Married pastors find new home in St. Joseph

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- Laura Blevins was a 14-year-old at church camp when she first felt called to be a pastor.

For years, she responded by deciding she'd be anything else. A lawyer, a journalist, a carhop at Sonic. But not a pastor, because until college, she didn't even know any other women who were pastors.

But today, not only is Laura a pastor — she's also married to one.

"I think God has a really good sense of humor," she says, laughing. "But I can't imagine living any other way. ... I wake up every day saying, 'I love my life. I love my husband. I love my job.'"

The Revs. Laura and Jeremy Blevins were married last April and moved to St. Joseph in July to take on new pastoral positions, Laura as the senior pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church and Jeremy as the associate pastor at Ashland United Methodist Church.

Both personally and professionally, the journey here has taken time and come with a measure of uncertainty; the couple didn't know even on their wedding day, for example, where the United Methodist Church's Missouri Conference would place them as they began their lives together. But despite challenges along the way — and challenges now, as well — neither would want to be anywhere else.

"I feel like we're exactly where we need to be," says Jeremy, who also, like his wife, didn't embrace a call to ministry until after pursuing another career. After deciding to give ministry a try, he took a youth pastor job in the Lake of the Ozarks area, keeping it even after he enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. It was there, in the fall of 2004, that he and Laura met, both first-year students in a Bible class.

Since Jeremy lived three hours from Kansas City for the first two years he and Laura were dating, they saw each other only one night a week. That changed after he received student appointments to two churches in the Kansas City area in 2006, and after the couple graduated from seminary in May 2008, they requested to be placed near one another and ended up in associate pastor positions at churches just 15 minutes apart.

"That's almost unheard of," Laura says. "It's very hard to find the right fit at all, just for one person, let alone to find positions for two people so close. It really seemed like a God thing."

And it was something that happened again last summer. The couple were on their honeymoon when they received a call — at 3 a.m. Hawaii time — to come visit their respective churches in St. Joseph. Although they couldn't make it right away, as soon as they did, it was clear the pastoral positions were good fits.

"They're both very gifted, which made it easy for us," says the Rev. Steve Cox, superintendent of the Pony Express District of the United Methodist Church's Missouri Conference. " ... I'm very excited about what they have to offer to their ministries and the care and compassion they have to offer to people."

He adds that there are several other married couples in the district who serve as pastors at different churches. Still, despite the fact they aren't alone in their situation, Jeremy and Laura have found that most people they meet are fairly shocked by it. But their churches are supportive, they say.

And like most anything else, "It's good and it's bad," Laura says of both she and Jeremy being pastors. "When I come home and talk about what I'm facing, he's going to understand. He knows the ins and outs. But on the downside, we don't see each other on Sundays."

Also challenging is the fact that in addition to both being pastors, they're both pastors' spouses — a status often known for attracting high expectations.

"It's hard because you're in a fish bowl," Laura says, "and it's like we have these two giant fish bowls right next to each other."

But this is made up for by many things. A significant one is the opportunity the couple has to together lead ConneXion Christian Student Fellowship at Missouri Western State University, which meets for Bible study at 8 p.m. Tuesdays in the junior college room at Blum Union. Given that they were both very much affected by campus ministries when they were in college, it's important to them both to be able to work with young adults, Jeremy says.

And then there are the other things they're in together: hospital or nursing home visits that they try to make together when they both have people to see; the Thursdays and Saturdays they make a point to set aside for each other; and the reality that what they do isn't so much a job as a lifestyle.

"We get to see God work in people," Laura says. "It's indescribable. If I could bottle that and give it to people, I would. ... We know God has much better plans for us than we have for ourselves."