Husbands share the following thoughts and issues facing them when their wives are the pastors:

The Church of the Nazarene in Haiti has 11 districts and well over 100,000 members. This year marks the 60th anniversary of Nazarene presence in Haiti.

God has interwoven my career pathway like the laces in a pair of shoes, crisscrossing them back and forth. I've gone from local church ministry to overseas service, back to local church ministry in cross-cultural settings in the U.S., then back overseas, and now back to local church ministry. After more than four decades of this, I see something of what He had in mind in leading me along a zigzagging vocational trail.

There is no time in the Christian calendar when we are more focused on giving than this time of year. Advent and the Christmas season that follows are filled with messages about giving, even among those outside of the Church. 

Holy Week was filled with holy moments as, for four days, I visited "those who were sick and in prison." My 90-year-old mother lives in an Alzheimer's unit. The staff must lock the doors to keep the patients from wandering. To enter, you must press a big red button on the outside wall. To leave, you have to know the keypad combination.

The life of our seven-year-old daughter Beth hung in delicate balance on that early March morning. My wife, Kathy, and I with our children, Beth and David, had been on a trip from our home in Overland Park, Kansas, to Oklahoma when a car slid across the ice and snow into the path of our '73 Volkswagen bus. As the vehicles collided, Beth's head slammed hard against the frame of the front seat. All of us were hurt, with Beth sustaining the most serious injuries.

Connecting with your community through volunteer work can create numerous stages for showing God's goodness.

When I was a child, I remember hearing quartets sing, "I want my life to tell for Jesus; that everywhere I go, men may His goodness know . . ."

Where do I go that His goodness will show?

Co-pastoring is not as unusual as it used to be. That isn't to say that I don't get questions when I mention the way Dustin and I work together in the church. I do. The main question, from district superintendents to strangers we meet at Starbucks, is 'How does that work exactly?' It works amazingly well for us and for many other couples who share the role of pastoring a church.

I really goofed up a sermon once. (Maybe more than once, but this particular incident stands out in my memory.)

In a seminary class, I preached a prepared sermon that came straight from my heart for the assigned text, Mark 10:13-16, on Jesus blessing the little children.

I spoke at length about how we can teach children the opposite of what Jesus intended by the way we treat them. I used several encounters with my father as examples of poor theological teaching.

In each issue, a forum of pastors, laity, theologians, and church leaders respond to your questions on subjects such as doctrine, theology, Christian living, and the church. Send your questions to Holiness Today, Church of the Nazarene Global Ministry Center, 17001 Prairie Star Parkway, Lenexa, KS 66220| E-mail: holinesstoday@nazarene.org. The editor regrets that all questions cannot be printed, acknowledged, or answered.