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Joshua Reich

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Tuesday Mind Dump…

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  • Felt so good to be back in a normal routine of Sunday morning at Revolution.
  • We didn’t meet on December 25th and January 1st.
  • The break was great for our family and I heard the same thing from many people in our church.
  • Each year we take off the Sunday between Christmas and New Years.
  • I know it made Sunday feel more special (in a weird way).
  • Tons of guests as we kicked off Mr. and Mrs. Better Half. 
  • If you missed it, you can watch it here.
  • We had so many guests this past Sunday.
  • So exciting to have Revolutionaries bringing their friends up to introduce me to them.
  • Love the inviting culture we have at our church.
  • We’ve done a lot of marriage series at Revolution in the 8 years of our church, but this one feels really different from the ones before.
  • I don’t know if it is because Katie and I are older now or because we’ve grown more in the last year than almost any other time in our marriage.
  • Got to enjoy the second half of my Steelers giving the Dolphins a beat down on Sunday.
  • It’s the best kind of playoff game, the one that is not stressful.
  • I’m not expecting that at all this week.
  • The Chiefs are going to be a hard out.
  • But I feel good about it.
  • I finished reading The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe About Ourselves today.
  • Wow.
  • I’m not even sure how best to describe this book.
  • I don’t know that I would say I struggle with shame or have a lot of feelings of shame, but was blown away to see how much shame can define my life.
  • It was really eye opening.
  • I’m really excited for this Sunday because Katie and I are teaching about one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned in marriage.
  • It’s one of the most important things we’ll ever talk about because of how big of a deal it is.
  • Watching the college football playoff last night was fun.
  • I love football so any time there’s a good game on, I’m in.
  • Lats night did not disappoint.
  • Unless you root for Bama.
  • Then…
  • Finished my cover up tattoo last Friday.
  • It hurt a whole lot more than a tattoo.
  • I know were in the middle of our marriage series, but I’m starting to work on our next series in the book of Psalms called Pray. 
  • Really excited to dive into Psalms for 8 weeks and look at 8 different Psalms.
  • So much in there that I think it will be great to dive in.
  • I’m thinking we might do a short series on Psalms each year as a church until we’ve preached through all of them.
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A Vision for Your Marriage

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Marriage is hard work. There are many times that you are excited to be married, you and your spouse are on the same page, romance is high and affection feels easy. Decisions flow without much work, and you wonder why it isn’t always like this.

Other times your marriage feels like if it is moving, it is moving backwards. You fight, never hold hands, you struggle to understand your spouse, and decisions always end in fights and hurt feelings.

If you’re single you think, “I’ll worry about my marriage, someday…when I’m married.”

Regardless of where you are, one thing is sure: you need a vision for your marriage. The one you are in or the one you will enter into one day.

It is easy to miss this. It is easy to get stuck in the day to day of marriage and miss this. So much happens in a day, it is hard enough to stay married, let alone think about your marriage.

Too many couples have no idea what they are doing in their marriage. If you don’t have a vision, a destination, you don’t know where you are going.

Here’s what happens: you do what your parents did. You talk to your spouse the way your mom talked to your dad. You treat each other the way your parents did. You do the same things your parents did. Your dad did the finances, so you expect your husband to do the finances. Doesn’t matter if he’s good at that. It’s what you expect.

Or you do the exact opposite of what you saw your parents do. They seemed miserable, they got divorced, so no matter what it is, let’s do the opposite.

We do this without ever asking, “Is that what I want?” Or, “Is that what God wants?”

In Ephesians 5:22 – 33 we are given a vision for marriage, a picture, a reflection of what marriage is supposed to look like. When someone looks at a marriage, they are seeing what that couple believes about God’s love and how they respond to that love.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

In light of that, here are some things to consider. First men:

  • A husband makes his wife’s burden lighter. Here’s a question every husband should ask his wife on a regular basis: What is one thing I can do to help you and make your life easier?
  • He enjoys serving her.
  • He serves her by providing and being her defender. He takes her side no matter what. He stands with his wife, for his wife, even if that means he makes his mom mad.
  • And he does this all cheerfully without wondering what he will get in return.
  • He nourishes his wife. This means to develop, nurture and to lift up. Are you helping her develop into the person God called her to be? To develop her gifts, her dreams?
  • Does your wife have space for her dreams?
  • Nourish also brings to mind care and attention. Does your wife feel like she is cared for by you and she has your attention?
  • A wife who experiences this will get to the end of her life and think, “Being married opened up my life to so many possibilities. My husband cared about where my life was going. My husband thought of me.”
  • He loves his wife like he loves himself. This happens by cherishing her. This means she feels his warmth, by being valued by her husband. He does not make fun of her, ever. He does not put her down. He builds her up. He doesn’t compare her to other women, he doesn’t fantasize about other women. Instead he delights in her. He prizes her.

For women, whether your husband does that, you are called to respond to him. Not as a doormat, but with strength through the personality God has given you. It means:

  • You are not a doormat. You are not doing whatever your husband wants, but you are thinking for yourself. It is asking questions of your husband, expressing your reservations, helping your husband see something from another angle. It is adding value to your husband.
  • It is knowing that your husband bears the responsibility and accountability to God for your marriage and family.
  • Lastly, it is a heart attitude towards God. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. It is a step towards God.
  • Submission is not really to your husband but to God.
  • In everything, Paul says in verse 24. Why? Because you are one flesh. There is not an area of your life that is cut off from your spouse.
  • One flesh means one dream, one bank account, sharing all things, not having social media profiles the other doesn’t know about. Katie could literally shut my life down because she has all my passwords to everything.

Why is this so hard?

Tim Keller says, “Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of every marriage. It is the cancer in the center of a marriage when it begins, and it has to be dealt with.” Living out this vision requires you to let go of what you want. To crucify your desires in many ways.

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3 Simple Time Hacks for Parents and 6 Other Posts You Should Read this Weekend

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leader

Each Friday I share some posts that I’ve come across in the last week. They range in topics and sources but they are all things I’ve found interesting or helpful that I hope will be interesting and helpful to you. Here are 7 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father:

  1. 3 Simple Time Hacks for Parents
  2. 5 Tips to Blog Faster by Ellen Jackson
  3. Creating a Blog Content Plan for 2017 by Nicole Avery
  4. 6 Disruptive Church Trends That Will Rule 2017 by Carey Nieuwhof
  5. What Should Pastors Do with Personal Pain? by Charles Stone
  6. 10 Ways the Role of Pastor is Changing by Chuck Lawless
  7. The 12 Most Important Things To Read, Watch Or Listen To As You Start 2017 by Brian Jones
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Your Growth Plan for the New Year

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Statistically, most Americans will make resolutions and goals in January and not keep them.

They will range from quitting smoking, losing weight, getting out of debt, changing jobs, and the list goes on and on.

Some years it might be the same thing because you are not as far along as you want.

What if you don’t do this?

You’ll be like most other people. You’ll get to the end of next year and look back longingly at what could’ve been.

new year

Think for a minute. Let’s say your plan should be around getting healthy, getting out of debt or working on your marriage. What if you could move the needle just a little bit? What if next year, instead of $10,000 in debt it was $2,000 or none? What if your marriage took three baby steps in the next year? Wouldn’t thinking about this and being proactive be worth it?

If you’re still with me, here are some questions to help you think through a growth plan for the coming year:

How to create a growth plan for the new year.

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  1. What do you want to change in your life?
  2. What things did you learn in the past year that you want to build on?
  3. What is one thing that, if you grew in it, would move you, your career, your relationships, further and faster?
  4. What book(s) of the Bible was convicting to you in the past year? What was most convicting and why?
  5. What area of your heart and past hurt have you put off dealing with?
  6. Who do you know that is further than you are in something that you can learn from?

Then ask those closest to you some of these questions. Yes, that is scary but so is living life and missing out because we didn’t grow and make changes.

The answers to these questions then help you to formulate a plan of what you will grow in for the coming year.

You can’t do it all.

How to accomplish your biggest goals this year.

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When I lost 130 pounds in 18 months, that was my thing. I was solely focused on that and the heart issues surrounding that.

In other years, it has been preaching, prayer, adoption.

What I read, podcasts I listen to, blogs I follow, classes I take and people I talk to are around those ideas.

Make no mistake, the people who will get further in the coming year are the people who have decided what they will get further on. It will not just happen.

How to create a growth plan for the new year you’ll stick to.

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This is THE New Year

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So it’s January.

This is the year.

This is the year you finally do what you have longed to do.

This is the year you take that step financially, spiritually, physically, relationally, emotionally.

This is THAT year.

I know. I know.

Statistically, this isn’t your year. It’s someone else’s year.

But, what if this was your year?

It has to be someone’s year, so why not yours?

Take a moment and thank God that you woke up this morning. That you are breathing. That you live somewhere with internet.

Thank God that it is a new year and what is past, while part of your story and who you are, is in the past.

It’s time to move forward.

Alright. Pep talk done.

Let’s get going!

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10 Favorite Reads of 2016

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Each year I post a list of my favorite books, the ones I would call the best books of the year. To see my list of favorite books from past years, simply click on the numbers: 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. For me, I love this list because it shows what has influenced me in the past year, where I’m growing and what God is teaching me. If you are a leader, you should be a reader. There is no way around that.

While most years I have struggled to put this list together, this year there weren’t as many great books or must read books as previous years. I also read fewer books than previous years as I feel like I moved through books at a slower pace. You’ll also notice some books that are a little different than years past. Most of the time I read lots of leadership books. This year, as Katie and I have been doing the three year Leader’s Journey from Crosspoint with Jim Cofield and Rich Blass (the authors of The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection), I am reading less leadership books and more books on my soul, relational health, family of origin, and understanding my personality. It has been scary and exhilarating. The conversations Katie and I have had have been incredible, but also painful.

This list reflects that.

So, here is the list of my 10 favorite reads from 2016 and why I liked them:

Need a book to read in 2017? Here are 10 you should read.

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10. Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations by Rich Karlgaard & Michael S. Malone

This book answered a puzzle I had for three years: What makes the best teams work? The answer lies in the power of a pair. Yes, large teams are important, and even threes work together well, but nothing is stronger than the power of a pair. Incredibly helpful for leaders and church planters.

The best book on teams in 2016.

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9. Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God by John Piper

Yes, I’m reformed, and no, I had never read Future Grace by John Piper until this year. I know.

If you meet someone who has not read this book or has never read a book by Piper, this is the book to read. It is chock full of gospel goodness and reminders. I probably highlighted more than half of the book. I loved how it is broken up so you can read a chapter a day and be done in a month. It was perfect to read each morning and restore truth into my soul in much needed places.

John Piper’s best book.

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8. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith

I love the idea of habits and how they work. This book looks at the spiritual side of habits, which is something that is important in the discussion. Smith also looked at how habits get formed in culture, churches, families and passing on your faith. It was incredibly helpful for Katie and me as we think about not only building habits into our lives, but also into the lives of our kids.

7. Wholeheartedness: Busyness, Exhaustion, and Healing the Divided Self by Chuck DeGroat

I read this book on a plane ride, and it was a punch in the gut. I’ve started to realize in the past year that I am not as fully present in relationships as I should be or would like to be. This book was incredibly helpful in understanding that and how to change it.

Need a book to help you slow down and be present in 2017?

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6. The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller

This was another book that I read like Piper’s, one chapter each morning after reading my Bible. It is a collection of letters from the life of a pastor. There is so much richness in them as he shares advice, pain, prayer requests, loneliness, weariness and joy. This is one of those books that I will re-read on a regular basis. There is so much in this for pastors. I love Miller’s passion for evangelism and missions.

5. The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it by Henry Cloud

This book surprised me in how much I liked it. We often underestimate the power of people in our lives but also the power we have over other people. Cloud looks at the power people have over us and how we react to that, how we handle that in our lives and how we limit that power when it is unhealthy. Incredibly insightful as it relates to family systems and teams.

A book to help you limit the power others have on you.

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4. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman

This is part leadership book, part organizational health book and part family systems book. When I got done, I told Katie I will probably have to read this book at least five times to fully grasp everything that Friedman has in it. Incredibly eye opening as to why churches are unhealthy, why families split, why people give so much backlash to leaders and why leaders lead so poorly.

3. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David Benner

This is one of those books that if you would have told me in 2014 I would not only read it but put it on my list of favorite reads in 2016, I would have laughed. Yet I’ve given out more copies of this book than any other book I’ve read. I’ve bought it for several friends.

Here’s the foundation: Everything in the Christian life goes back to God’s love for you. Yet most of us resist that (even as Christians) and miss out on the power of that love and how that love changes everything.

A book to help you understand the foundation of Christianity.

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2. The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile

I’m a huge believer in understanding yourself. Katie and I had to take the enneagram in the Leader’s Journey, and it answered so many questions in our relationship and how we operate. This book is a great companion to taking the test. Cron is hilarious and the spiritual formation insights are really helpful. Once you understand your personality and those around you, you are able to navigate relationships and teamwork in a healthier way. Knowing what it is like to be on the other side of you is crucial.

1. Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing by Andy Crouch

I feel like this book covers what God has been teaching me in the last year. It is has been hard, often painful and uncomfortable. I’m an eight on the enneagram (see book #2) and we don’t do feelings or gray areas, so this book has been helpful. If you are a leader (and you are like me), this is a book you need to read.

The one book leaders should read in 2017.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: God Using You

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One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change and People under you are counting on you.

Joy #3: God Using You

This joy is much like joy #1. The fact that a holy God would use us is crazy.

For God to use us, we need to have a posture that allows him to use us. God does not force you to allow him to use you, but he does draw you to himself so that he can use you.

This also gets at our stories. Too many Christians are embarrassed by their stories and what they were like before God saved them. God does not waste stories. While we should not glory in our sins, we also need to see them as things that God wants to use right now. Our stories are not mistakes. God did not save us too late; he saved us at the right time.

We also need to have a level of humility that will allow God to work through us. I think too often, especially as pastors, we want to control everything. We cannot control the way God is moving and how he is working. We need to go along for the ride. Whether that is in a service, a sermon or a conversation, we need to be open to how God is moving and whom he is moving. This is scary because we give up control, but that is when the greatest things happen.

There is nothing like being in the middle of God working and being a part of it. There is nothing like seeing someone get it, seeing someone cross the line of faith, get baptized, come out of addiction. There is nothing like it.

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Tuesday Mind Dump…

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  • It is hard to believe it is Christmas week.
  • Even though I’ve spent 9 Christmas’s in Tucson, it is still always odd when it doesn’t snow or get below zero. Not mad about it or complaining as many of my friends are shoveling snow.
  • Just odd.
  • I’ve been blown away by the generosity and excitement of our church around our Christmas offering and 30 Days of Love.
  • So cool to see.
  • Katie and I spent Sunday afternoon walking around the mall shopping.
  • Blown away by how many cars were there, but it was a lot of fun.
  • Yes, shopping from your couch is easier.
  • But walking around a mall let’s me talk to my wife while doing it (without my kids).
  • Sometimes, when you have 5 kids, you have to go to a crowded mall to have time alone.
  • Parents feel me on that.
  • I finally put together my list of 10 favorite books of the year.
  • Yes, this year is only 10 not 16.
  • Why?
  • I read less books in 2016 than before and I didn’t have 16 favorites.
  • I’ll post those next week.
  • One book I just started reading that isn’t on the list because I didn’t finish it yet (but would’ve been near the top) is Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Tim Keller.
  • Really, really helpful.
  • And I’ll share my favorite 9 albums on instagram later this week.
  • If you don’t follow me on instagram, you can do that here.
  • Last Friday we had our staff and elder Christmas party at my house.
  • This is always fun, but this year was by far my favorite one.
  • I feel like the last year or so we have really emphasized community among our leaders, not just accomplishing a mission and the party, the feeling in our house showed that.
  • We laughed so hard throughout the night.
  • Such a blessing for me.
  • Speaking of our team, we announced on Sunday that Cory Bull is joining our team part-time as our Worship Director.
  • Love seeing the way God has brought Cory to our church at just the right time.
  • We also announced on Sunday what our next series will be and I can’t wait!
  • Katie and I will be teaching a series called Mr. & Mrs. Better Half. 
  • So excited for this and what God is going to do through it.
  • Well, time to finish my Christmas Eve message.
  • Merry Christmas!
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Loving Your Neighbor

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Serving is something some of us do well and others do grudgingly. It is easier to do when it is someone we love or someone we like, or who is like us or can give back to us. We love those people and we love serving those people.

Yet according to the gospels, lots of people love those people.

What makes being a follower of Jesus different, and one of the evidences of a changed life, is a willingness to serve people who can’t repay us, people not like us, people who are difficult or need a lot of grace.

In fact, when we serve we remind ourselves of the grace that God extended to us. You are hard to love, your life was (and maybe still is) a mess, you can’t repay God (although you try with all your might). Yet, God extended and continues to extend grace to you. Why? Love.

Everything starts with the love God has for you. Being loved by God is hard to wrap our minds around. What does God expect in return? What do you have to do so that God will love you? Will He hold out on love for you like a parent did? Will He love you more if you perform well? These all make sense in our minds, and yet all these things miss the character and depth of God’s love for us.

God doesn’t love you more based on your performance, and He doesn’t hold out on you. He gives His love and grace to you through His Son, and you did nothing outside of being broken and stuck in your sin for Him to extend it to you.

What did the man in the Good Samaritan parable do to get help? Well, he needed to need help. Right now God has placed someone in your life who needs help. Someone who is stuck and sitting on the side of the road of life unsure of how to move forward or wondering if they can move forward. Maybe they feel like their life, marriage or career is over. (Remember, if no one helped the man on the road to Jericho in Luke 10, there’s a good chance he would’ve died.)

Who will help that person in your life?

In our selfishness, we think someone else will come along. Yet, God sent you. You are there. You are their friend, their child, their parent, they are in your community group, they work next to you. You are there.

Will God send someone else if we overlook them? Maybe. God sent three people to help the man on the side of the road in Luke 10.

But our call, based on the love God has extended to us, is to extend that same love to those around us.

Is that messy? Yes. Is that easy? No. Will that cost you something? Yes. Is the grace God extended to you messy? Yes. Was it easy? No. Did it cost God something? Yes.

This week, today, tomorrow, you have a tangible opportunity to show someone what the grace and love of God are like. The grace and love of God that have been given to you.

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Pastor, If you Burnout…

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burnout

Pastor, if you burnout, you have no one to blame.

I know, that sounds absolutely depressing and accusatory.

But for pastors it’s true.

Why?

Before I answer that, let’s back up.

Why do leaders burnout?

Why do leaders burnout?

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They burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

10 reasons most pastors burnout.

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So, whose fault is this?

Well, if you suffer from these, your first response will be to say that your church puts a lot of pressure on you (which they might), your elders have high expectations for you (which they do), so it must be them.

Your kids want to be in every sport, and you and your wife want to make sure your kids get all the things you didn’t have.

So if you burnout, whose fault is it? If you are tired, whose fault is it?

Stop for a minute and imagine you and you alone are standing in front of a mirror.

If you burnout, that’s your fault.

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That’s whose fault it is.

That’s who’s responsible.

Re-read this paragraph: Pastors burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

All of those things are on you.

Does anyone make you get up at a certain hour or stay up until a certain hour? Does anyone make you say yes? Who puts food in your mouth? Who decides the preaching calendar? Who makes your meeting schedule? Who prevents you from doing something fun? Who keeps you from taking a Sunday off? Who decided not to have a friend outside of their church they could vent to about the emotional side of ministry?

The answer to those questions?

You.

Let me give you an example if you are still skeptical.

Right now you’re reading this blog (thanks for that). Does your church know what you are doing? Does your church know if you are reading a blog to better yourself, working on a sermon, counseling someone, taking a nap or researching for fantasy football?

They have no idea.

Your church doesn’t know what you eat, when you sleep and how you recharge. And for the most part, they don’t care, because they expect you to be responsible and care for yourself.

You are responsible for your health, your relationship with God, your emotional and physical energy, for making sure you relax, take your days off, take a vacation. You are responsible for that.

So if you burnout, that’s on you.

Maybe another example will help.

This happened to me recently. I had over-scheduled my preaching calendar (so I preached too many weeks in a row), I had too many trips on top of each other, our kids were in a lot of activities, I was angry and hurt at a few people that I didn’t deal with as quickly as I should have, and I had put too many meetings on my calendar.

I was tired and I got upset, blamed some other people and talked about the high expectations that people have for me. Then my wife reminded me that I’m in charge of all that stuff.

So are you.

Take responsibility and control of it.

Remember: too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

Too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

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