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Strength for the Journey: A Resilient Marriage in Ministry
Pastors carry a unique set of pressures—not just in their leadership but also in their marriages. Between constant demands, high expectations and emotional fatigue, it’s easy to feel disconnected or discouraged at home. This course offers a lifeline to ministry couples longing for deeper connection, greater understanding and a shared vision for spiritual and emotional health.
Pastors carry a unique set of pressures—not just in their leadership but also in their marriages. Between constant demands, high expectations and emotional fatigue, it’s easy to feel disconnected or discouraged at home. This course offers a lifeline to ministry couples longing for deeper connection, greater understanding and a shared vision for spiritual and emotional health.
Through honest conversations, biblical wisdom and practical reflection, couples will explore what it means to be fully present to one another—even in the busiest and most painful seasons. Whether your marriage feels strong or strained, you’ll find tools, encouragement and hope for the road ahead.
Why this course?
Even the healthiest ministry marriages can drift due to emotional depletion, spiritual fatigue or the pressures of leadership. This course is a practical and grace-filled guide to reconnecting and renewing your marriage in the context of pastoral life.
It helps you talk about the hard stuff.
From conflict to communication to expectations, this course gives couples language and space to address what’s often left unsaid. The sessions offer safe entry points into deeper conversation and healing connection.
It equips you for the long haul.
You’ll learn simple tools and frameworks—like the reflection and reaction inventories—that help you stay emotionally and spiritually attuned to each other through every season of ministry.
It reminds you that you’re not alone.
Featuring insights from three real-life pastoral couples, this course models vulnerability, faith, and resilience in action. You’ll be reminded that your story isn’t isolated—and there is strength in shared experience.
At the end of this course, you will...
Gain new tools for emotional awareness, communication and connection in your marriage.
Understand the spiritual dynamics that shape your relationship and ministry life.
Walk away with a renewed vision for a marriage that’s resilient, Christ-centered and rooted in grace.
Included in this course:
Explore the unique stressors facing pastoral marriages and discover the first step toward resilience: emotional presence. In this session, you’ll hear from Rich Villodas, Sharon Hodde Miller and Glenn Packiam about why ministry couples often struggle with disconnection—and how to begin showing up for one another again.
When tension arises, do you shut down or overreact? Led by Rich Villodas, this session teaches how to recognize emotional reactivity and grow in “differentiation” in your marriage.
Many pastors are good with words, but Sharon Miller reminds couples that communication in marriage requires vulnerability, not just verbal skills. Discover how to move from fighting to win to listening with empathy in this session.
Explore the deeper emotions that drive disconnection. In this session, Glenn Packiam helps couples learn how to surface unspoken expectations and respond to each other with empathy and gratitude.
Ministry often leads to hurry and disconnection. This session, led by Rich and Rosie Villodas, helps couples reflect on spiritual and emotional rhythms—and outlines a framework for living intentionally, even in busy seasons.
Most conflicts aren’t about surface-level issues. Identify the deeper problem with Sharon and Ike Miller and learn how to approach conflict with curiosity and grace.
Glenn and Holly Packiam close the course by inviting couples to reflect on their current season and reimagine what thriving looks like—spiritually, emotionally and relationally.
Rich & Rosie Villodas
Rich Villodas is the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship in Queens, NYC, a large multiethnic, multigenerational, urban church family. He is the author of The Deeply Formed Life, Good and Beautiful and Kind, and The Narrow Path. Rosie Villodas is a travel consultant specializing in Disney destinations. In addition, Rosie has been a trainer and coach for leaders in NextGen ministry, with a particular emphasis on communication, small groups, and vision casting. Rich and Rosie have been married since 2006 and have two children. They reside in Long Island, New York.
Sharon & Ike Miller
Ike and Sharon Miller lead Bright City Church in Durham, NC, which they planted in 2018. Both have earned their PhD’s and have individually authored several books, including Free of Me, The Cost of Control, and Good Baggage. They are also the parents to 3 incredible kids!
Glenn & Holly Packiam
Glenn Packiam is the Lead Pastor of Rockharbor Church in Costa Mesa, California, and the author of several books, including The Resilient Pastor and The Intentional Year, co-written with his wife, Holly. He holds a doctorate in theology and serves as a Senior Fellow at Barna Group. Holly is the Parenting Ministries Pastor at Rockharbor Church. A homeschooling mom of four, she is passionate about discipling women and families. Together, Glenn and Holly speak and write about spiritual formation and resilience in ministry. They live in Orange County, California, with their four children.
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FAQ
In this 7-session course, pastors and spouses Glenn & Holly Packiam, Sharon & Ike Miller, and Rich & Rosie Villodas guide ministry couples toward emotional and spiritual resilience in marriage.
Plan for an hour to an hour and a half to go through each session, especially if you’re going through the content in a group. The videos in this course range from 4 to 14 minutes, and the discussion questions and activities will likely take up the rest of your meeting time.
This course is 7 sessions long. Feel free to cover the sessions in increments that make the most sense for you and your leadership team. For some, it might work best to go through one session a week—for others, one session a month. We do not recommend doubling up on sessions.
In its 40-year history, Barna Group has conducted more than two million interviews over the course of thousands of studies and has become a go-to source for insights about faith and culture, leadership and vocation, and generations. Barna Group has worked with thousands of businesses, nonprofit organizations and churches across the U.S. and around the world.
Barna is an independent, privately held, nonpartisan organization based in Dallas, Texas, with offices in Nashville, Tennessee; Ventura, California; and Atlanta, Georgia.
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