To look at them you’d think they were still college students. To talk with them you know they’ve advanced beyond that uncertain, path-finding stage. Josey and Brian Butcher of Clarkesville may just be in their twenties – 25-years old each, to be exact – but they’re focused, skilled and driven. They’re married to each other and to the ministry. He’s the Director of Youth and Children at Clarkesville First United Methodist Church and she’s the Director of Evangelism and Communications at Clarkesville UMC.
Brian and Josey grew up in the Atlanta area – he’s from Roswell, she’s from Marietta. They attended high schools that stood just one mile apart. They even had mutual friends but they didn’t meet until their freshman year at the University of Georgia in 2008. They began dating the next year. “Our best friends started dating and so we started hanging out a lot more,” Josey explains. It was through that mutual connection and their involvement with the UGA Wesley Foundation that Josey and Brian not only found each other but a calling.
The Wesley Foundation is a Methodist campus ministry. It’s one of the largest campus ministries at the University of Georgia. Josey and Brian both served on the foundation’s leadership team and interned at a church in Athens, Georgia. When they weren’t working they were concentrating on their studies. Josey was a management major in the Terry College of Business. Brian majored in communications at the Frankin College of Arts and Sciences and minored in religion. He helped out with summer camps and youth retreats and began considering a possible career in ministry early on in college but, initially, ministry wasn’t on Josey’s radar.
Then, something changed.
“I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do leadership (through the Wesley Foundation) until I learned about an opportunity to work with a local youth ministry,” Josey says. She went to work as a small group leader at St. James United Methodist Church in Athens and, over the course of three years, moved from being a small group leader and intern to St. James’ full-time youth minister. She says it was all in God’s timing. “It was unbelievable the way that He just kind of opened doors and made that calling very clear.” Brian joined her at St. James as in intern the year he graduated from college in 2012.
“For a year I was his boss,” Josey laughs. “He was my intern which makes things even more interesting from a relationship perspective because you have to learn to draw those boundaries and figure out ‘how do you be the boss and how do you be the girlfriend.'” Brian agrees it was a balancing act, “There certainly was an adjustment period when she became my boss…we had to learn to leave work at work.” He adds, “I had to learn how to honor her, not just as my girlfriend but also as my boss. I learned that, in some ways, serving her when we were doing ministry also meant serving her in our relationship.” The pair managed and had fun in the process. “We both have a passion for the same thing so that’s really cool to do together,” Brian says.
Obviously Brian and Josey struck the right balance between their relationship and work. They got married seven months ago.
Prior to their wedding, Brian accepted a job as Director of Children and Youth at Clarkesville First United Methodist Church in May 2013. Josey joined him in ministry at the church following their wedding a year later.
Marriage and ministry
“The Lord just kind of opened some doors and closed some doors and just through a lot of prayer I felt like the Lord was calling me to take up the position as the youth and children’s director here,” Brian says. He says Clarkesville UMC Pastor Brian Butler and the congregation were very welcoming. Brian Butcher accepted the job with his then future wife in mind, “It was also a place that I thought I could see Josey coming to and fitting in well in the future.” For Josey it seemed obvious God’s handwriting was on the wall. “My maiden name is Butler and the pastor’s name is Brian Butler so it was one of those things that we looked at and laughed and thought, ‘God are you really doing this?'” God did do it; He led Brian and Josey to Clarkesville First United Methodist Church and both say they’re glad that He did.
Brian’s job is twofold. He oversees the children’s church ministry by organizing volunteers and arranging activities for the younger children but he’s most directly involved with the middle and high schoolers. Those are tough years. It’s the time in life when young people begin discovering who they are and what they like and begin searching for ways and places to fit in. The older age group Brian serves, 12-18, is the age group many people shy away from and, yet, Brian thrives on it. He says he enjoys helping young people navigate through the sometimes treacherous waters of self-discovery. “It can be a challenge just to see the kids go through their ups and downs and the struggles they have. You want them always to turn to Christ and to look for help and seek wisdom and to model their life after Him but I can’t make them desire that relationship with Christ. I can talk to them and I can show them Jesus and I can love them but I can’t make them want it.”
In Brian’s line of work it’s the example-setting and being there that often matter most. He doesn’t do it alone. Although her primary job is to promote Clarkesville UMC and help extend its outreach, Josey also helps her husband with the youth group. She calls it their “sweet spot.” She says middle school was hard for her and she enjoys watching young people, especially girls, come into the knowledge of who they are and who they’re becoming.
Loving their jobs and the community
Brian and Josey both speak glowingly of their Clarkesville church family and the Habersham community. When he first moved here from Athens as a bachelor Brian says the church congregation took him under its wing. A group of ladies from the church cleaned up his apartment and got it move-in ready for him and the congregation showered the young couple with gifts when they wed in April 2014. The Butchers say it’s not just the church though that has welcomed them, it’s the entire community.
“People here are so friendly,” Brian says. He points to a day not too long ago when they were filling up their car at a local gas station and their car battery died. “Someone came up to us and asked if we needed a jump. We didn’t even have to ask. They just came and looked out for us just because we were there.” Although they both grew up in larger cities the Butchers say they like living in Clarkesville and say their Atlanta area friends are secretly jealous.
“Habersham definitely has its advantages,” Brian says. “My friends in the suburbs drive an hour to work and we’re like, ‘nah,’ we live half a mile from the church.” It takes them less than five minutes to get to work but they try not to rub that into their friends’ faces. “The traffic was backed up all the way to the Square the other day,” says Josey. “I nearly took a picture to send to my friends.” Content to let her friends deal with interstate gridlock while she deals with ten-car backups at the traffic light near the Clarkesville gazebo, Josey says the lack of traffic congestion is just a side benefit to living in Habersham; the big appeal is the community’s heart. “I really like the smaller community. I like being involved in a community where folks really do care about each other and seek to help each other. To not be from up here and to still be included and very, very welcomed has been really neat.”
The different ministries that their church offers also are, to steal a line from Josey, ‘really neat’. In addition to traditional worship services on Sunday at 8:30 and 11 a.m. and standard Wednesday night gatherings, there’s a contemporary worship service that meets Sundays at 9 a.m. in the old Habersham Bank building on Washington Street. Ladies in the church make and send prayer shawls to shut-ins and others in times of crisis, one church group visits the nursing home for singing and fellowship once a month, Clarkesville UMC also raises money for charity through its thrift store on the Clarkesville Square called “Community Thrift” and a group of men in the church devotes its time to building wheelchair ramps and other necessities for people in Habersham.
The future
Inevitably every young couple gets asked, “Do you have children?” The Butcher’s short answer is “No.” Their long answer is, “No, but we have a dog,” proudly referring to their black lab, Lilly. Both say they want children some day but they want to first grow as a couple. “We’re still focused on learning to be married and learning to love each other well. Not that you can’t do that with a kid but if we can buy some time and have a few years of focusing on us and learn to be a great husband and a great wife then that would be good,” Brian says thoughtfully.
While they may not yet have children of their own Josey and Brian Butcher have been entrusted with the spiritual well-being of hundreds of children and youth throughout their own young lives and ministries. Where will that lead? Truly only God knows. Brian says he wants to attend seminary and, perhaps one day, become a pastor. In the meantime he says he’s happy to serve as a youth minister and will continue to do so as long as that’s where God wants him. “If that never changes that’s awesome, if that does change and I end up as a pastor great.” He says he’s never questioned his decision to go into ministry. “There’s nothing that I’m more passionate about than sharing the Gospel with students.”
For her part, Josey says she greatly enjoys her work at Clarkesville UMC. She’s learning new skills working in PR, handling advertising and managing the church website. While she may have traded-off a high-paying job in business management to join the ministry she says she knows she’s right where the Lord wants her to be. “There was no denying for me the calling that the Lord put on my heart. Looking at our relationship helps to motivate and encourage me that I am doing exactly what I need to be doing because we wouldn’t be where we are if I was working for a management firm or doing consulting or any of the other things I could be doing. Where the Lord has led us as a couple is evidence of what he wants us to do. I know what I’m doing is worth it and I know it’s for a purpose and I know it’s the right thing.”
Wherever their ministry careers take them it’s a divine bet the Butchers will serve together. Josey says she is thankful for the breadth of experience and knowledge she’s gaining at Clarksville UMC and hopes that if the Lord leads them elsewhere some day she can use those gifts to plug into her husband’s ministry. For now, though, there is no talk of leaving, only talk of how grateful they are for the church and community that have embraced them. “We’re very thankful,” Brian says. “The Lord has been faithful to us.” Josey adds, “We’re just constantly overwhelmed at the generosity of people and how welcoming people have been. When we stop to think about it it’s just crazy how we got here.”
Crazy or divinely mysterious, however you describe the Butcher’s journey to Clarkesville if you’re a person of faith there’s no denying it was meant to be. Two teenagers who went to nearby schools and had mutual friends, who met at a huge university while studying for different careers, brought together by their best friends who were dating (who, by the way, didn’t end up together) who eventually wound up together in ministry and in life. Hmmm, that will be a great story to share with their kids one day. For now, they say they’ll keep sharing the Word with those they meet on their journey; praying, trusting and thanking God each step of the way.
For more information about Clarkesville First United Methodist Church and its ministries visit the church website at www.clarkesvillefirstumc.org. Josey Butcher also contributes to Now Habersham. Look for her inspiring devotionals on our Faith page.
