Today in our LIVE YM Talk, my beautiful wife, Dana Schmoyer, joined me and together we talked about marriage and youth ministry. Fortunately, Tom Roepke, a guy who’s been married in youth ministry for the past 30 years, joined us, too. Many great insights and advice from him in this week’s podcast.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Having open communication with your spouse
• When you and your spouse disagree about something related to the youth ministry
• Expectations and boundaries for coming home after a youth group event
• Being a single person in youth ministry while dating
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

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Next week’s discussion

July 10: Next week is our LIVE YM Talk’s one-year anniversary show and YOU are the featured guest! Together, we’ll all ask the question, “What have you learned about youth ministry in the past year?” Think through your answer and be sure to join us next week so we can hear from you.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Tomorrow’s LIVE YM Talk is going to be a lot of fun!

First of all, my wife, Dana Schmoyer, will be the featured guest and will share from her experiences of the struggles and rewards of being married to a youth pastor.

Second, rather than her just talking a lot, she would like to do a Q&A format with you all. We’ve never done it this way before in a LIVE YM Talk, so this will be fun! Submit your questions related to being married to a youth pastor and together we will all answer them from our various experiences and perspectives. Also, if you have any questions about marriage and youth ministry in general, feel free to submit those questions, too.

That means two things

1. Submit your questions about being married to a youth pastor and about marriage and youth ministry in general using this form. [UPDATE: form now closed]

2. Make sure you join our LIVE YM Talk on Friday, July 3, at 2:00 PM so we can hear your advice and answers to people’s questions, too.

Even if you can’t join us for the live conversation on Friday, submit your questions anyway and then listen for our response in the recording that will be available on Saturday in our podcast in iTunes.

How to join the LIVE YM Talk

To join our live conversation at 2:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105# (long distance charges may apply). Or, listen to it online by joining the live chat room and participate there.

Check out the LIVE YM Talk page for more details and to see an archive of past conversations.

The following post is contributed by my beautiful wife, Dana Schmoyer (pictured to the left, holding me shortly after I proposed). She often blogs about youth ministry from the perspective of a youth pastor’s wife at DanaSchmoyer.com and is pretty active on Twitter.. She put a lot of thought into this post for you all. If you have questions, she’d love to answer them in the comments below.

4. Set boundaries.

Make sure the two of you are clear on how many nights a week your husband is going to be out. (Tim and I try to keep it to 3 nights a week.) Some weeks we have had something every night, but then we make sure the following week is close to empty. Also protect your home. I have known people to open their house to youth, letting them drop in at any time of the day or night. I highly recommend against this. Your house should be your own private sanctuary. By protecting your house you are protecting your family and spouse time. It’s probably cheaper too if they feel like they have open access to your fridge!

3. Speak carefully.

Yesterday in #6 I mentioned that it is important to surround yourself by godly women. When you do, and feel comfortable around these women sharing everything, that is great, but watch what you say. You can be close and open with friends without sharing intimate details of your marriage and personal issues in ministry. Find a godly woman outside of your church circle who you can share these things with about your life and ministry. If you are dating a youth pastor, don’t share details of your relationship with others in the church. I made that mistake and speak from experience — it can quickly turn into gossip. With this I have also learned that it’s probably wise to hold the same standard in a marriage relationship.

2. Always support your husband publicly.

No matter what, support him in public. If you disagree with something, tell your husband when no one is around. If someone comes to you with a complaint, you can listen, but do not try to fix the problem, they need to go to him with their issue. God put you here to support your husband, not to carry him.

1. Be sexually active with your husband.

Sex is a good stress reliever and fulfills his needs, which helps prevent temptation for him. It shocked me to hear this out of Doug Field’s mouth at NYWC at the marriage seminar with his wife, but it really is important. He said, “The number one job for my wife is to sleep with the youth pastor.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. See Part 1 from yesterday.

The following post is contributed by my beautiful wife, Dana Schmoyer (pictured to the left, holding me shortly after I proposed). She often blogs about youth ministry from the perspective of a youth pastor’s wife at DanaSchmoyer.com and is pretty active on Twitter.. She put a lot of thought into this post for you all. If you have questions, she’d love to answer them in the comments below.

9. Have fun and be care free.

Enjoy every moment you can. Don’t let the little stuff stress you out. It takes time to learn which adults work well with which students. Go where the spirit leads, and when he doesn’t, leave it up to others. A great way Tim has helped me to be carefree is by not telling me things that would probably upset me, such as someone either criticizing him or the youth ministry. I take it personally, and then I don’t look at that person the same any more.

8. Try something new.

I have found that youth really enjoy it when you are willing to try something you haven’t done, and when you do it with them. I am terrified of heights, and on our first canoe trip with our youth group we got to the part of the river with a bridge that they always stop at to jump off of. The kids were so excited for me to get up there and jump. It’s a great bonding time and then you have stories to share with them. Also, a great way I have found to bond with the boys is to play video games, and join in on sports games with them. Ask God to show you a new way to build relationships with the youth, and be willing to stretch.

7. Learn to say no.

Your husband needs to learn this too. I learned that if you don’t at least say yes a couple times when invited to something, then you probably wont be invited again, but when you say yes to everything it gets overwhelming. You can’t make it to everything, and that’s okay. It’s good for students to see you at their events, and it’s a good time to get to know their families. It’s also good that they see you model healthy boundaries. Make band concerts and plays a date with your spouse, but not every one. People will understand if you don’t make it to all the student’s extra curricular events.

6. Surround yourself with other godly women.

It is good to have fellowship with other women, especially since most of us like to chat, and sometimes our husbands can’t handle all that we want/need to talk about. Plus, after living with a man 24/7 it is nice to be around a female to relate to with all of our womanly quirks. Make sure the women are godly so you can lift each other up in prayer, encouragement and accountability.

5. Be present.

It is very easy for a teen girl to develop a crush on her youth pastor, especially if he is hot (like my husband!). The spiritual aspect of any relationship becomes intimate, that is why we are to surround ourselves with other godly women, not men. Wives, if the students see you regularly (I know this is probably harder if you have kids) and see that your public interaction with your husband shows that you two are totally in love, this will help girls know he’s romantically interested in you, not them. Husbands, if you aren’t quick to catch on, then let your wife help you notice signs of a crush. Be careful with how often they call or text message you, and be careful with how frequently you respond. If you reply or answer the phone every time or almost every time, they will more than likely contact you even more. I have seen a few girls crush on Tim, which is tough, because my feelings towards them change. I am not as friendly, I try to hide it, and then I have a bad heart issue. Another sign of flirting is girls who like to take boy’s hats. I’m pretty sure any girl that has gone through jr. high knows that is a for-sure sign of flirting. Tim doesn’t make a big deal of it when girls do it to him. He just ignores the action, and it soon stops. Wives, let your husband minister to the boys, and you get to know the girls and be a positive spiritual role model to them. This allows a girl to feel comfortable with you, and when she wants to talk with your husband you can be present. Tim and I love to take a girl out to eat together when they need closer attention. If you’ve already been present, it’s not weird for you to be there as a “chaperon.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. Part 2 is coming tomorrow. Part 2 is now posted.

For our one year wedding anniversary, I made a nice DVD of our wedding for my wife. A guy from my father-in-law’s church who shoots and edits TV commercials for a living was gonna do the whole thing for us for free, but a year later here we are and it doesn’t look like he’s going to get around to doing it. So, I got my hands on the raw video footage and did the best I could with what I had. Unfortunately, the audio is poor at parts, but it still helps remind us of what actually happened on that day. It all went so fast.

Here ya go:

This Sunday is my one year wedding anniversary! In this podcast I quickly recap our past year, ministry together, a conversation I could’ve had before dating and what Dana probably thought after she married me.

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Dana and I just got back from a great weekend in Minnesota visiting my brother, his wife and daughter and my former pastor’s new church. As a born and raised Texan, my wife has never seen more than 2 inches of snow nor has she ever seen a frozen lake, let alone ride a snowmobile on one. It was great to see everyone again and do our premarital counseling 6-month follow-up (one month early) with Pastor Rol.

Tonight Dana and I splurged by going out to On The Border and splitting a meal. The occasion? Today is our one month wedding anniversary and our three year dating anniversary. I know it sounds corny, but hey, it’s fun. Supposedly this kinda stuff wears off after a while, so we might as well enjoy it while we can. Besides, Dana took a job today through her cousin’s temp agency, so we felt like the $9 meal was affordable for the celebration.

Dana’s search for an elementary teaching position has turned up void and I’m only working part-time at the church, which obviously makes for a pretty tight budget right now. Although this sounds like reason for concern (and it is), there’s a benefit in all this that Dana and I originally overlooked: we have lots of time for each other! Since I only work at the church every other day, we have Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays just for us. Granted, there’s not much we can go out and do on a free budget, but even just sitting on the couch together is a great way for us to start the first couple weeks of our marriage.

Sometimes God’s blessings come in disguise.