Ministry Life at it's best and worst

Nathan has been a youth minister since 2003, pretty much as soon as he graduated from Harding he got in his car and drove to Muskogee and started his summer as a full time youth minister. This after two summers as an intern with the same church (so they have known him since he was 18!). This month he has been at MCC for 11 years!  Meanwhile, I graduated, went home for a summer and then spent two years in graduate school at Wheaton. The summer inbetween my two years I came to Muskogee to at least date Nathan within closer proximity, long distance was not ideal but it was healthy at the same time and we made the most of it.  In July 2005 I moved to Muskogee where I have been ever since. I jumped right in with the youth group and the church as a whole has never been anything less than encouraging and supportive to Nathan and I.  We, as a church, are not flawless people, our ways and procedures and habits are at times sinful, but we love well. Our church is full of grace and hope and joy and love.  For a young minister, and then his young wife a couple years later, it has been a very nurturing and healthy body to be a part of.  I am forever grateful for the body of Christ at MCC.
I am fully aware this is not always the case for other ministers. The main reason we have continued to reside in Muskogee is because of our church family.  We realize it is a very healthy place, where Nathan is loved and provided for and supported and trusted. At one point when we began discussing possibly moving on to another city and opportunity, Nathan expressed to me real concern and hesitation because he said "I've seen the way some churches take a minister and just eat their soul." Pretty harsh sounding. It threw me off a bit because I had not considered anything but love and acceptance and support from churches towards their ministers. Until recently.
We have some dear friends who are ministers at a church in our town. A wonderful family, great young couple with three darling little ones. She has been a great example to me of patience within the dear trying toddler years. She has been a great model to me of how to love others well, how to show grace, how to choose words wisely rather than rashly as I often do. Her daughters are some of my son's best friends. Her husband is one of my husband's best friends, in fact they get together each Wednesday to talk and encourage each other at Anna's Coffee Cup. And she is one of my best friends. And now they are moving. They have been here three years, and within that time have been beat up, shut-up, knocked down, and pushed aside by those who should have shepherded their souls and their ministry. It has been angering to watch as week after week volunteers in their ministry and even elders in their church and other ministers have belittled them and treated them so un-Christ-like.  It has caused my spirit to be discouraged on their behalf. Yet, time after time, they resolved to love and forgive and forge ahead for the sake of the good news of Jesus and their dedication towards those they felt called to minister to. But it has become clear that it is time to look elsewhere. When the ministry they should be doing is stifled by those that are supposed to shepherd them, it's time to move on.
My prayer is that they find healing and wholeness and that God leads them to a work that is a fully corrective and correct experience. Something that resembles better what the body of Christ should be like, not a self-serving, nominal-non-committed Christian-attracting, "hey, we've got tons of great programs, so just come b/c we need to get our numbers up because we want to be a mega-church and don't really care about what true discipleship is all about" kind of place. But instead, a place where people long to love each other and serve each other selflessly, to grow true disciples of Jesus (which means dying to ourselves daily, not embracing the idols of this world or acceptance or any thing other than Jesus), and a place where they can use their wonderful gifts that the Spirit has instilled in them.
I pray for healing and restoration for them, my dear friends and brother and sister in the faith.

1 Corinthians 4:8-9; 17-18  

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

 perplexed, but not driven to despair; 

persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed... 

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us 

an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 

as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. 

For the things that are seen are transient, 

but the things that are unseen are eternal."