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Growing in the Early Years of Ministry

An interview with Deb Galyen

WIM interviewed Deb Galyen who shares ministry with her husband Shawn as campus pastors with Chi Alpha at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. She serves on the national Task Force for Women in Ministry and recently spoke on the subject of “ministry and mothering” during “The Gathering” at Valley Forge Christian College, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

WIM: Deb, by way of introduction, tells us a little bit about yourself, your husband, and children.

Galyen: I’m one of those strange people—an MK/PK. I grew up in Brussels, Belgium, where my parents were pastors of an international church. At North Central University in Minnesota, I studied English literature and education and met my husband, Shawn. I taught school for a few years before having kids. My oldest, Luke, is nearly 8, Ruth is 5 ½, and Claire is 3 ½. Shawn and I have been married for 12 years. He’s a PK too, by the way, so we understand each other!

WIM: In what kind of ministry are you and your husband involved and what specifically is your role?

Galyen: Shawn and I are home missionaries in the Washington, DC area. We work specifically as Chi Alpha campus pastors at Georgetown University. Our ministry focuses on reaching students for Christ and training them to be leaders. We have a special outreach to international students, but our ministry includes students from all different types of backgrounds.

Right now, I’m just starting to get more involved on campus after some years at home. I’ve worked a few hours a week from home for 8 years, writing a daily devotional, but now I’m more free to spend time on campus with students. I’ll be doing some mentoring and whatever else my schedule allows. My oldest kids are in school full time, but my youngest is just starting preschool, so she’s still with me a lot. It’s a big change for all of us.

WIM: In light of Carolyn Tennant’s focus on “The Beauty of Stretch Marks,” have you ever felt that there were times in your life and ministry that God was stretching you beyond where you were comfortable? When were those times and what was the situation that made you uncomfortable?

Galyen: I could name quite a few stretching times. Certainly, having babies was a huge change for me, perhaps emotionally more than physically. At 24, when my first was born, I had no idea what I was doing! We were raising money and moving when Luke was born, moving and going through ministry changes with the second, and moving once again (just across town) with the third. I can’t say any of that was comfortable, but my feelings ofhelplessness and inadequacy made me cling to God, and there was also a lot of joy along the way. I was never a “baby person” before having my own, but I feel like my eyes have been opened to the beauty of how God created us. Sleepless nights and the whole nursing/diapers/potty-training thing are exhausting, but there’s so much joy. Sometimes I look at our kids and can’t believe God is letting us raise them!

I think this new semester is going to stretch me quite a bit. After many years of babies and toddlers, I did finally figure out that stage! I’ve never really conquered the whole house-cleaning thing, but the mothering part is better. I’m comfortable with that role. I’ve found good, supportive friends and a rhythm, and now it’s time to shake things up again! I find myself wondering how much I can invest in our ministry without shortchanging my children, both in terms of energy and emotions. I wonder if, as a mom and wife, I’ll be able to connect with the young women at Georgetown. Again, feelings of helplessness and inadequacy tend to push me toward God, and that’s a good thing.

WIM: Sometimes intensive growth times in our spiritual lives and/or ministry ultimately lead to the birth of something new God is doing in our lives. At the time, we are not aware of it, don’t know what God is doing, and have no idea what the future will look like. Can you share an experience like that from your own journey, leading from what you did not know, the stretching time, and the growing fulfillment of God’s emerging plans and purposes for you?

Galyen: After we’d been living in an apartment in Virginia for about a year, we moved to a little townhouse in an area called Falls Church. We don’t actually live in Georgetown because of the expense. Anyway, I was pregnant with Ruth, my second child, and Shawn was entering a new, intense phase of ministry at Georgetown. I didn’t really know many young moms, and with the second child, life begins to center more on the kids. I knew I wouldn’t be able to drag two kids on campus very easily, though I could continue to write my devotional at home. However, our campus ministry was all young singles, and our church was filled with young singles. I missed my parents’ church in Kansas City, which has a wonderful support structure for young families. I kept trying to find something like that in Virginia, but it wasn’t working, and I was lonely.

Around the time Ruth was born, I met a woman named Gail who lived nearby. Her son was 2, like mine, and she was about to have a daughter as well. Gail and I struck up a friendship that continues to this day. Gail isn’t a Christian, and her background is very different from mine, as are her beliefs. Our kids brought us together. I have been amazed through the past 6 years at what God has taught me through this unexpected and cherished relationship. I didn’t know what I needed, but God did.

What could have continued to be a lonely time for me turned into something very different. I learned to look around my own neighborhood for friendships outside the church/ministry world. I hesitate to call these relationships “ministry,” because that seems to imply that I do all the giving. But it’s certainly ministry as defined as “loving the people around me.”

WIM: What are some things that you have learned through the discomfort of your own stretching experiences that would help other women know how to recognize what God might be doing and how to walk through that time with faith and strength?

Galyen: I don’t know that I’m very good, even now, at recognizing what God is doing in the moment. Very often life looks cloudy and uncertain if I try to analyze the “big picture.” However, I do believe that God has helped me understand that my need for control can frustrate the process of His work. I go back to a couple of key Scriptures that God has used to focus my heart during these times. One is in Isaiah 26, where there is a contrast between God’s people trying to accomplish things on their own and the beauty of trusting in Him. It’s very appropriate for this theme! The picture is of a pregnant woman who “writhed in labor” but gave birth only to wind. This is how useless, exhausting, and ridiculous my efforts are to control my present and future.

Isaiah 26:12 states, “Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.” When I am kicking and screaming inside, trying to force life into the shape I want it to be, I’m wasting energy and perhaps even resisting something good He wants to do. I really hang on to that promise—He does the work, and the result is peace.

WIM: As American women, the words “stretch marks” are not positive words for us. As you reflect on your own walk with God, can you identify what those might look like in your life and how we might learn to celebrate what they represent relative to God’s work in us?

Galyen: For me, the agony of the stretching time usually fades away quickly, because God is the master of bringing good out of our muddled lives. We can’t always trace exactly why or how we ended up where we are. Feeling “stretched” may be due to life changes, poor choices, illness, more responsibility, or whatever. God is bigger than we are, so the end result is always good in His hands.

I remember when Shawn and I moved from Minnesota to Missouri just before Luke was born. I was hugely pregnant, and we were beginning the process of raising our missionary support. I lost my great Minnesota health insurance, and we signed on with a ministers health insurance group that seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe we were naïve. Well, it went bankrupt a month before our son was born! I had to take a full-time job at my dad’s church in Kansas City, as a secretary, just to get health insurance. One of my duties was to begin writing a daily devotional entitled “Manna,” that my dad had written for more than a decade. I love writing, and it was very fulfilling. After Luke was born, I stopped working full time but kept writing from home. That one-day-a-week writing job became my lifeline as I went on to have 2 more babies in the next few years. I cannot even begin to express the blessing the writing has been to me spiritually and emotionally. I guess I could call it a memorable stretch mark, this unexpected job that I would never have taken without the insurance crisis. Here I am, 8 years later, still writing and loving it.

I have no idea what the “stretch marks” of other women might look like—probably as varied as our lives are. Looking back at the good things God has done for us can be very reassuring. It reminds me that I don’t always know what I need, much less what my husband or kids need. I don’t always know how I can best use my gifts, or who needs my time and attention at the moment. I don’t have to know everything! I still want to, I admit, but I’m learning to trust Him.

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