Friday Five

Happy March madness. Hopefully, your bracket isn’t too destroyed and you’re getting some things done despite the temptation to watch every game!

Each week, I’m on the lookout for new books, recipes, podcasts, blogs, and other exciting things.

So I’m sharing my five favorite things (with 2 extra!) you should check out this weekend.

If you don’t attend Revolution Church, you may not know that we are in the middle of a series called #RelationshipGoals. This past Sunday, my wife Katie and I taught together on the marks of a great marriage. We also did a live Q&A at the end that you can watch here. You can also read some ideas we shared on the idea of a love bank and why that matters in every relationship you have. We based a lot of our sermon on the book His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard Harley.

Here you go:

Favorite book:

I’m always reading a novel as a way to shut my brain off and take a break and finished up the new gray man novel by Mark Greaney called Mission CriticalThis is one of my favorite novel series right now.

Favorite podcast:

This podcast interview that Carey Nieuwhof did with Drew Powell and Matt Warren on Why Attractional Church is Past Peak, Why It’s Changing and What’s Next for Weekend Services was incredible. So helpful to see how a church is transitioning and reaching new heights.

Favorite blog posts:

Pastor, did you know that You’re Hurting the Female Leaders in Your Church (and You Don’t Know It)? I loved this article and can’t wait to read her book. We’ve been making a lot of changes in our church in this area and I’m excited about the future.

What makes the perfect team? Every leader wants to know this and while this research has appeared in a variety of places, I appreciate how Todd pared this down for us.

This video of a military dad surprising his son at taekwondo is so perfect and will make you cry

The Power of Your Love Bank

On Sunday, Katie and I taught together at our church on what goes into a great marriage or relationship.

The exciting thing is that the Bible has a lot to say about great relationships and unhealthy ones. What makes a great relationship is a few simple things.

Over time, a couple begins working against each other. And that is because of what authors call the love bank (I’m not sure who coined it first).

The love bank is like a typical bank, one you make withdraws from and deposits into.

In each relationship you have, there is a love bank. Warm feelings, connection, good experiences together, needs to be met, love being communicated adds to the bank. Harsh words, showing and expressing love in ways that don’t make sense, selfishness, pride, those are all withdrawn from that love bank.

In every relationship, we are continually making deposits or withdraws. We are also asking ourselves, how much does this person have in the love bank with me?

Those closest to us (family, kids, parents, spouse) we often take for granted and think we can make more withdraws than deposits. Over time, this will lead to resentment, bitterness, and anger. A person who feels like they have too many withdraws will begin to withhold love, protect themselves and look out for themselves. I can’t blame them, and it makes sense since we look for safety and security in every relationship. But to have a great relationship, both people must stay on top of where they are in terms of their love bank balance.

There are two ways that Katie and I shared to do this: understanding your spouse’s (or friend, boss or co-worker, or child’s) love language and knowing their top emotional needs as laid out in the excellent book His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage (we can’t recommend this book highly enough).

According to the author of His Needs, Her needs, the top emotional needs are:

For men:

    • Sexual fulfillment
    • Recreational companionship
    • An attractive spouse
    • Domestic support
    • Admiration

For women:

    • Affection
    • Conversation
    • Honesty and openness
    • Financial support
    • Family commitment

Why do you need to know these?

We will often show love to someone based on how we receive love or how we like to give love. Women will show affection to their husband because they want affection. But for men, affection is connected or equal to sex (it isn’t that way for women). Katie shared on Sunday that a woman has to feel close to have sex and a man has sex to feel close. That’s an enormous difference.

Here’s what I’d encourage you to do if you’re married: Sit down with your spouse and have them list them in order of importance their emotional needs and then talk through how to meet those needs in your marriage. Don’t get defensive; listen to them.

If you’re single or dating, two things: Know yourself, how you are wired and how that impacts relationships you are in. Two, understanding what these are for the opposite sex helps you to know when you’re ready to get married. Too often we think we’re prepared to get married if we reach a specific financial place, we find someone who wants to marry us or we’re a certain age. While that matter, but there is more to marriage than that and deciding that you are ready and willing to serve another person and meet their needs is an essential but often overlooked aspect of that decision.

When You Feel Hopeless as a Leader

At some point as a leader, you will feel hopeless. As a pastor, it will more than likely happen after the weekend. It is hard to keep hope alive all the time as a leader. I often read people on twitter who are overly confident and I wonder, “Are they like that? Is life that exciting for them all the time?” Then I feel like I’m doing something wrong as a leader because that isn’t me.

Should a leader be hope-filled? Yes. A leader should carry the banner of hope and excitement; you are the main vision carrier of your church.

Will you always feel like doing that? Probably not. At some point, you will feel like you have no hope and like you don’t want to go on.

So, what do you do then?

Here are some things I do when I feel hopeless:

Pray. While this seems like the expected answer, it isn’t the easiest thing to do. Often as a leader, our last thought is to pray, especially when we are teetering on the edge of losing hope. We want to think, strategize, vent, read a book, figure out how to get out of this funk. Spend some quiet time with Jesus.

Talk to trusted, encouraging friends. A leader needs people to vent to, people who can help to shoulder the weight, people who know the weight a leader carries. That last part is important because many times a leader feels like no one understands what their life is like and the weight they carry.

Sleep. Much of the hopelessness we feel as leaders come from the fact that we are tired and need rest.

When you wake up in the morning, and you feel rested, many things that were dark the night before are not as hopeless as they appeared.

Do something active or fun. This helps to balance out the chemicals in your body. Take a hike, workout, have sex with your spouse, play with your kids. Do something fun, something recharging.

Know that this won’t last forever. Hopelessness feels like the end of the world, that’s why we call it hopelessness. This won’t last forever. Tomorrow will come, another sermon will happen. This is a season that might last a day, a week or a month, but it is a season. You can look back on previous moments and see that they ended as well.

What Churches and Pastors can Learn from Gridiron Genius

Recently I read Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning Championships and Building Dynasties in the NFL and it is fascinating. I love anything to do with leadership and football, so this book was highly enjoyable and had so many leadership and business nuggets that I had to share my top 7. 

1. The ingredients of any successful business. According to Lombardi, “any successful business (church or team) will have a sound culture, a realistic plan, strong leadership, and a talented workforce.” Think for a moment about your church, business or team. Do you have these things? Are working towards them?

Without one of them, you will find yourself not reaching your full potential, and you will be frustrated and frustrate those on the team. Quickly, discouragement will set in, and it will be hard to move forward.

2. Vision, philosophy, and strategy first. Most pastors and churches planters get this wrong, and it brings a lot of harm and frustration. Start with your vision and strategy and then build your team. Too many churches have hired people that don’t fit their vision and strategy, and it is disastrous.

And pastors don’t miss this; people don’t usually leave your church because of doctrine, they often leave your church because of strategy.

This is why it is so important to have clear values as a church, a clear strategy that you talk about often and evaluate people on that before adding them to your team and giving them leadership roles.

3. Functioning as a team is more important than stars. Bill Belichick said, “It’s not the strength of the individual players; it’s the strength of how they function together.” Go to any church planting or pastors conference, and you hear pastors talking about looking for stars. When a church looks to hire any staff member, especially a lead pastor, their job description starts with “we’re looking for Jesus.”

But you aren’t going to hire Jesus, and you may not need a star. The strongest teams I’ve been on haven’t always been made up of the best people at their role but people who worked together incredibly well and made up for what the other person lacked.

4. Making a decision requires firmness, fairness, and fast. These are the 3 F’s of decision making from legendary coach Bill Walsh. If you’ve been in church any length of time, you know that firmness, fairness and fast are not what churches and pastors are known for when it comes to making a decision.

Yes, you want to make wise decisions and take the time you need, but often, churches could cut in half the time it takes and make a sound decision.

Most leaders suffer from cost sunk bias or fear of missing out on something and so we miss opportunities. Meaning, don’t necessarily think about what you’ve spent so far on a decision as that will cloud your thinking the right choice. Will you miss out on something? Probably but that’s okay.

5. Never squander an opportunity. Churches are not often thinking about possibilities. They are thinking about reacting to things. Do you spend time looking ahead? Do you know when the big days are of your church’s and community’s calendar year? Do you know when people are likely to be sick, on vacation, etc.? When you think about your preaching calendar, do you think about when the best time of a year to start a series is? For example, people think about specific topics in January, February, at the start of school, at the holidays, etc. Do you know what they are? Are you crafting a preaching calendar and events around those things?

If you aren’t, you’re squandering an opportunity.

6. Mimicking success rarely earns success. I’m guilty of this. So is every other pastor and church.

We go to a conference, hear about a successful ministry, how one pastor does small groups, preaching, worship services, kids ministry and come back and copy it and wonder, “why didn’t that work?”

Because we overlooked a whole host of things, that was someone else’s dream or vision. It fit their personality, context, and timing.

For example, I love so much about what missional communities do in churches and for a while we copied it and tried to make it work, but it didn’t fit me and the context of our city.

The last part is the timing of the church. This gets overlooked all the time in church circles.

Timing matters a great deal when it comes to churches growing. Many church plants survive and die based on timing, timing that has nothing to do with them.

7. The value of special teamers. This one is super important for a lead pastor to remember.

Special teamers on an NFL team are guys who are just trying to make the team. They aren’t starters but will do anything to make the team. They will run down punts and kicks, which is the most dangerous play in the football.

These are the people in yoru church who will do anything for your church. They are dedicated, serve, invite, pray and give, but they aren’t necessarily leading anything. Your church cannot survive without them.

7 Powerful Lies we Believe about Sex & Intimacy

Every week in your church, the people sitting in the seats have longings and desires for their lives and relationships.

They want to feel more purpose, more connection and in each relationship they have, they are looking for closeness. Many times as pastors, we miss this and end up answering questions and speaking to struggles they don’t have.

When it comes to marriage and dating, they are looking for connection and intimacy. Intimacy doesn’t equal sex, which is an important distinction as we think about preaching.

They look to fill those in all kinds of ways that are destructive and ultimately leave them empty. That person at work they opened up to, the porn they looked at, the clothes they bought. All of these things were to feel connected, to feel close and it left them wanting more because it can’t satisfy that longing.

Our culture and the church have tried to step in and speak to this, but often the church and the culture end up telling lies about sexuality and intimacy.

3 Lies the Culture Tells us about Sex

The first lie our culture tells us about sex is that sex is just physical.

On the surface, this sounds right. After all, for many men, it seems like it is just physical. And yet, there is a closeness after sex that is hard to explain if sex is only physical. And we know this, we know that something more is going on.

This is why we struggle to tell our spouse about our sexual past and how many people we’ve slept with, we struggle to let go of the shame of abortion, sexual abuse or addiction. This is why whenever I meet with someone, and they ask me, “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?” almost 100% of the time it is sexual.

Sex is powerful.

This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians: Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

One author said, “Chances are no one told you why the New Testament urges believers to reserve sex for marriage. Here’s a shocker — the why has nothing to do with disease or unwanted pregnancy. You may be interested to know that the Bible does not say the primary, much less the exclusive, purpose of sex is to make babies. Biblical authors do not condemn sexual pleasure. God’s not worried about us having too much fun. So why all the fuss? Why would Paul instruct his Christian audience to “flee” from immorality? Here’s why: All other sins a person commits . . . Sexual sin is like no other sin. Paul puts sexual sin in a category all by itself. “All other sins . . .” Here’s the second part: All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

Paul’s primary concern is not the physical consequences of sex.

Another author said Sexual sin is like no other sin because your sexuality bridges body and soul. Sex is a physical act that reaches beyond your physical body. Sexual sin is like no other sin because it cuts deeper than another sin. It leaves a more noticeable scar. When you sin sexually, you literally sin against your true self. Your soul self. To sin against yourself is essentially to betray and steal from yourself. Sexual sin robs you of your own future. Sexual sin undermines future intimacy. Sexual sin creates an obstacle to honesty. Sexual sin is the sin we will be most tempted to hide, the sin we will most likely try to smuggle into future relationships. Sexual sin eventually equates to self-inflicted pain.

Another lie is that sex is all about technique.

Here are a few technique ideas I saw recently on magazine covers at the grocery store 21 naughty sex tips, more sex than you can handle, 30 red hot sex secrets, the hot new sex app to tap into her desires, 60 sex tips you’ll both love, 4 sex moves that are forever 21.

And the craziest one: 102 ways to blow your own mind in bed. 102!!!

Now, technique matters.

But do you know what technique doesn’t give us? The exact thing we crave: connection and commitment. Even the baddest guy who claims not to want to settle down, do you know what he wants in his heart of hearts? Connection and commitment.

Technique tells us those things don’t matter so be a porn star in bed, drive him wild, drive her wild. And then we wonder, why am I not happier? Why am I not more fulfilled?

The other lie our culture tells us is that the most important thing about you is your sexuality.

This narrative has picked up with gay marriage. The identifying characteristic of who you are is now your sexuality, who you are in the bedroom.

With the rise of social media, more and more women feel like they need to post sexual videos and pictures to be noticed because men only want porn stars.

Do you see how we get into a mess if sex is just physical and the most important thing about you?

But unfortunately, the church isn’t any different.

A few years ago I came across an article called four lies the church told me about sex.

Any and all physical contact is like a gateway drug to sex.

Now, we know that a hug does not lead to sex and pregnancy.

The church says outside of marriage, you need to protect yourself sexually and that is well founded (and biblical) and many of us need to do a better job of that.

What this lie leads to is thinking that sex is dirty.

If you wait until you are married to have sex, God will reward you with mind-blowing sex and a magical wedding night.

I was told this again and again as a kid.

Do you know what you are guaranteed if you save sex for marriage? That you will fumble around and learn with someone that is committed to loving you forever.

Waiting to have sex till you are married will lead to many things, and they are good, but it won’t guarantee a mind-blowing wedding night.

The church says, “wait for it, wait for it. Say I do. Now do it!!!!”

Girls don’t care about sex.

This isn’t just a church thing, but all over blogs and magazines.

Men think they have to con or fight their wife to get sex. Women feel dirty if they talk about sex, think about sex or ask for advice from friends. If you are a woman and think about sex, desire sex, you aren’t a freak, you are human.

God created both men and women in the image of God, and he created us as sexual beings.

God not only created sex but also created our bodies too. Too many of us have grown up being told there is something wrong with our bodies and our desire. Now, we know in Genesis 3 that sin entered the world and tainted all of life and sex.

God created sex for our pleasure and his glory; Satan seeks to destroy it.

If you’re a parent, you need to help your kids understand their bodies and how they were created and why that is a good thing and God’s good plan for their bodies, their sex drives and what that means. Don’t be silent on this.

When you get married, you will be able to express yourself sexually without guilt and shame fully.

This lie has created a lot of pain and frustration.

Addictions, abuse, past sexual partners, all of these collide together in your marriage bed and create havoc.

Why write a post about lies?

Many of us are unaware of lies we believe about sex and intimacy.

We get our information from blogs and movies, romance novels, what our parents did or did not tell us or what our friends have told us.

If we aren’t careful, we end up believing the wrong things and we end up missing what God has for us and how He created us.

Do You Love the Church You Work At?

Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first. -Simon Sinek

The title of this blog post might seem funny to you, but do you love the church you work at? Do you love the people in your church? Are you passionate about the mission, vision, and strategy of your church?

Let me ask it another way that an older pastor asked me: Would you attend your church if you didn’t get paid to be there?

Too many pastors and church leaders are merely showing up to work and collecting a paycheck.

And the people around them feel it.

Imagine what our churches would be like if the people leading them were so passionate about the mission, they would do whatever it takes.

This shows up in all kinds of ways. Here are some negative ones I’ve seen:

  • Leaders are not helping or serving when things need to be done.
  • Pastors who don’t give generously to their churches.
  • Pastors and leaders not in or leading small groups.
  • Leaders who are not inviting friends to their church.

Now, I know that no church is perfect and that every pastor or board isn’t fun to work for. I know that ministry is hard and that you pour yourself out and often you feel depleted.

This isn’t so much about loving your church as it is loving being a part of your church. 

The reason this matters is not only for your soul and feeling alive as a child of God and a leader but your church feels this, and it has an enormous impact on your church and the people in it.

Three Powerful Things Great Husbands Do

Lists and books abound as to what a husband is supposed to be and do.

One of my struggles with many of them is that they don’t fit my personality. They talk about feelings a little too much and often make me feel less manly than I’d like to be.

Now, feelings matter, and if you ignore them, you will often find yourself in some situations and hurt that you could’ve avoided.

As I was preaching through the Song of Songs, I came across an interesting passage in chapter 2 that lays out what a husband does. Now, what is most interesting about this passage, it says what the woman loves about the man, which gives some insight for men into what their wife wants, needs and thinks:

Like an apricot tree among the trees of the forest,
so is my love among the young men.
I delight to sit in his shade,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banquet hall,
and he looked on me with love.
Sustain me with raisins;
refresh me with apricots,
for I am lovesick.
May his left hand be under my head,
and his right arm embrace me. -Song of Songs 2:3 – 6

Did you catch that? She said three things he does that she loves and needs:

1. He is strong like a tree. There is a strength that a man brings to marriage that a woman does not. It is inborn in men. Now, this can be destructive as well, but when it is healthy, this is what a wife and family need in a man. This might be physical, but also emotional.

Can you as a husband handle the ups and downs of life? Can you handle the ups and downs of your wife?

A tree also provides shade and protection in the desert.

If you’re dating, do you feel protected by the guy you’re dating? If not, leave. Husbands, your wife should feel safe and protected by you and your strength.

Strength is also closely related to stability and security. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, needs of a woman is security. Yes, you should dream big and shoot for the stars in your work life, but you also need to bring stability to your family and marriage. Too many men bounce from job to job, idea to idea, always looking for the perfect boss, best idea, get rich scheme.

There are a time and place for this, but there is also a time and a place for stability and strength.

2. He makes life and marriage a delight.

Here’s a simple but difficult question for your marriage: Does your wife delight to sit in your shade? In your presence? Marriage and any relationship are either bringing joy and life or bringing sadness to our lives. There is very rarely a third direction.

Too many couples do not bring delight to each other. They stop working at it. They bring delight to other people and relationships, but the closest relationship in their life withers.

In Song of Songs 1, the woman describes their relationship as a vineyard blooming in the middle of the desert. Now, what do you think it takes to grow flowers in a desert? A lot. Life does not just happen in a desert, death does.

The same goes in marriage.

Life does not just happen, death does. Which means life, joy, and delight will take great care and an enormous amount of work.

What often happens in marriage is that we see what we want and if it doesn’t happen that way, we blame our spouse. And yes, they have some blame to carry, but what part did you play to leave life and delight out of your marriage?

Are you doing everything you can to delight in your spouse?

3. He looks on her with love. 

Men are more visual than women. Women also know when they have a man’s attention and when they don’t.

While there are sexual tones to this phrase, it isn’t all sexual.

Looking on someone with love is having care for them, for their opinion, thinking of them above yourself and others.

Your spouse should come first in your life. Before your parents, boss, friends, and kids. We often put others before our spouse because “they’ll understand” and that person needs me and “my spouse will always be there.” If we aren’t careful though, we can communicate to our spouse that they aren’t as important to us as they are.

Friday Five

Each week, I’m on the lookout for new books, recipes, podcasts, blogs, and other exciting things.

So I’m sharing my five favorite things (with 2 extra!) you should check out this weekend. I got this idea from a recent podcast I listened to and will do my best to keep it up.

If you don’t attend Revolution Church, you may not know that we are in the middle of a series called #RelationshipGoals. This past Sunday, I talked about what a woman wants and what a man should be that you can watch here. If you’re looking for a book that might help you with this, Katie and I would recommend checking out Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs by Emerson Eggerichs.

Here you go:

Favorite book: This past week I read Gridiron Genius and loved it. I’m a huge fan of football and leadership, and this book had so much of both. This book was a fun read. I’ll be sharing more thoughts on this book and applications for churches and pastors soon, so stay tuned.

A second one I’ll throw out is Erwin McManus’s new book The Way of the Warrior came out this week. I got to read an advanced copy last month and loved it: such a good and needed book in our culture.

Favorite podcast: I listen to a lot of podcasts, but this week I got caught up on Craig Groeschel’s and listened to his interview with Chip Heath, who wrote The Power of MomentsThe podcast has so many applications for pastors, leaders, business owners and parents about how to create powerful moments in everyday life.

Favorite blog posts:

Why Showing Kindness to Your Spouse Matters to Your Kids from Parent Cue. As I mentioned before, I’m in the middle of a marriage series, and it is incredible to me how mean spouses can be towards each other. How you treat your spouse has an enormous impact on your kids and your family and what it is like in your home.

Why Every Leader Needs Friends by Michael Hyatt, as a leader, it can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. This weekend, I’m hanging out in Boulder, CO with another Acts 29 church with leaders who have become friends and mentors to me.

Let me share two bonus ones:

10 Things You Should Know about Shame and Guilt by Sam Storms. This is such a powerful blog post.

Story Cards from North Point. We use these as a church in Starting Point and to kick off all of our small groups. These are incredibly powerful and helpful.

How to Handle Criticism in Life & Leadership

If you are new to leadership, you might wonder why you get criticized. The reality is if you are a leader in any capacity, that is the only requirement to get criticized.

If you are a leader and I’m using the word leader to define someone who is out in front of a church or organization, casting a vision for the future, leading people there. If you are at that person, it means you are pushing the status quo; you are most likely making changes of some kind. If you preach on a weekly basis, you are challenging people to kill their idols, pressing on hurt and sin and showing how the gospel transforms those places people don’t like to talk about.

The reality is that by going into leadership of any kind, you are inviting criticism. If you preach, you are attracting even more criticism. Here are a few things God has been teaching me about leadership and criticism:

  • Everyone gets criticized. If you are getting criticized, take comfort, every leader in the Bible was criticized. Jesus included. I had a mentor tell me “Criticism is the admission ticket for leadership.”
  • Listen to your critics. I think there is a limit to how long you listen to one critic as sometimes critics are just a squeaky wheel (meaning you will have people in your church that will complain about and criticize anything). Is there any truth in the criticism? Anything you can grow from? Anything you need to repent from? Your critics can often point out a blind spot you are unaware of, so don’t dismiss them outright.
  • There is a time to stop listening to critics. Every time you respond to a critic, you invite a response. No matter how you end the conversation, email or phone call. Sometimes, you need to react and sometimes you need to let them have “the last word” by not responding. This is difficult to do, mainly because you probably think you are right and your critic is wrong.
  • Don’t try to change your critic’s mind. This almost never happens, it is often naive and idealistic. It might happen, pray for it, the Holy Spirit can do it, but this shouldn’t be your goal. Your mission, purpose, what God has called you to is your goal.
  • When you respond to critics, you give them a platform. This is often what critics want, not always, but often they want the power they are criticizing. If you publicly acknowledge it, respond to a blog post, article, etc. You legitimize the criticism. Sometimes you need to respond publicly, but often this isn’t advisable.
  • Know when you need to shepherd a critic and when you need to protect your church. Most of the critics for a pastor will be in his church; Paul tells us in Acts 20 that divisive people and wolves will come out from the inside the church, not the outside. There is a line that you as a leader will cross with each critic and it is different each time. You need to shepherd a critic, help them to see the idols they are living out of (usually sin drives critics, not always), help them understand the idol and freedom in the gospel. You also need to know when you need to call a critic a wolf and shoot the wolves to protect the flock. This is a fine line.
  • Throw out anonymous stuff. If someone doesn’t put their name on it, it is not worth reading or listening to. Period. If someone says, “me and some of my friends” without saying who the friends are, let it go.
  • Have safe people to vent to. As a leader, this shouldn’t always be your spouse. You need someone that you can unload on, cry to, rant and rave about what you will never say publicly. This person also needs to have the power in your life to push back and help you see what you are missing.
  • Know that your critic will often make your point, you can’t tell them that. Almost every time I have been criticized, the critic has inevitably made my point. I wrote a blog post recently about not following the Bible for a variety of reasons. Someone emailed me to criticize the post and went on to tell me why certain Bible passages don’t apply to them so that they could keep on sinning. I read it and thought, “You are responding to a post about how we excuse ourselves from following the Bible by telling me why you don’t follow the Bible by excusing yourself.”
  • Preach Jesus, say what you think the Bible says. Most criticism aimed at a pastor has to do with his preaching. He stands on a stage by himself where everyone can get a good clean shot. That’s what you signed up for. That being the case, get up each week, preach Jesus and say what you think the Bible says. That is the price of preaching. When you preach Jesus, you will take a knife to the idols of the hearts of people in your church. They don’t like this. Many people want to hear a sermon that will motivate them to be better people, mostly to motivate them to keep worshiping their idols, not killing them. As a leader, you will have to stand before God and give an account for how you led, how you preached, what you said. Say what you think the Bible says, be sure.

Embracing Where Your Marriage Is

If you’ve been married any length of time, you’ve had this feeling of wishing your marriage was somewhere different. Maybe you want your spouse to have turned out differently than they are. Perhaps they have an annoying habit you thought they would grow out of, but they haven’t.

It might be an area that you wish would improve in your marriage: having better communication, a more exciting passionate sex life, dreaming together or at the very least being on the same page with your schedule and goals.

But you aren’t. It isn’t.

It is where it is.

Recently, I heard an illustration that helped me understand this.

There’s a story about when the British colonized India and the English people were trying to establish a Golf Course.

The problem was that there was Monkey’s that surrounded the golf course and whenever a golfer would take a swing, and the ball would land in the fairway; a monkey would run out, grab the ball and move it or throw it to another monkey.

This was very frustrating.

They tried putting up fences, moving the monkey, they tried capturing the monkeys, and nothing worked.

They couldn’t solve the problem, and so they made a rule for the course that said – ‘from now on we play the ball wherever the Monkey drops it.’

How does this apply to your marriage?

Your marriage isn’t where you thought it would be or wanted it to be. You or your spouse hasn’t turned out as you expected.

You can fight against that, get bitter and resentful; you could leave and be done with it (as a lot of people choose).

Or…

You can play the ball where the monkey drops it.

Meaning, this is where your marriage is, so move forward from there.

Moving towards a healthy marriage starts with embracing the reality of your marriage and where it is.

Can it change? Yes.

Can it grow? Yes.

But until you accept the reality of where you are, you won’t know what to change or how best to move forward.