Overcoming the Pressure of Being a New Church Planter's Wife
Soon after my husband and I planted a church in the center of Tokyo, I was introduced to Parakaleo, an organization that trains and walks alongside women in church planting. I had encountered many such groups for pastors, but I had never heard of a study group specifically for pastors’ wives. Because I had previously been uncomfortable in all-women’s meetings such as my Parent Teacher Association, I didn’t join the group right away. However, after several attendees shared their experiences with me, I began to believe that God may have been leading me to join, too. And so, I decided to go beyond my comfort zone and participate. As it turns out, this opportunity to receive God’s blessing came at a surprisingly perfect time.
For seven years, my husband and I had clung to a simple-sounding yet challenging mission statement: “Let’s plant a church in the center of Tokyo, where the cost of living is incredibly high!” We had long prayed about this with our denomination, and at last we finally launched a ministry committee and started our first church plant. We held our first service in our house at 4:00 in the afternoon—six people showed up filled with joy and we all ate supper together afterwards. No one asked me to do it, but I was happy to prepare a meal for them. I wanted them to go home with full hearts and full stomachs. But after a while of doing this every week, my priority shifted from praying for my husband, who delivered God’s messages, to thinking about next week’s menu. I was the only one to cook. I asked myself, “Is this what every pastor’s wife is doing?” The joy I initially had in making them a meal was replaced by pressure. “I was sure God guided me to this place to serve,” I reflected, “but now it feels like something is wrong.”
It was during that time that I was led to that meeting with Parakaleo. Attending it meant I could take a short break from ministry work to talk with other church planters’ wives who were in the same position as me in certain ways, albeit walking in different seasons of their lives. I met friends whom I quickly understood even without saying much to them. I recalled the words of a pastor who once jokingly told his graduating seminary students, “Welcome to this side of the world!” He was talking about the big difference between being a clergyman and being a church member. I felt a similar welcoming once I attended this meeting: I was being guided into a new side of life, and thankfully with a group of other women I could enjoy valuable fellowship with.
But an even bigger blessing than the fellowship came when I was asked, “Are you living in the gospel right now?” The group analyzed our hearts and how the gospel might renew them using a variety of helpful tools. One of the most beneficial for me was imagining the pressure I felt as a planter’s wife in a court setting. Courts, of course, have a jury, a prosecutor, a defendant, and a judge. Oftentimes in our hearts, when we feel pressured, we construct a court scene in which we place ourselves in the defendant’s chair and those pressuring us become the prosecutor accusing us of wrongdoing or the jury or judge determining our innocence.
As I reflected on this, I realized I had been doing this throughout the launch of our church. I had told myself, “We have to come up with positive results,” effectively placing my husband and I in the defendant’s chair and casting our committee members and supporters as the jury, evaluating our every action to see whether we lived up to their scrutiny or not. And even though this was how I felt, it was an entirely imaginary scene that I created in my heart. Without much thought, I had placed myself in the defendant’s chair when nobody had really put me there in the first place.
The same was true of the pressure I felt when cooking for the church every week. Nobody would have passed a negative verdict on me if I didn’t have the capacity to cook as frequently as I had been, and yet I had imagined myself trapped in the defendant’s chair. Sometimes I even judged myself, wondering if I was a “good pastor’s wife” or not. All of this perceived judging and defending were the cause of unhealthy communication. But who was presiding over these courts? No one except me! I was shocked to realize this.
But the Lord was watching me struggle and led me to this group of women. He was trying to help me live according to his gospel. He was telling me, “No one is judging you. I see you and I love you.” I certainly may fall into the same negative spiral of feeling pressure and judgment again—and sometime the judgment may actually be there! But I hope to continue experiencing the blessing that Christ’s sacrifice makes me enough in God’s eyes. I know God will bring me back to walk with Him freely and joyfully because He will not give up on me.
To read more from City to City Japan, visit their site. To learn more about Parakaleo, visit here.
About the Author
Hatae Shimomura joined the church when she was engaged to her colleague Akiya in 1988. In 2014, she and her husband dedicated themselves to ministry after living in Osaka, Tokyo, and Shanghai and raising three girls. While ministering at Tokyo Center Church, they also operate a kanji certification school and support families in the neighborhood. They experience God’s work through meeting new people in the area daily.