His Plan (part 2)

When I worked at Garrys, I got into MANY conversations with people about my husband who was planning to go to seminary. When we moved to Philly, I had even MORE conversations about my husband BEING in seminary. Here are some of the examples of the questions I was asked.

So your husband goes to Seminary?. . . you're gonna be married to a priest?!
or
so you're gonna be a pastor's wife?
or
How do you feel about being a pastor's wife?
or
(when I was pregnant and told various regular customers who knew Max was in seminary that his name would be Luke)
" Ah, yes. . . a Bible name. . . are you gonna have Matthew, Mark and John next?"

Anyway, in response to all of these questions, I always made it VERY clear that Max did NOT plan to be a pastor! I said that he wasn't quite sure EXACTLY what he wanted to do- maybe teach or become a professor, but we were CERTAIN that he DIDN'T want to be a pastor. Even our good friends in Philly said a couple of times, "are you SURE you don't wanna be a pastor? We think you would be a great preacher".

At least I was certain. I could not stand the thought of Max being a pastor. I don't know if it was really the thought of ME being a "pastor's wife" and the stigma that is often attached to that title or if it was simply that I couldn't imagine him preaching week after week (when I know what he is REALLY like at home :). Regardless, I KNEW that I didn't want him to be a pastor!

Max was pretty certain as well. He opted to finish school in 2 1/2 years and NOT take the extra preaching courses that are required for the MDiv degree (the "preacher's degree").

Towards the end of our stay in Philly God put it on our hearts to switch churches. We left our close network of friends at the church we attended for 1 1/2 years because we felt like we weren't getting spiritually fed. The pastor at the new church was phenomenal, and we quickly found out that he led a "pastor's round-table discussion" every Thursday for any students from the church who went to Westminster. There Adam would explain to these guys, in great detail, HOW he prepares his sermon. Max LOVED this hour he spent with Adam on Thursdays, and was amazed at how he dissected every word of his text. Even though I often questioned WHY Max would participate in this group even though he didn't plan to be a pastor, I figured there was no harm in it either. (As it turns out, Adam only led this "round-table" for a short time - and it just happened to be the short time we were at this church. Also, another participant of this group once said that Adam's hands-on instruction was better than all the preaching classes together.)
We would soon realize that this was just another piece of our lives that God had so perfectly put in place. . . .