Front Row Seat: Moving to a New Place

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Kari Olson
Well, Kristen, I remember our first big ministry move. God had called us out of youth ministry and to a new campus within our church, across the Chicago suburbs. I mean, it felt like a big move to me. I was excited for Tom to be a campus pastor and have regular preaching and shepherding opportunities within a growing congregation. And even though we stayed within, under the umbrella of the church we had been at before everything else was new. So new, a new building new staff, new congregation, new age group within that congregation to minister to, not to mention a new neighborhood, a new school district, a new community to navigate. So I think looking back, I really was up for it. I felt excited, like I said, Said, but there were days that the newness just overwhelmed me completely overwhelmed me. And often those days were Sundays. And on those days, you could you could accidentally find the pastor’s wife hiding in a remote bathroom of the church, right? I was just overwhelmed. But I was relying on the Lord in these new circumstances. And I quickly became comforted by the fact that he was still the same. He was the same God I loved and trusted in my old place in my own home. And little by little month by month, things became a lot less new and a lot more familiar. And, you know, his kindness, it felt like home, it started to feel like home.

Kristen Wetherell
Right? And it takes time to get there. Absolutely. I remember when you guys went through that transition. And we have gone through a couple of our own, you know, one was during the pandemic, we made a change to a new church campus. And then one was a few years prior to that. And no matter you know, how many times you go through it, change is just hard. It’s hard. It’s hard on our bodies, it’s hard on our emotions. It’s hard on our spirits. And you are so right, that we need that solid rock. We need our Lord to carry us through and everything else is kind of blowing and shifting and the waves are going around us we need him.

And I’m so grateful because I remember being encouraged by ministry friend of mine who walked through her her own season of waiting on the Lord, anticipating change, but it not happening yet. Just watching her so beautifully walk through that season. And I’m so thrilled that that friend is here with us today. Irene Sun is here with us. And Irene, we’re so thankful to have you here.

Irene Sun
I’m so glad to be here, Kristen. And I remember the last time we were together, we were at your church and our little ones were playing together.

Kristen Wetherell
That’s right. Yeah. And I mean, what I said Irina was just such a beautiful thing to watch you trust the Lord, in that season of waiting on him for what was next. Irene, you are married to Hans and you guys serve and belong to Pittsburgh Chinese church along with her four beautiful sons. And Irene is also a Bible teacher and a children’s book author. My daughter, Joanna has her book God counts. And you wrote for precious Joanna in the front of it with a little note. And to this day, she still is in awe that I rewrote her note in the front of her book.

Irene Sun
Well, I’ll have to write you another note for your new children now with my new book, your other book,

Kristen Wetherell
taste and see, which is also beautiful. Well, I read Welcome to front row seat. These are conversations of encouragement for pastors, wives, by pastors wives. Can you just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about your family and the season of ministry that you guys are in right now.

Irene Sun
Yeah, and you know, I first of all, I love the title of this podcast because it’s a front row seats. I understand. That’s where I sit. I am a mom in Pittsburgh and my children are 1412 Nine and four. I am an older sister to the younger generation, younger sister to the older generation, a daughter to the elderly generation. And I think that’s that probably best describes where we’re at with our ministry right now.

Kari Olson
And it’s so that is so wonderful, I’m so excited to meet you and hear your story. You know, our topic is a fresh start starting, you know, having a new church and a new city. So you have experience with this, as Kristin was saying, I’m excited to hear this, this story, some of our listeners will be in the same position that you were in a few years ago. And they’ll find themselves either waiting for an a new assignment from the Lord, or waiting for their new assignment to feel like home, I think a big part of change and newness is waiting. There’s a lot of waiting that happens. So would you kind of help us think through waiting? And what does the Bible say about waiting? How does it describe it? And how do we wait?

Irene Sun
Well, that’s a great way to start this conversation. Because before we can even talk about Pittsburgh, Chinese church, a huge part of the story is that we were waiting for about two and a half years for the Lord to give us this assignment. And, and even as I’m telling this story, I’m just remembering those days of sending out our application and then waiting for people to respond. And one thing about applying as for pastoral positions, as a lot of you all know, it takes time. And while other jobs takes about a few weeks, tops, some of our waiting period, lasted about seven months with certain churches, because I understand that they have a committee to go through and the committee has hundreds of applicants to go through. And and I want to say that the waiting season was very painful. Because at many points during our, our, our waiting, I came to love a lot of the churches that we were partnering with, to to discern God’s call. And when we were rejected, and I understand that are really good reasons to be rejected. It felt very painful. There were many, many days when I would just cry, cry out in pain, but also cry, cry out of rejections. And, and I know I’m not supposed to take it personally. But I took it very personally, because pastoral position is one of those jobs, one of the only jobs in the world where the wives are also participating in the interview process. And I mean, I remember one of those interviews, the first question I was asked was, What are some of your husband’s weaknesses?

Kari Olson
And there was another another question, please.

Irene Sun
Yeah. Oh, and the other question was, do you submit to your husband?

Kari Olson
Sure. Another easy button.

Irene Sun
And so when you are so vulnerable to the search committee, and after you visited them and met some of the families, you can’t help but start loving them and start imagining a life together with them. And when the answer comes back as a no, it is often so painful. And so I just want to start out letting all of you who are job searching right now, if it’s painful, just know that you are not alone. In your pain, a lot of us have been through it. And it is a very unique kind of waiting, because it often feels like the churches has all the power and you have zero power. And often feels like every interview you are up to prove yourself, which is really the opposite of the gospel. Because if you are trying to prove yourself, then you have nothing to give you have no gospel to give because gospel is all about grace. And yet, during the search process, you have to let people know who you are. So all of that is to say if you’re in a hard place, sister, I understand because it is a very unique kind of pain,

Kristen Wetherell
how often that is how we operate, how we think. If I just do do the right things. And I will obtain the right outcome. And that’s not the way that things work in the kingdom God. That’s really insightful. Irene? Well, so Okay, so you’re waiting on the Lord? And considering him, the one whose will whose word whose opinion matters the very most? What does it look like to wait on Him? In preparation for a new move? So let’s say you’ve already received the call. So that’s come through. And you and your husband have determined, yes, the Lord is leading us to such and such a church in a new in a new place. What should we be asking for? In preparation? What What should fill our prayers to God?

Irene Sun
So what should fill our prayers to God? The then one of the graces of journaling is that I have brought with me, my journal from that time. So in preparation for this conversation, I read through some of my old journals, and no joke, I laughed out loud this morning, okay, this is one of my prayers, literally, it says, put me to death, or give me a new life. I was in a really dark place because the pandemic had just started. And so we literally squeezed in our interview, two weeks before the pandemic, wow. And so after waiting for two years, the Lord paced in this last interview process down to about two months. So in our other interviews process, we were experiencing a six to seven month wait, whereas this church, it was really interesting, because the moment they met Hans, they just thought they just said, we’ve been waiting for two years ourselves. And we’re not praying, whether you are our pastor, we’re praying that you would be our pastor. And so it was this sweet moment where we recognize each other, that we were the ones that we’ve been praying and waiting for, and all the other power dynamics that we had experienced in other churches, where the church had all the power of decision and we had zero power of decision that was not even present in our relationship with Pittsburgh, Chinese church, it was truly a partnership, where we were both discerning God’s Will together and, and so there was just a tremendous amount of peace. And, and I don’t mean like peace as in like, when Jonah goes to the bottom of the ship and just sleep it off kind of peace. But he’s that, that for fruit and peace, where we could see the fruit of our prayers displayed. And we were finally ready to see like, our scales fell from our eyes, and we saw a hoe. This is a church that we’ve been reading for all these years. And so and so it was in the middle of the pandemic, and they voted online because the church was no longer allowed to gather together. And on the date of the vote, they they call that about 10 o’clock at night and said, we have, I think over 90% of the vote at this point. So we were very sure that we were going to this church. And so then that brought a whole bunch of other questions, right, because the entire world was shut down, then. When do we move from Chicago to Pittsburgh, and now that all the services were online, it was just a very confusing time because our first Sunday at Pittsburg Chinese church was online.

And if the Lord had given us a vision, three years ago, when we were praying, us standing in our tiny apartment in Chicago waving at our laptop. And God said, this is your first that day in your new church that would have made zero sense to us. Yeah. And so, but that was the reality. We were standing at Chicago, in our tiny little apartment, having our laptops stacked in front of like boxes, and then having a background that pretended like our house was not a mess, and waving at the laptop as the new pastor’s family. And, and then there was just a lot of praying a lot of praying, such as God put me to death. Because there was just so much fear. And we, it was during that time when we could see no one. So we weren’t even able to say goodbye to our church in Chicago. We had not known that. March 9 would be the last time we would see. Or March 8 would be the last time we would see our beloved church family in Chicago. We did not know how we were gonna pack, like all of the real estate’s at that time was shut down. Like even if we were to go to Pittsburgh, where would we live? Because no one was showing houses at that time. You can’t buy a house in the beginning of a pandemic. So it was just a very difficult time of I remember praying, Psalm 8084. A lot. How lovely is your dwelling praise? Oh, yeah, we have hosts my solo lungs. Yes. Thanks for the courts of Yeah, weigh my heart and flesh thing for joy to the living God. Even a sparrow finds a home and swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars. Yeah, we have hosts, my King and my God bless it are those who dwell in your house ever singing your praise and hear it in my journal? I’m probably worried about our dwelling place in Pittsburgh, like where would we go with four children? And, and I was comforted by the imagery of the sparrow building her home on the altar, which is a place of fire sacrifice. Because that is where Yaqui dwells. And so even here as living sacrifices to the Lord, we can trust Him because He is our dwelling place. I don’t think I answered your question. But why did they? Our circumstance was truly, truly during? I don’t know.

Kari Olson
No, I what I hear you saying through through these wonderful stories and your experience is what fueled your prayer life was when you had an honest posture before the Lord. And you you know, this is what I’m feeling, Lord, take my life and start fresh, you know, I fers? I don’t want this. But then you also what fueled your prayer life was scripture. I mean, it’s in when when you didn’t know what to say you were at the end of yourself, you’re honest before him and you prayed scripture back to Him and believe I mean that. That to me is a beautiful example, an answer to Kristen’s question. Yeah, thank you for sharing that I, there are so many challenges in, you know, each step of the process of moving to a new city and starting over. So once you get there, there are challenges to face. You know, what, what encouragement do you have for the pastor’s wife? Who, who is there in the New City, the new church and facing unique challenges? What are those and what encouragement do you have for her?

Irene Sun
Okay, so here first, a theological encouragement, three words, the hold, not behave? Behold, not behave. And so you will feel very self conscious. Everybody will be looking at you, even when they’re pretending they’re not looking at but just set their eyes on Christ cheap, Christ as the foreground and everything and your background. And so I talked to millennials and Gen, Gen Z, you know the other Gen a lot. And they constantly have their phone and they’re taking pictures and the way I explained to them is that you know how when you tap on the object that you want to take pictures of. And that comes into focus, and everything blurs in the background. And so that’s how we want to be at all times, you want to just keep tapping on God’s word. Keep tapping on God’s character, keep tapping on the face of Christ who loves you and gave himself for you. And let everything else be blurred in the background. So Behold, not behave, don’t focus on how your children are behaving, or how your husband is preaching, or how you are behaving, or whether or not you remember people’s names, or, you know, these are all very real fears, but just fix your eyes on Christ. So that would be the theological encouragement I would give you. But also, in terms of practically speaking, I’m just chess, love, people. And what I mean by that is, when you walk into a room, even though you are the new person, you need to pray. And well, I, I’m preaching to myself, I need to pray. And this even though we’ve been here for two years, and still, this is my prayer, God, please help me to help that particular person feel loved. And so when I walk into a room, I’m thinking, there you are, instead of thinking, here I am. Yeah, I am thinking, there you are. And I am praying for please help me remember, what was her favorite color? What’s your favorite food? And what was she doing this week, and I’m praying and conversing with the Lord, in my mind, as I’m getting to know each and every person. Because why I’m learning is that people are lonely, and people are hurting, and they don’t feel loved. And we have this very special privilege as pastors wives, to just simply love people. And whether or not we have, we are up to that task. We bear the face of the God who has called us. In the Old Testament, the high priests, bears the 12 precious stones on his garment, which represents the people. And in the same way, I think we bear the face of Yeah, way. And we bear the name of gaff way. As pastors wives,

Kristen Wetherell
so we’ve you’re talking about some of the challenges. What about some joys? What are some joys that the pastor’s wife can look for, can open her eyes to can ask God to help her see when she goes to a new church.

Irene Sun
So last week, we started a new series on the book of Judges in our church. And we were addressing some of these really difficult questions in the book of Judges, like, Why does God want us to put the other nations to destruction. And one of my joys was simply looking at the women I was teaching in her eyes and say, We don’t need to figure this out today. We get to figure it out together for the long haul. If there’s anything you don’t understand today, keep asking questions. And we’ll come back to it week after week. And we’ll try to understand God’s Word together. And so that word is harem in Hebrew. And it was such a joy for me to be able to have a group of women who I can have a conversation with about God’s word. And we get to see each other week after week, you know, it’s not a podcast, which is wonderful. It’s not a sermon online, where it was just also wonderful. Like I’m encouraged by all these resources all the time. But it’s not even like a book and I love books. But I don’t get to ask the author questions when I have questions. And so one of the biggest joys I have about walking with the women at my church is that we’re able to have deep conversations about God’s word and we don’t need to figure it out right now. We get to keep walking together. And one of the things that I keep telling the women at our church is this, this phrase that is showing up again and again in culture, and that is safe space. So a few years ago, safe space was a very special term, you know, like not many people were using it. I remember hearing it this the first time for Rosaria Butterfield when she was talking about creating a safe space, and I just thought, Oh, that’s so good, you know, and, and since then it has kind of trickled out into culture into the bigger culture. So in the secular world, they would say something along the lines of this is a safe space, there is no judgement here. But the thing is in the Christian church, because our God is a holy God, and because we stand in His presence, because we’re reading His word, there is so much judgment, because his brightness and His Holiness reveals all of our impurity and all of our unholiness.

And so how can a church be a safe space. And this is where I tell the women in my church is like, our safe space is so different from the world safe space, because in the church, in this space, we are going to forgive each other. So for this last few months, we’ve been having a lot of conversations about abortion. And actually, in three days, we will be visiting a pregnancy center in Pittsburgh for the first time. And in the beginning of this conversation, a lot of the younger women did not feel very safe talking about this topic. And they were fearful. And they were fearful in particular, for being judged in the church context. And I tell them, that in the church, we will offend each other. But we will choose to forgive, because that is the kind of safe space we are in where there is judgment from the Lord. But there’s also mercy from the Lord, and judgment and mercy in our holy God. They’re not opposite, but they’re one and the same. And so that is what I’m really excited about. That is my highest joy in church, which is to have these really difficult conversations that cultures are secular culture, are not able to have because in the church, we promise to forgive one another, because our God has forgiven us.

Kari Olson
Oh, wow, I, I think that is a joy. And I’m so glad you pointed that out to us and the consistency of the chance to build a relationship and have those deep conversations. And it’s not a one time thing. It’s not a one time speaking event or but you really can get to know women in your local church and congregation and be open to be known yourself. I’m thank you for modeling that and telling us again, that is a joy, that is a joy to look for in your church. You know, maybe you have a pastor’s wife, who’s she’s ready, she is focused on the Lord, she is ready to love these new women and in the congregation and families and and she’s determined, but belonging takes time. What would be some practical advice, or encouragement you would give to the pastor’s wife to you know, as she’s seeking and waiting, I think to belong, and it’s not just her and her husband, sometimes it’s you have a family, you have children that maybe you’re bringing to a new church and a new city and you want to bring them along as well. Would you encourage us in that?

Irene Sun
You said practical so I’ll try to be practical. I’m not very good. You know, I high up abstract person, but practically speaking, I tried to say thank you a lot. And I know that saying thank you sometimes we think oh we have to buy the cutest thank you notes. And then we have to sit down and take out our very nice pants and write thank you. But you know, nowadays, I use voice recognition software on my phone a lot. And so like if I am at the traffic light, I just do voice recognition and I just say something along On the lines of thank you so much for serving on the music team this Sunday. I’m praying for you. And then I said, you know, but I tried to say thank you a lot. And, and I think that just helps people feel again, loved and seen and appreciated. And another thing that we did in the beginning of our time here in Pittsburgh is that we had dinner parties a lot. And when I say parties, I just mean, we had people over for dinner a lot, because people were so isolated, and lonely. And they just, they’ve been waiting for a pastor for a really long time. And they finally have a pastor, and they just want to get to know the pastor and his family.

So we had walls of boxes, and don’t tell anyone, but our basements filled with boxes still. And I know that I’m gonna pass the podcast, and I’m telling everybody, but we have not unpacked since our moved two years ago, and our church people know that, and they’re not judging us at all, because they know that they are over at our house all the time. And, yes, there were a lot of dishes to do. And that’s where you take out the paper plates. You would, I messed up a lot of times, like there was, there were because we’re Chinese and Chinese love our food. There were dishes that I would cook in Chicago, where people would just flocked to, and now in a different community. I had prepared dishes where nobody touched, you know, and so I just have to know like, okay, that’s okay. You know, like, I’m still getting to know this community. Apparently, they, they don’t like mango pudding or, you know, like recipes, take and so there was a lot of mistakes, and a lot of failures in the kitchen. And there was the time when I thought it was garlic powder. But it was actually garlic salt, and salmon came out disgusting. And that was with the elders wife, and the elder and his children. And so there will be catastrophes in the kitchen. But I think the table is where the Lord has called us to gather and, and we really did practically open our home, or very unpacked ugly walls. So

Kristen Wetherell
you guys made yourselves available. You wanted to include people in your lives. And that’s biblical hospitality. It’s, it’s not entertainment, it’s different. Right? Perfection is perfection. There is no such thing. Right. And so I think that’s a beautiful picture of again, there you are, right, like you’re seeing other people. And, and yet you also benefit from the fruit because you end up finding friendships and community and, and being loved in return in such a thing. Well, let’s end with this question. So we talked, we started with talking about waiting Well, what about leaving Well, of a pastor’s wife, you know, most people are not going to be in the position that you were in during a pandemic where they can’t say goodbye to their church family, hopefully not willing. But how does the pastor’s wife leave while maybe she’s really eager to go? Maybe she’s not maybe she’s sad, as all get out? How does she leave her church?

Irene Sun
Well, you know, I think it really goes back to saying thank you. Because I think in our in the selfishness of our hearts, we want people to think us, you know?

Because we have sacrificed so much for the church. And I know that I’m among friends. So I can joke in this very painful way. But that is really our ugly selves are ugly, unsanctified ourselves, we want to be thing. And the way to fight against that is to give things give things to the Lord. give things to people. And sometimes for some people, it’s really a fight against our flesh, right because perhaps they’ve hurt us or worse or has been or even worse, our children and we don’t want to thank them and yet we can fight against that ingratitude in our hearts and we can Ask the Lord, to help us behold Him. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about behaving, but we want to behold the work that God is doing in our lives. And, and I want to also share with you Psalm 138. Because that is truly I go back to the song again and again.

And in the Psalms, always want to look at what comes before and what comes after. And 138 comes right after 137, which is, how shall we think the Lord song in a foreign land, and sometimes when we’re in our own church, that feels like a foreign land, whether it is the church that we are leaving behind, or a church that we will be going to churches can feel like a foreign land to pastors wives, so how shall we sing the Lord’s song in the foreign land?

And so 138 is a response to that question. And David sings, I give thanks, award with my whole heart before the gods, I sing your praise, I bow down towards your holy temple and give thanks to your name, for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted about all things, your name and your word. And that is the assurance of our salvation, what we are waiting for, which is his name, which represents all of His character, His steadfast love and His faithfulness, that is unchanging, no matter where we’re leaving the kind of where we’re going, his character does not changed, and His Word does not change. And so we give thanks because of his unchanging character and his unchanging word, that will be fulfilled. And, and the entire song is so helpful to me. But this last verse states, yeah, way will fulfill His purpose for me, your steadfast love Yeah, we endures forever, do not forsake the work of your hands. And again, it is your halfway who will complete his purposes in and for us. And we ask that he will never ever leave us. And so I think that would be what I would encourage my sisters with. And there’s also a Tim that a lot of the missionaries saying, in in the night, in the 20th century, I Lilias, Trotter had penned this in her journal, and Jim and Elizabeth Elliott sang this the night before, Jim, and the other four men left to be with the alga Indians. They sang the song, we rest on the, our shield and our defender. And one of the verses goes, we go in faith, our own great weakness, feeling and needing more each day Thy grace to know yet from our hearts a song of triumph, peeling, we rest on the and in thy name we go. And that is how we go, we go with our weaknesses, and we go in his name. Yeah.

Kari Olson
Irene, thank you so much for sharing out of your experience and wisdom, and out of your beholding of the Lord and who he is. And what he has done for you is, is fresh in how you speak to us and encourage us. So thank you. Thank you so much for being on front row seat and helping us consider what it is to start fresh in a new church and a new city. Thanks for being here. Thanks.

Irene Sun
Thank you for having me.

Kari Olson
First, and I’m so thankful you invited your friend Irene to talk with us about starting fresh being in a new church, a new city because she has quite the experience. And I think that’s very common. You know, it’s common for all of us to to have this experience at some point along the way in our ministry lives. But what hit me was just the it’s not just starting at a new church, but it’s it’s waiting for the call, waiting for the transition, starting building good relationships using your gifts. I mean, she just had a complete just storyteller relatability you know, I appreciate her as a storyteller. I love what she said about you know, behold, rather than behave or Behold, not behave. And when you get there and you have all these insecurities come to light. Behold the Lord, behold your maker, your father, and keep your eyes fixed on him.

Kristen Wetherell
That’s right. That’s something that I’ve always admired about Irene is that her eyes are fixed on Jesus. And it encourages me to want that to pursue that to pursue him. And because he in all things, he’s preeminent, you know, he’s the reason for everything, his glory, is the beginning and the end. And yet in this whole waiting, searching process, going, it is so much also about you, right, and your husband and all the changes that we need that reminder to behold, to be thankful. And we have every reason to be thankful. Not only circumstantially, you know, not only when God provides, but in the hardship in the suffering in Christ, right, because he doesn’t change. So, to our sisters with a front row seat, God sees you. He knows what part of the process that you’re in. In fact, he ordained it before time began, and he will walk with you all the way he has good things in store for you so Behold, him. Thank you for joining us on front row seat today.