Welcome to Clergy Spouse Connect, a supportive and encouraging meeting place for spouses married to clergy.
Clergy Spouse Connect exists to support and encourage ministry spouses, while helping to nurture and build friendships between spouses. The ministry life can be challenging as well as joyful, frustrating as well as life-giving, and sometimes clergy spouses can feel isolated. It can be difficult to make true friends and find the support you may need. Clergy Spouse Connect provides support and is confidential.
If this is your first visit here please make sure you sign up to our email list and complete our short survey below to help us serve you better.
Let's connect...
Online Gatherings
Clergy Spouse Connect offers regular online meeting times for people married to ANiC clergy. Those gatherings will happen on Zoom, and usually include a speaker sharing insights on a topic relevant to ministry life, with opportunity for participants to share, connect and encourage each other.
Stay tuned for the upcoming Clergy Spouse Connect gatherings dates.
Facebook Group
One quick way to connect is in our private Facebook group for Clergy Spouse Connect. You can find it and request to join here: facebook.com/groups/anicclergyspouse.
If you’re not a Facebook person, don’t worry. Any important announcements about events and other resources will always be shared with those who sign up by email or posted on our website.
Clergy Spouse Circles
If you’d like to connect with a small group of clergy spouses (three people) for a three-month period to share life, pray and encourage one another – we can help set this up for you. We are building a list of spouses who would also like to connect. For more information, click here.
Do you need someone to come along side and pray with you during a challenging time you are experiencing? We have a group of individuals, who would love to stand with you and pray – it could be through ZOOM prayer time or as simple as you just sharing your request via e-mail and know they are praying with you. It is confidential. To know more about this ministry for you, click here.
Special Events
Zoom Gathering - Jan 11th @ 4 p.m. PST; 7 p.m. EST
Getting to know you. Join us for a casual zoom gathering where we will meet each other and hear from you about what you would hope for from a group such as this, as we get underway. Sign up here:
Register Now
Zoom Gathering - Feb 9th @ 4 p.m. PST; 7 p.m. EST
Clergy Wellness for marriages and families. Join us as we meet with Dr. Margaret Clarke, Assistant Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Briercrest Seminary, whose area of expertise and doctoral research is clergy resilience. We will interview Margaret and welcome your questions during this live and informative event.
Register Now
Resources
Resources and links that can provide you with help or encouragement.
ANiC Resources for clergy families
Other resources available that can help:
- Focus on the Family Canada offers prayer support to clergy families and provides information on counselling across Canada. A free newsletter provides resources and information to clergy families. https://clergycare.ca
- Duke University in the US hosts a clergy health initiative that includes research that might be of interest to clergy families.
https://divinity.duke.edu/initiatives/clergy-health-initiative/learning - Care for Pastors, based in the US, offers resources and encouragement to clergy families. https://www.careforpastors.org
There are a growing number of podcasts designed to serve clergy families. Here are several you might want to check out.
- By Faith with Christine Hoover: https://www.christinehoover.net/podcast-1
- Pastor’s Wives Tell All: https://pastorswivestellall.libsyn.com
- The Glass House Podcast: https://www.benmandrell.com/podcasts/
- Monday Morning Pastor: https://mondaymorningpastor.transistor.fm
Contact Our Team
Do you have any questions or suggestions, contact our team at clergyspouse@anic.church
Clergy Spouse Connect began with a desire to connect ANIC clergy spouses to each other and to encourage, support, share experiences, share resources, and pray together. We’d love to have you join us. Here's a little more about our leadership team:
Joan Deeks is a clergy spouse and serves on the Executive Council of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). She attends Ascension Anglican Church in Langley, BC, and her husband Ken is the rector.
Karen Stiller is a clergy spouse and author of The Minister’s Wife: a memoir of faith, doubt, friendship, loneliness, forgiveness and more (Tyndale House, 2020) who lives in Ottawa. Her husband Brent is rector of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Anglican Church. They have three adult children.
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Survey
If you haven't yet, please complete our survey about how we can best encourage and support you! This will be a huge help to us as we plan and seek to connect us all together. Thank you!