
Copy and paste the following code into the place on your page where you want the content to appear. Note that you can have more than one box with expandable content on your page. Also note, that the box will take up 100% of the width of whatever space it's in, so if you want the box to be narrower than it is normally, you need to simply put it into a table of the width you want.

<br /><div style="border: 2px dashed  #0080FF; padding: 0px; background: #E6E6E6; "><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%" style="background: #FFFFFF; color: #0080FF; "><tr><td>League of Pastors' Wives Blogroll</td> <td align="right"><br />[<a title="show/hide" id="exp1222108371_link" href="javascript: void(0);" onclick="toggle(this, 'exp1222108371');" style="text-decoration: none; color: #0080FF; ">−</a>]</td></tr></table><div id="exp1222108371" style="padding: 3px;"><script language="javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=a467517e6355336821b5fcfb141eab62" type="text/javascript"></script></div></div><noscript><a href="http://www.flooble.com/scripts/expand.php">this expanable content box is made using a <br />free javascript from flooble</a> | <a href="http://www.blackjack-primer.com">Blackjack Guide</a><br /></noscript><br /><script language="javascript">toggle(getObject('exp1222108371_link'), 'exp1222108371');</script><br />

I've tried to match the colors to the LOPW Blog here, and they may not match your blog. If you understand code at all, you may be able to fiddle with the color values in the above code to adjust things for your blog, if you like. I'm not able to customize too much from here.

Stay tuned for more options as I find them. This is a good start!

New Space for League of Pastors' Wives

2008-09-20T22:00:00.001-06:00

We're NOT quite sure what happened to our original space over at leagueofpastorswives.blogspot.com, but we're up and running here at http://league-of-pastors-wives.blogspot.com. If you have the old link on your blog, please update it so that we can stay connected.

If you're wondering, I do have permission from Nancy to update this info. Sometimes a collaborative effort is helpful, and Nancy has handed some of this off to me. I'm looking forward to helping us with this resource space.

We've also got our blogroll updated (there were a few links that were broken and outdated) and the code made available for you to put on your own blogs. Please replace the League of Pastors' Wives blogrolls on your blogs with the new one. Using the code rather than making your own list will ensure that when I update the list all the lists will be updated. I will do my best to keep up with this blogroll and blog.

Welcome to our New Space - and if you need any help, don't hesitate to e-mail me or leave a comment! Thanks for joining us!!

LOPW Buttons for your Blog

2008-09-20T21:00:00.000-06:00

Let other Pastors' Wives know that we have this group by adding a button to your blog. As of right now, we have 2 versions (that I know of) that you can choose from:

UPDATED: NEW BUTTON
Thanks, NAN!

Copy the code for the button of your choice from one of the form fields above and paste it into your blog wherever you'd like the button to appear. You may need to adjust the width to best fit your space. I'm no expert on coding, so I'm not sure I can be of much help if you have trouble with this, but leave a comment and I'll give it a shot.

If you've got other buttons, or have made a button that you'd like to share with us, please let me know and I can add it to these options.

Go on - show off our group! We love company - the more the merrier!

Code to Add BlogRoll to Your Blog

2008-09-20T20:50:00.004-06:00

UPDATE October 6, 2010

Because of some issues associated with malware blogs using blogrolling lists, the content of our blogrolling code may be viewed as suspicious by certain internet browsers, even though none of the blogs in the LOPW blogroll are malicious (that I've been able to discover). At this time, it is likely necessary to remove the blogroll code from our blogs, perhaps permanently.

For more information about how to do that, please visit: http://status.blogrolling.com/

By all means, leave the LOPW Button in place with a link to this blog: http://league-of-pastors-wives.blogspot.com/ - there should be no issue with that!

THANKS!

>>
If you'd like to add this updated BlogRoll of other pastors' wives to your blog, copy and paste the code from the form field below into your blog where you want your blogroll to be. Using the code on your blog, rather than listing out all the blogs in a list form yourself, should keep the blogroll updated.

~~If you'd like a DropDown version of this BlogRoll, please~~ ~~click over to this post here~~ ~~for the code to do that.~~

Add me, add me!!!

2008-09-20T20:45:00.000-06:00

If you are not already listed on the blogroll and you would like to be added, leave me a comment here and I will get you on the list as soon as I am able. We LOVE having new ladies join us, and we're so glad that you're here!

Be sure to grab the code for a button or the blogroll (or both) and add them to your site!

Welcome aboard! We hope you are blessed by sharing ministry life together with us.