Ministry Joys and Struggles as Single Women

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Wendy Alsup
Kori was unable to come because of some sickness, and we are sad about it because Kori had a lot of wisdom to offer. But I’m going to try to channel some of her wisdom, and so we were going to have two chairs and a conversation. But it’ll be more like a conversation between all of us. How about that? All right, so I’m going to open us up in prayer, and we’re going to talk about the joys and the struggles as single women finding our place in the local church. Father, we do come before you in Christ’s name, and we recognize that it’s your church, it’s your kingdom, it’s your word, it’s your Holy Spirit, and our lives are yours. And so, Father, I pray that you would give us a collective wisdom through the moving of the Holy Spirit, so that each of us can use our gifts-the gifts you have given us the the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit at work, sanctifying our lives. That you would draw us to the places you want to use our gifts and help us find the plow that you would have us put our hand toward, so that we could plow the fields, plant the seeds, harvest the fruit that you have for us in your kingdom, and we will give you the honor and glory in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All right, so I want to share with you a little bit of who I am. I’m Wendy Alsup, and a little bit of my journey as a single woman finding her place in the church. Some of the joys I’ve experienced, some of the struggles I’ve experienced. I had problems finding my place in the church before I got married, and maybe that’s an odd statement for me to make to a conversation with singles. I got married when I was 28 years old. I had struggled very much with finding hope for the future or believing that my life would have any meaning and purpose as a single woman. You know, I just was not confident. I had a vision for my life, and I could not envision it at that point. And the Lord did not sanctify me out of that mindset before I got married. But the interesting, and I think a lot about it, that if if you’ve ever heard the the thing where you need to discipline your mind so it’s not an idol, you know. A lot of us get married right while it’s still like a big idol, like you really Jesus’s does not feel enough. I feel like my life is not going to be satisfying without a husband. So then I really experienced very, very similar depression, discouragement, an inability to envision a good life on Earth for myself when I struggled to get pregnant, and I really noticed the similarity of the mental battle, and I didn’t. I didn’t get past it before I got pregnant either. So again, you know, we sometimes project onto women who are struggling with infertility. Well, you know, if you can discipline this out of your heart, or God’s going to wait until you’re content in Him. But again, that’s not how really God works, right? God doesn’t give children to the best parents, and He doesn’t give husbands to the godliest women. Right, that’s not how it transforms and happens in our lives. Certainly not in mine. Then in 2012, my husband had the onset of pretty serious symptoms of schizophrenia, and then divorced me in 2015, and so then I re-entered life, and certainly that wasn’t what I had envisioned my life looking like. But the Lord did use those circumstances in my life to give me some perspective, and particularly what we want to talk about is not just being single as a Christian single woman, but really how do we find our place in ministry as a Christian single woman? What are what are the hurdles that we find in our in our path, and then how how can we? What’s the wisdom on figuring out how to make it past those hurdles? So one of the questions Kori and I were going to talk about was the struggles that we have faced personally as a single woman in the church, and.

Wendy Alsup
Well before you ever get into the place of ministry, there’s just can be a lot of misunderstandings, and I’m sure there are misunderstandings between married folk and the church, right? But I have found I have a lot of sensitivity now about being misunderstood, let me tell you a little story that is funny in retrospect, but it wasn’t at the time. But shortly after my divorce, I ended up moving from Seattle back to my hometown in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and started attending church there, and had great pastors, very kind people. They were very welcoming of my children and myself. But early on at that church, I was just trying to rebuild my life, trying to make new relationships. I’d really lost all of the relationships that I had previously built in the church because I had to move back cross country because I couldn’t afford my life in Seattle, so I’m in church and making friendships with couples, particularly the wives. And one Sunday, I had to get something from one of the wives in the church, and her she was not there, so her husband was going to meet me and give me it was like a block of cheese or something, and he couldn’t make eye contact with me. I’m like, you know, I’m like, hey, and how’s you know so and so doing, and you know that’s funny thing you got some cheese there, you know, and it was really awkward. Like he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I’m like, hello. And then it happened with another man in the church that I was just having some kind of what I thought was just a normal interaction with him, and he couldn’t make eye contact with me, and like could not wait to get out of that conversation. I’m like, hey, what is going on here? And then, then like the following Sunday, I came into church late with my boys, and we sat on the back row of the church service, and we had chairs similar to this. It’s not a pew, but they weren’t hooked together, and so I sat down. My boys sat down, and there’s some other people on the row. And then we had greeting time. And at greeting time, I got up and I greeted the people next to me because that’s what you do at greeting time, right? You greet the people next to you. My boys are on that side. I’m not going to greet my boys and greet these people over here. Well, so it was a man. He was married, but his wife wasn’t there. And doggone, if I didn’t look during the next song, and he had moved his chair like a foot. No, it wasn’t like an inch. You know, it was like he had moved his chair down a foot. And I’m like, what do I need? Do I need like I’m gonna make a lanyard, and it says I’m not interested in you. I mean, you must think you are great, but I’m not on the prowl, buddy. You know. And so I finally got with my pastor, my assistant pastor, and I’m like, this is pretty discouraging. Like, is this how men in this church are? And he shared with me that a few years before I had gotten there, there had been an affair between two church leaders, and these men weren’t-they weren’t being mean. They had been scarred, they had been hurt. They they had had dear friendships in this church, and they lost those dear friendships. And they had been friends. You know, their families had been friends with these other families. Their kids had had playdates and grown up with these other kids, and it was devastating to them. And that’s what he, my pastor, tried to communicate. This is not about you. They are hurt, but you know what? I was coming in, and I was hurt. I was hurt before I ever got into the church. I was lonely. I had lost relationships. I’m coming into this church, and I need community. And so, one of the most important things-it was good that it happened pretty early on in church after my divorce-is that I realized. Well, I want people to give me the benefit of the doubt, but I need to give them the benefit of the doubt too.

Wendy Alsup
And the man who had moved his chair down a foot. He the following week, and I really I thank the Lord that I didn’t have to wait a long time to hear a little bit more about this. But the following week in our Sunday night community group, he had shared, and I don’t know why it came up that particular week. He wasn’t. Sharing it with me, but with the group in general, that once in church a few years before he had made the mistake of complimenting someone’s wife on her dress. Hey, you look great today, or I really like your dress, or something like that. And he shared in our community group, in our little Small group that a few minutes later, as the service started, her son, who was fairly young, maybe nine or 10 years old, came to him and handed him a note that had been written by her husband, really lambasting him for the inappropriateness of complimenting his wife on how she looked, and so once again, this man was not, you know, this was not against me. He had been burnt, and so one of the things that has been most valuable to me moving forward in the church has been really respecting that everybody. I’m not the only one who comes in hurt, and I’m not the only one that people might read misread my motives. You know, like I, I’m not, I’m not on the prowl in the church. I’m not trying to, but I don’t want them to misread me that way, but sometimes they’re not misreading me at all. They’re they’re coming in with their own scars that have nothing to do with me, and just as I come in with my scars that have nothing to do with them, they come in with theirs that have nothing to do with me. And it’s been really, really beneficial to me to really believe Paul’s instructions on love in First Corinthians 13. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it in the Amplified Bible, but it’s love is believe love believes all things, right? Love believes all things, and the way the Amplified Bible says it’s love is ever ready to believe the best, and we have that responsibility when we walk into the church. When we walk in with our own pain, our own vulnerability, we too have a responsibility to believe the best of others in the way that we want them to believe the best of us, so that’s a big struggle I’ve faced. Another struggle I’ve faced, and I think a lot of women in the church face, is the just the small number of robust opportunities sometimes in the church for women, and so then you have this tension: Do I invest in this church? Do I invest in a parachurch ministry? And you know what I mean when I say para church ministry, like the Gospel Coalition, right? The Gospel Coalition is a para church ministry that serves the local church, and so my encouragement is, and I have found myself often in parachurch ministries. But one of the things that my pastor and I have talked about when it comes to parachurch ministry, and it’s a helpful way to think about it, is to think about it as a mission out of your church. For us in my church, I have two different things that are not initiated by my church, but I came to my pastor with them, and I’ve got this opportunity and this opportunity. By the way, I’m in a missional PCA church plant to multicultural church plant, and nobody gets paid in my church. There are no positions, right? So it’s everything is there are no titles. We’re not big enough for any titles yet. But I had these opportunities in parachurch ministries, and my pastor and I talked about it. I talked about it to him. I don’t want to be here at church. Here’s my church, and then over here is this other ministry I’m a part of. But how do I think about myself as maybe just a missionary out of my church in this environment?

Wendy Alsup
And so we’ve worked on making sure, like I do, a nursing Christian fellowship at the community college, and we make sure that our congregation is aware of it, so that if they know someone that’s in the nursing program at the community college, that they’ll invite them to, and it supports me in that ministry. But on the flip side, when we have College Sunday at my church, I invite the students from Nursing Christian Fellowship to our church. So it’s not a ministry per se of my church, but it’s a ministry that I’m able to do out of my church just by a slight. Weaken the head of how you think about it, and involving your pastors in it. And I’ll say more about that in a bit. So there’s struggles figuring out how to use your gifts in the church. There are also joys. There are a lot of joys, and I want to make sure we talk about that as well. The older I get, so there’s some benefit to me being older, an older single woman in the church, because I really am growing to love the role of older sister. I’m an older sister to my pastor. I’m an older sister to some of our elders. I’m an auntie in the church. You know, I’m a grandmother to some kids. I’m 56, but there are actually a number of kids whose real grandmothers are younger than me. So it it’s like, but an older sister in the faith, an auntie in the faith, a mother in the faith, a grandmother in the faith, and what happens as a single woman for me, at least, and you you might have a different story, but I have less encumbrances to investing in others’ lives, sometimes not always, but I have less encumbrances to investing in others’ lives than some of my married friends, and that actually is not. That’s a benefit. That’s gives you some flexibility that sometimes others don’t have, and sometimes we can only see the loss of the encumbrances that are not there. But sometimes it’s a real, it’s a blessing, it’s a benefit. I have a 10-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a five-year-old that I pick up for church on Sundays. I’ve been in their lives since the middle one was born, and I’m her godmother, and their parents struggle. And I pick them up from the grandmother’s house, who is younger than me, but I have room to do that. I have room to do that. I have room to take them to get a happy meal, which is how I bribe them to behave. A very specific way we get our kids to behave in church-not my biological ones, but these three. But they’re growing. They’re growing. They’re growing, and it’s beautiful. But it is 100% possible because I’m single, but it’s blessed me so much when I drop them off at the end on Sundays, and we’ve had a moderately successful day where we actually were able to get the happy meals, and everybody, you know, we we survived together, and you drive away and and you’ve sung songs together. We have a song, the books of the Bible song. That whenever they hop in my car, they want to sing the books of the Bible. I mean, I cannot tell you, like I can live off of that joy, for a good 48 hours, like it feeds my soul, but there are not very many people in my church that have the bandwidth to do it, and so then I’m like, oh gosh, I’m so sorry, y’all. Y’all need to pick these kids up. Everybody needs this blessing. I mean, it’s a joy, and so there are joys to be had and opportunities to be had by the very fact that we at times have fewer encumbrances. In fact, in our little multicultural church plant, there are more single adult women than any other demographic in our church, we have single college students from RUF. If you’re familiar with RUF Reform University Fellowship at South Carolina State University, we got a robust college group. We have some single older women. We have a boatload of single moms in our church. We actually-that’s our biggest demographic, and it’s fortunate for me. And I want to acknowledge that I know for a lot of you guys, you feel other in your church.

Wendy Alsup
I don’t feel other in my church because I am very much the norm, not the exception. If you do feel like other in your church, there I highly recommend finding a place of need because stable to you know stable marriages with several kids is not the norm, and I guarantee it’s not the norm in your state. I don’t know where you’re from, but it’s not the norm. It’s not the norm in my community, and so there are places where, if you’re feeling other, find a place where you don’t feel other, and that is a great place to ministry. There are people who need your stability. Maybe you feel like you don’t yet have the stability of a home that you were looking for, but there are places that need your stability, and if we’re in a really stable, you know, normative church, at times we can feel very, very other, which is a very vulnerable place to be. But it has done; it’s been good for my soul to be out of that, and so I’m subsequently the norm, not the exception, in my church. All right, so Corey and I wanted to talk about some principles that have been particularly helpful as a single woman, and so we’ve already mentioned giving the benefit of the doubt, right? Assuming the best of motives. I’ve had a lot of times where I have been legitimately hurt in the church. It didn’t matter how what motives I assumed; they were like actually they were offensive. I had when I was going through my Divorce, the perfect church opportunity opened for me at my church in Seattle, and you know, you know, it’s rare for a full-time position for a woman in the church to open, and so my church started. It’s you know church of 200 300 so it’s and I had been pretty active at the church and my pastor told me I was like you know how should I think about this this is my ideal and he’s like you know what you’re not in a position right now to pursue this you know this not it’s not the time for you, and oh my gosh, that was such a hard pill to swallow. I was upset. I was upset with my pastor. I’m like, this is not a divorce I want. Why? Why can’t I? But on the flip side, it wasn’t the right timing or position for me, and I knew he loved me, but it was really, really hard. Now, in retrospect, I can see where God was moving and using and transforming my life because He had something different for me. And now it’s pretty obvious in my life in ministry. But at the time, it wasn’t at all, and that was a real hard pill to swallow. But he wasn’t meaning evil toward me. He was saying something at the time I didn’t want to hear, but not because he didn’t love me, and not because he didn’t want to use my gifts in the church. So that giving the benefit of the doubt is pretty pretty important. We set up boundaries and safety nets. I mean, we took a survey: who has been hurt in the church, and and let’s just go ahead and take it to the next level. Because you are a single woman, who has been hurt in the church? Anybody feel free to, as a single woman, right? And so we put up boundaries. We have fears, and so my encouragement would be: be careful with the boundaries that you put up. Guard yourself. We are vulnerable, right? Other people get church hurt in the church. You know, a sister in Christ might get hurt in the church, and she’ll go home and talk to her husband about it, and they’ll process it, and he’ll talk her through it. But when I get hurt in the church, I don’t have anybody to go process it with, and I don’t want to tell my children because my boys go to the church as well, and they’re 19 and 21. But I really don’t want to talk to them about it because I don’t want to harm their faith, right? So I don’t really have anybody to process those kind of hurts with, and so it makes you really vulnerable, and so you put up the barriers. You don’t want to be hurt, right?

Wendy Alsup
But if you can guard yourself from boundaries just because of fear. Now I think we have boundaries where, like, someone has actually, you know, there’s boundaries. You don’t want to get too close to the actual burning stove, right? Because it will burn you. But sometimes we’re putting up boundaries from fear of unknown, fear of a new pastor, you know you have an old pastor that burned you. Well, he’s a burner. He burned you. He hasn’t repented. He hasn’t even acknowledged what he did. All right, set up a boundary. He’s probably going to burn you again. New pastor that you’re projecting on from your fears. Based on the previous session, that’s where we really have to start guarding ourselves and trusting God to protect us. So that’s a something I’ve I’ve been working on. I’m not always I’m I’m lecturing to myself as well. How many of you would say you have found a place of ministry in the church? You’re at peace with okay. If you have not, I’ll tell you what’s been most helpful to me, and it’s really just to be pretty upfront with pastors as I’ve tried to find my place, and just say, “Hey, can we talk sometime and sit down with them? And this is what I think my giftings are. I know this is what I’m burdened for, but also this is what I think my giftings are. Does that fit with any of your burdens for discipleship in the church, and how do you see? Do you see a way for me to use these gifts in the church? And it’s helpful to me in those situations to remember that my God is my pastor’s God, not two different gods, right? The Holy Spirit residing in me is the Holy Spirit residing in my pastor. The Word of God at my fingertips is the Word of God at His fingertips, right? And so then we get to this place where we can believe that our God is guiding our pastor too, and and then pray that God and I’ve I’ve had to pray this a lot. God funnel me down, and I love that idea of God funneling me down because I don’t always trust my motives, I don’t always trust my wisdom, but I can trust God to work providentially through circumstances. I’ve got several things that I’m doing right now, and it’s been providential. And God funneled me down. He closed doors as He opened doors, and that providential funneling has been super helpful to me to be then at peace, both waiting but then acting as he drops something in my in my in my lap. So I do like that practical idea of just boldly sitting down with your elder, make an appointment with your ministry leader at your church, and be open to what they think your gifts are too, but be open about what you think your gifts are. This is what my gifts are. These are my burdens. This is what other people have told me my gifts are. How can I use them? And maybe one of the biggest things I can say is once you begin to have that conversation with church leaders, really believe that God is for you. Be still and know that God is God. We can never get away from our theology. If you get away from your theology, you’re going to be sunk as a single woman finding your place in the church, as a married woman finding your place in the church, as a single woman finding, you know, your place in the workforce or anywhere, all of us are going to be sunk if we do not rely on our theology. And what is our theology? The one that unites all of us, hopefully, and it’s that our God is sovereign. Our God is in control. This is J. I. Packer’s knowing God kind of trifecta. Our God is sovereign. He’s in control. Our God is compassionate. He loves us. But the third aspect of it is as important. He doesn’t just-he’s not just in charge because there are a lot of kings in charge that you don’t necessarily want them to have anything to do with your life, and he’s not just loving, right? Because you can be in charge and be loving and be stupid and not know what you’re doing, right? But he’s wise, right?

Wendy Alsup
He knows what he’s doing, and so then when we have these moments and we’ve put out our self vulnerably in our church, I want to be used in my church. I want to be used in this ministry. You can trust your good Father in heaven to funnel you down as He wants for your good and His glory in the kingdom. Okay, and if there’s any elders or pastors or ministry leaders listening to the. Recording that we’re making today, so hopefully some will. I want to encourage you guys that you need all the gifts in the church, and I hope that you will be working to ask God for wisdom of how to use the gifts of the women in your church, be curious. Don’t assume. Ladies, have you ever had someone assume what you would be good at, and you’re like, actually, I hate that. If you want me to carry a cross in ministry, I can do it. But otherwise, that would be a struggle in ministry, not a joy. But pastors, or ministry leaders, or elders, be curious about the ladies in your church. Ask them. Well, what are your burdens? Ask others about them. What have you seen them excel at? And then think of this as a resource that God has given you for your own discipleship burdens in your church. These women are a resource to you, and ask God and the Spirit to lead you. How can they be helpful to you in your larger burdens of ministry and discipleship in your congregation? But here’s the final principle, okay? And this has taken me a long time. I did not have this in my 20s as a single woman. I didn’t have it in my 30s as a married woman, and I didn’t have it in my 30s when I was trying to get pregnant, and I didn’t have it in my 30s and early 40s after I got pregnant, but my divorce has been a severe mercy, and I think that the Lord is really starting to sanctify my heart on this. But this is what I can’t emphasize enough, and it’s that this world is not our home. An earthly marriage is not the goal. Earthly marriage is awesome, in that it reflects the truer marriage of Christ and the church, right? But my divorce has forced me to live every day in the light of the brokenness that is this world. It’s the limp. I have a limp that keeps me from mistaking this fallen earthly reality for my heavenly one. This world is not my home. My earthly home is temporary. I don’t have an earthly home. I have an earthly tent. I glamp. But Jesus didn’t have an earthly home either. Remember, He says, “I go to prepare a place for you, and it wasn’t on this earth that where I am, you too will be. Okay, it was in heaven, not on earth. Okay, this world is not our home, and we have earthly hospitality is wonderful. I love to be hospitable, but it really does help me to think of it as a tent, and not a house. And raising children on Earth isn’t the goal. Sometimes, as a reaction against secular culture around marriage and children and careers, we overreact in the church. I’m sure you’ve experienced that. I have. I’ve done it. I’ve done it at times where I overreacted to to make this thing to be really great, really awesome, because I felt like the world was so diminishing of a Christian home, and of course we’re going to do that. Of course we want to emphasize the value of of Christian marriage and the beauty phrasing children, but those are opportunities to steward in God’s kingdom. They are not the ultimate goal in the believer’s life. This world is not my home. This life is not the end goal. So as we close, let me just say this: God has used singleness to shape my faith. That was one of the questions. How was God? I was going to ask Corey. How has God used singleness to shape your faith? Well, Corey, I. But you know, we talked about being vulnerable at home by ourselves. I don’t have a built-in person, right? We talk about my person. You know, who’s your person? I don’t have a built-in person, right?

Wendy Alsup
To bring my immediate physical needs or my emotional needs, and you know. My boys, man, I love them so much. They’re so wonderful, 19 and 21, but you know you want to figure out what to wear to the gospel coalescing. Like, does this does this make me look fat? And they’re like, Mom, it doesn’t matter. Just you be you, and I’m like, it matters. So I had to have a friend from church come over and tell me, does this make me look out? No, I’m not. I really like that one, but I don’t really have a person, you know, to share the more vulnerable things with. So what’s what’s the value of that? I mean, you know, right? Who do we share vulnerable things with? Jesus is the better husband. God is the better father. You know, I relied a lot on my dad, but a year and a half ago, my dad died, so he really stepped into my life and my children’s life, and it was actually the loss of my dad after relying on him so much after I lost my husband that really really hit me hard. But our God is the better father too, and singleness, ladies, it gives us a steroid shot toward getting that in our lives. It’s like a steroid shot for sanctification. That way, we get it. We can’t. It’s not. It’s not that we’re tempted to go to someone. There’s no one to go to sometimes, right? Right. So we have to go to Jesus, and I want you to know that is a it may be severe, but you’ve heard that language of severe mercy. It is a severe mercy because He is the way, the truth, and the life. Right? He loves you. He loves you, and He has a good plan for your life. And He is real. He is a real bridegroom. He really is the one we’re going to be married to for eternity. He is the perfect pastor. You know, he is the great father. He’s the great counselor. I love those names of the Holy Spirit. He’s the Comforter, the Counselor, the Helper, because I need it. I need it, right? But I will go to 25 people, and it’s not until none of them answer the phone that I finally turn to the Lord. Sometimes, and so in our singleness, as we find our place in the church, as we put our hand to the plow in God’s kingdom, understand that you actually have something to be stewarded well. There is a gift in it, and as you struggle with the burdens and the sadness and the longing, hold them in tension. So I love the title of this, joys and struggles. All right, we’re not diminishing one or the other. And I just hope something there resonates with you and will be something you can meditate on this week during these few days. Let me, since we’re talking about the Psalms, let me end with a little bit from Psalm 73, which is one of my favorite Psalms. Listen to how the psalmist says, “Yet I am always with you. You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up to glory. Whom do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. And sometimes I say, “And who do I have on earth but you? My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion of forever. But as for me, God’s presence is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, so I can tell about all you do. It’s not that God’s things are the refuge, but that God Himself is the refuge. It’s not that God’s things are the good, but that God’s presence is the good. And it’s not that God gives us an inheritance of things and blessings and children and spouses and earthly home, but He gives us the inheritance of Himself. And these are the things that’ll sustain us. And you know what? Our married sisters in Christ need this. I needed it when I was married. But this is the thing that will sustain us. So, I hope that you can expand your brain because I think this is where. Survival comes.

Wendy Alsup
Expand your brain past the earthly, and believe well in a hope that will not disappoint. And I’m going to close this in prayer. But tomorrow, I I don’t know that I’ll be there anymore tonight. But tomorrow, you can find me either at the Intervarsity Press booth. I have a Bible study on the Psalms of Lament called “Crying Out to God: Experiencing Grace Through Psalms of Lament, which is a pretty vulnerable study. That if you are in a hard time, the Lord gives us language through the Scripture to bring to him, so at tomorrow at Intervarsity Press I’ll be hanging out there, and also at the Jonathan’s House for Orphans booth, which is a really lovely work. I’m on the board of that group as well, and I’ll hang out here for a little bit too afterwards. So I’m sorry we miss Corey, but I hope I was able to channel a little bit of her wisdom there as we talk. Let’s pray. Thanks, Father. We do come before you in Christ’s name, and we want to acknowledge you as our all in all. And Father, you know we have some vulnerabilities here. We we are often alone. It feels in carrying the weights on our shoulders, Father. But thank you that we aren’t alone. We really are not alone, and thank you for the grace that you give. And I ask for any here listening that’s really struggling with loneliness and feeling like they’re left in a vulnerable position in the church. That you would give them hope that you have a good plan, and that when they see you face to face in heaven, I just believe with my whole heart, Father. We will not be disappointed in how you led us through this life. You are good, and we believe that. And you reward those who diligently seek you. So, we have hope, Father, and I pray that you would hold us fast when we struggle. We love you in Jesus’ name. Amen.