On Tuesday afternoon, June 19, CEP will offer two back-to-back seminars designed especially for elders’ wives. The first seminar hour (2-3 pm) will combine a teaching segment and a season of prayer. The second seminar (3:30-4:30pm) will offer two separate panel discussions-one designed for Ruling Elders’ wives and one for the wives of Teaching Elders.

Elders’ Wives: What am I to do?

How do we think about our call to be an elder’s wife? Do questions like, “What am I to do?” or “Where is the training manual?” enter your mind? Just how do we biblically support our husband’s call as a shepherd in God’s Church? Join us for a discussion thatcombines purpose with practical equipping. A teaching segment that focuses on the Church, the household of God,will be followed by panel discussions highlighting the privilege of leadership marriages. Our prayer is that we will all leave encouraged and strengthened with answers to our questions.

Teaching Session: Kathy Stair, Ruling Elder’s Wife and Women’s Ministry Trainer

Panel Leaders: Karen Hodge, Teaching Elder’s’ Wife and Women’s Ministry Trainer and Cathy Wilson, Ruling Elder’s Wife and Women’s Advisory Sub-Committee Representative for Mid-America

If my husband had a dime for every time he heard me say, “You just don’t understand, nobody really knows just how I feel,” he would be a rich pastor. If you are anything like me, there are moments from time-to-time when you experience loneliness and isolation.I wantto invite you to join a conversation on Tuesday afternoon at General Assembly…one that is safe, authentic and one, prayerfully, where you will feel encouraged and enfolded. It is a conversation about the highest highs and the lowest lows of all that arepart of the calling of ministry marriage. I look forward to telling my husband “I was wrong…there are women who understand how I feel.”

Karen Hodge is a motivating and encouraging pastor’s wife and mother of two beautiful children. She is having the time of her life serving alongside her husband Chris, Senior Pastor at Naperville Presbyterian Church. Prior to their newest adventure, Chris and Karen have served at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL, Christ Covenant Church in Charlotte, NC, and planted Treasure Coast Presbyterian Church in Stuart, FL. She also serves as National Trainer for the Women’s Ministries for the Presbyterian Church in America. She has a heart for MNA (Mission to North America) and sits in an advisory role to the Standing Committee of MNA as well as serving the Church Planting Assessment Center. It is from this perspective as wife, mother, leader, and friend that she offers insight from God’s word to women concerning how she and they can most effectively learn to enjoy and extend God’s glory.

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Each year that I attend GA, I look forward to seeing friends from all of the places that we have lived and labored and sometimes it is a real “blast from the past” with wonderful surprises. But I also look forward to seeing the bigger picture that God is painting of His Church. Just as our local church “bodies” are built with individual gifts and graces, just like each of my friends, this PCA “body” is built of churches with individual gifts and graces that together help visualize God at work. This year I look forward to fellowshipping with ruling and teaching elders’ wives as we look at what Scripture shows us about how, we as wives of elders, are an integral part of this “body” building.

Kathy Stair is the wife of Randy Stair, ruling elder and President of the PCA Foundation. They are parents of Julie and Brad, and grandparents of Samantha,Aidan, and Logan. Kathy and Randy are members of ChristChurch Presbyterian, Atlanta, GA. Kathy has served in several churchesin Women’s Ministry, five years as Administrative Assistant to CEP’s Coordinator of Women’s Ministries, and is a CEP Women in the Church Trainer.

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In a culture attuned to individual callings and responsibilities and rights, are we taking time to evaluate our ministry as a couple to our local church? We will have a conversation with several ruling elders’ wives that will include, in part, these questions: What does the BCO have to say about our husband’s callings and what does that mean for us as wives? How do we come along side of them to enhance and support their service as elder to the glory of God and the edification of our churches? What might that look like in the context of our churches’ demographics and missions and our individual families’ giftings and other callings/responsibilities? My prayer is that we can be iron sharpening iron and contemplate together our privileges and responsibilities as wives of ruling elders, so thatwe can spur further discussion with our husbands and with our fellow church family elder’s wives.

Leading the discussion is Cathy Wilson, wife of Bill Wilson, ruling elder at Christ Church, Normal, IL. Cathy serves as the Women’s Advisory Subcommittee representative for the Mid-America Region. During their marriage, they have been members of four PCA families in Memphis, St. Louis (where Bill also served on Session and Cathy was part-time coordinator of Women’s Ministries at Kirk of the Hills), Jackson, MS, and now Bloomington/Normal, IL. They have two college age children: Alexandra and Strother. Cathy works part-time at Talbots and serves on the Christ Church women’s ministry team, volunteers with Bill for Young Life, and helps him juggle his work, church and community involvements including his tennis matches! She runs for health, friendship and stress release!