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Joshua Reich

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It’s Lonely at the Top

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In his book The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster: Why Now Is the Time to #Join the Ride, Darren Hardy says “The higher you climb, the lonelier it is and the more people dislike you.”

This idea is often debated in church circles. Should their be the guy at the top or a team? What about the plurality of leaders? Does one person make the final call? Is that healthy and good?

Does it have to be lonely at the top?

Does leadership have to be lonely at the top?

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The reality is that leadership is different than following. There are similarities and  you have to be a good follower to be a great leader.

There are some realities though that you have to keep in mind as you climb the ladder of any church or organization.

1. Someone has to make a decision. In every meeting, in every team, committee, church, business or family, someone has to make a decision. Once all the research is done and all the data is collected and every discussion has been had, someone has to say “yes, no or wait.” Somebody does. You might say, “but it is a team decision.” My question would then be, “if it fails, who gets fired?” The person who is accountable for something is the person who is leading. In football, they fire coaches. Many leaders try to not make a decision in hopes of saving themselves, but you have to decide.

Leadership often boils down to being the one who makes the decision.

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2. Leaders need to get better at letting people in. As leaders lament the loneliness of leadership and it can be lonely, the reality is that many leaders and pastors are bad at friendships. We are bad at letting people in. At the same time, when you make a decision, when you have to have the conversation about firing someone, it is lonely. When you get the scathing email about your sermon, it is lonely. When people talk about how your kids act or what your wife does or does not do, it can be lonely. Some of this loneliness is the nature of a role, but often is the fear of the leader that makes it lonely.

It is fear that makes leadership lonely.

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3. Leaders need other leaders as friends. As I said before, leaders and pastors are notorious for being poor at friendships. This is why it is crucial to the health of a leader and their spouse to have friends who are in the same position at another church or company. Lead pastors can relate to lead pastors. A student pastor doesn’t have the full picture of what that life is like. It is crucial to have friendships with people who walk in your shoes.

For your health, be friends with people who are in the same position at another church.

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4. Does everyone have to dislike you to be a good leader? The answer to this is yes and no. It is true that leaders often make people angry by changes they make, new things they start, old things they stop doing. Often, the reason leaders are disliked is that they are jerks instead of nice people. Often people will dislike a leader as a church grows because the relationship is different. People who were close to a leader and in meetings with them at the start of a church plant are no longer in the same meetings when it is hits 200. The game changed. At the same time, if no one is mad at you as a leader, you may have moved into maintaining mode and are no longer pushing into new ground. We like smooth sailing, but that means we have no wind and aren’t going anywhere.

4 ways to battle loneliness in leadership.

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The Most Important Leadership Skill in a Church

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What is the most important leadership skill in a church? For a pastor of students, kids, worship or a lead pastor to have?

Is it vision casting? Strategizing? Team building? Shepherding?

The choices you make in the recruiting process are, in effect, determining your future. -Darren Hardy

The most important leadership skill in any church is recruiting. Who you surround yourself with, who you put on a team, who you hire, who you make an elder. Nothing else matters or makes more of an impact on the life of your church than this.

You might wonder, isn’t it prayer? Prayer isn’t a leadership skill. Prayer is a Christian skill. Prayer and the Holy Spirit makes or breaks your ministry.

What I’m talking about are the things you as the leader can control and do.

Why does recruiting matter?

Who you place on a team, in roles will decide your success.

When you look at the culture of your church, the people make up the culture. You can’t decide what your culture will be. You can’t sit in a meeting and decide you will be a welcoming, prayer-filled, evangelistic culture. You have to find people with that and put them on your team.

A company consists of one thing, really. If I buy a plane from Boeing, it’ll be exactly the same plane that BA [British Airways] will buy, which will be exactly the same plane that United [Airlines] will buy, exactly the same plane that Air Canada will buy. So what is a company? A company is the people that are working inside that plane, the people that are working on the ground. They’re the people that make up a company. They either make this company exceptional or average. -Sir Richard Branson

The same is true for your church.

3 things keep churches from being great and they’re all about people.

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Three problems happen in many churches as it pertains to recruiting and hiring:

  1. Most churches see it as the lead pastors job and only the lead pastors job to recruit. From the stage.
  2. In hiring, many lead pastors give away too much because they’d rather not read resumes, sit in interviews or talk to references.
  3. Churches don’t think they can be great so they don’t hire great people.

Both ideas are rampant in churches and are why many churches are mediocre at best.

If you look at any growing, healthy effective church, do you know what you will find? Talented, hard working people who love Jesus. Somehow, they all ended up at the same church.

Coincidence?

Nope.

The answer to the first problem: recruiting is everybody’s job. Whenever I hear someone at Revolution say, “We need more people serving in ____, can you make an announcement from the stage? I know we have a problem. And that problem is not a lack of people.

Whenever the hope of recruiting is a stage announcement, there’s a problem.

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In fact, the best people to recruit are the people doing it. Not the person getting paid to do it.

There’s something that happens when someone who works with middle school students tells someone else, “I love the chance I get to influence the lives of students. Its my favorite hours of the week. Hey, why don’t you come with me next week and check it out?”

Recruiting in a church is everyone’s responsibility.

Recruiting in a church is everyone’s responsibility.

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The answer to the second problem: the lead pastor has to be more involved in hiring. 

In most churches, hiring is done by a committee that the lead pastor might be a part of, but often he has nothing to do with it. This is the biggest mistake churches make and accounts much of the mediocrity in churches.

If you are like me, hiring, reading resumes, doing phone interviews, in person interviews, talking to references, reading personality tests is that last thing you want to do. It is draining, un-exciting and yet the single determinant to what your church will be like. Three years ago we hired a staff member that I didn’t put a lot of effort into. I let others do that and it cost us in people, time, energy, my stress level and money. We lost momentum, families, excitement. This person was on our team for a little over a year and it took us close to 18 months to get back to the level of momentum and size that we were when we hired this person.

Can one person do that?

Yep.

According to Darren Hardy in The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster: Why Now Is the Time to #Join the Ride, a bad hire can cost a company or church six figures. Now, a church is not a business or all about the money, but if that’s true and I think it’s at least close, that’s incredibly poor stewardship. And that is a spiritual issue.

A bad hire is a spiritual issue because it’s poor stewardship.

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The third problem is one that many pastors don’t talk about in hushed tones. They would never say it on stage, but when pastors grab coffee together, they talk jealously about the big church down the road and the things they can do that they as a smaller church can’t do. And it all boils down to the people they have. While the jealous pastors would say they can’t hire or recruit great people. They can’t find talented musicians, great kids teachers, passionate student workers, off the charts community group leaders. They would say it is a matter of money, but it boils down to what the pastors think they can do. Most churches don’t think they can be great so they don’t hire great people.

Most churches don’t think they can be great so they don’t hire great people.

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Sadly, in many churches the leaders have succumbed to the myth that only large, cutting edge megachurches can get the best people and they are stuck in the 1990’s when it comes to technology and talent.

Not true.

How do you find and hire great people?

First, know what you are looking for. If you don’t, you will never find it. If you want someone great, pray for it, look for it, believe you can find that person and you can vision cast that person into your team. Most people make recruiting and hiring mistakes with staff and volunteer positions because they’ll take anybody. Often, this means you will wait to do things as a church because you don’t have the leader yet. That’s okay.

Second, look for talented people. If you are afraid of talented people (and many pastors are because they’re control freaks) then that’s a sin issue on your part. If you have to micro-manage someone, you didn’t find a talented leader, you found a lackey to do your bidding and you don’t want that.

Third, they have great character. You can’t teach character, what someone’s character is, is what it is. Yes, the Holy Spirit can change people, but don’t hire or recruit someone to a key role with that hope and prayer in mind. Character is not a given in a church interview process, don’t assume it.

The best way to check for character is to hire from within your church. When this happens, you know exactly what you are getting. What their marriage is like, how they treat people, their giving and generosity, if they fit, if you like them.

The last thing that matters and this comes best from people within your church, they love your city and your church. Not everyone loves your city or loves the people in your church. You want people who do. There are unique things that make up your city and church and it doesn’t fit everyone. That’s okay. I get nervous when I get the spam email of guys looking for a job anywhere God will send them. My question is, “Where do you feel like God has called you?” Most of the people in the Bible had a place God called them to, not a paycheck, but a people, a city, a place, a neighborhood. Are people looking for that when they send out 100 emails? Yes, but often and I can speak from experience when I was in my 20’s, they are often looking for someone else to the heart and calling work for them.

If God has called you to a city and a people, he will provide for you there.

If God has called you to a city and a people, he will provide for you there.

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The reality is great people find other great people and great people want to work with other great people. 

Once you find someone great, others follow along. It can be slow and sometimes feels like you are moving backwards or letting momentum slip through your fingers as you try to rebuild a team or restart a culture. But you as the lead hold the keys to building it.

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When Your Spouse Disappoints You

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People disappoint us on a daily basis.

You disappoint people.

For most people, we look past it, shrug and keep moving.

Something different happens though when it is our spouse.

What do you do when your spouse disappoints you?

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Maybe it is the high expectation we have of them, our hope that they won’t disappoint us, it might be because they are closer to us than anyone us that it hurts more or simply that we are jaded and hurt because of “all the disappointments.”

When it happens (and it will happen), you have some choices to make and the choices you make will have an enormous impact on your marriage, your kids and your view of your spouse.

Here are some things to keep in mind when your spouse disappoints you:

Here are 6 things to keep in mind when your spouse disappoints you.

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1. Protect your heart. It is easy when you are hurt or disappointed to become bitter and cold towards your spouse. If they’ve hurt you, cheated or made a poor decision that has led to financially hardship, it is easy to hold this over their head. Are you justified to be angry? Yes. Do you need to automatically trust them if they apologize? No. You don’t need to keep them at arms length (you may need to depending on what happened), but if you aren’t careful you will become bitter and resentful which makes reconciliation almost impossible. Protect your heart from this.

If you aren’t careful you will become bitter and resentful which makes reconciliation almost impossible.

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2. Look at your sin. When you are disappointed, it is easy to think it is 100% the fault of the other person. Very rarely is an issue in a marriage 100% the sin of one person. Both people have a part. Yes, one is more to blame than the other, but both made the issue happen or allowed the issue to keep going because of not having a hard conversation or looking at the issue. When you are disappointed, look at what you did to cause the issue.

3. Understand why you are disappointed. As you think about your disappointment, be sure to ask why you are disappointed. Often, our disappointments come from an unsaid expectation, how our spouse reminds us of a parent who hurt us, or an ex. This doesn’t mean we let our spouse off the hook, but until you identify why you are disappointed, you may be putting your spouse up against a standard they can never reach or judging them on something you never told them about.

The silent marriage killer: unsaid expectations.

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4. Is your expectation realistic? As you think about your fault in something and why you are disappointed, it is important to ask if you have communicated your expectations to your spouse and if they are realistic. Often, our anger, hurt and disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectations. The only people who can honestly answer if your expectation is realistic or if your disappointment is justified is you and your spouse. Your friends can’t. It’s just you two.

Often in marriage, our anger, hurt and disappointment comes from an unrealistic expectations.

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5. Be honest with your spouse. When someone vents to me about their spouse, my first question is, “have you told them this?” Almost always, the answer is no. Or, “they don’t listen.” Or, “they wouldn’t listen.” Until you’ve told your spouse honestly how you are feeling, you shouldn’t be spouting it to anyone else or all over Facebook. You don’t know what they’ll do with the information you’ll give them. You might be right and they’ll completely blow it off. They may surprise you. They may have no idea how they are hurting you or not showing you love. When I’ve asked Katie what she needs as our kids have gotten older, her answers have often surprised me. Very rarely what shows her love is what I thought would show her love. So tell them. Your spouse is not a mind reader, just tell them.

One thing that many couples struggle with is the wife wants to share about something and have her husband just listen. The husband wants to give her feedback and how to fix it. This often leaves couples frustrated. A few years ago a woman asked Katie what she does in this situation. Her response: “I tell Josh what I want before I tell him. I’ll say ‘I just need you to listen right now.’ Or ‘I want your help in figuring this out.'” This gives me a clear expectation of what she wants in this situation. I know, I know. That isn’t romantic or I should just know many women might say. But it avoids unnecessary hurt and fights.

Your spouse is not a mind reader, stop thinking they’ll “just get it.”

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6. Give your spouse a chance to respond & change. Once you’ve been honest with your spouse, give them a chance to make some changes. I often think a good rule of thumb when it comes to how many chances you give your spouse to change is how many you’d like to get if the roles were reversed. Again, this is the hard choice you’ll have to make, not your friends or Facebook.

At the end of it all, the most important thing to remember with this or any other issue in your marriage is to always fight for and pursue oneness. You will get hurt and disappointed, that’s one thing you signed up for in marriage or any relationship. The ones who survive are the ones who fight for oneness.

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Great Leaders Navigate Conflict & Personalities

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There are a lot of books and articles that talk about the difference between a leader and a follower. The same can be said for the difference between a mediocre, good and great leader.

Things like vision, strategy, recruiting, decision making are all things that make the list.

But I think there is a skill that sets certain leaders apart.

The ability to navigate personalities. 

Great leaders navigate personalities.

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For a pastor, the personalities they encounter in committee or staff meetings is just like a meeting at any company. You have people who are older, younger, want the church to reach more families, more singles, more empty nesters. There are people who have been in a number of churches, have only been to this church.

One of the dynamics I’ve seen in churches is that the passion level goes up because people give to the church; are married to someone who leads an area that needs more money, time or attention; or you encounter the person who started the ministry that you are talking about killing or cutting the budget of.

When trying to resolve conflict or working towards a decision, a great leader understands the dynamics in the room. Things like:

  1. What does each person hope to accomplish?
  2. What will each person try to get in the result: comfort, control, approval or power?
  3. Why are they advocating for something?
Struggling to navigate personalities & conflict at church?

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Let’s look at each one:

1. What does each person hope to accomplish? Each person, including the leader is trying to accomplish something in a conversation, conflict resolution or decision making process. Some times they are good things and some times they are selfish things. It is important to understand what they are. Once you know a person’s goal, you are able to either help get there or at least understand why they are advocating for something.

Great leaders navigate conflict.

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2. What will each person try to get in the result: comfort, control, approval or power? These are the four idol of the hearts that Tim Chester says we are all prone to have (usually one is dominant). This idol will pop its head up in conversations and cause people to either push for something too quickly, make people fearful and hesitant or cause people to be compliant to avoid more conflict.

3. Why are they advocating for something? What happens in many churches is that people in a decision making meeting see themselves not as leaders but as advocates. That is not leadership. No one in a meeting should be advocating for kids ministry, student ministry, women’s ministry, traditional worship or anything else. The moment you notice advocates, you need to coach them to understand their role or remove them. This often happens in a budget meeting. Once you know why someone is advocating for something, you are able to navigate through the conversation.

Leaders are not advocates.

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Your Marriage Matters More than You Think

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It is easy to read a book on marriage, teach a class, preach a sermon series on marriage. Chide the men, challenge the women and then go home and be in a miserable or at best, mediocre marriage.

In fact, lots of pastors do this.

Every time I teach on marriage at a pastor’s conference I’ll talk with countless leaders who confess their marriage isn’t working and don’t know what to do about it. They struggle in silence because, “how can a pastor admit weakness in marriage? How can a pastor struggle? If I get divorced I’ll lose my job.”

This is so sad to me.

I was asked after posting this why I care so much about marriages.

The reason is simple: you spend a lot of time in your marriage, the impact of your marriage is felt for generations (ask a child of divorced parents how it has affected their adult lives), and it is a picture of the gospel (Ephesians 5). A lot is riding on it.

Right before we got married, my mentor who did our wedding pulled me aside one day after class and told me something that has stuck with me:

The longer you pastor a church the more the marriages in that church will begin to look like yours. So, if you look around and see divorces, infidelity, miserable couples, you only have to look in the mirror to figure out why. But, if you pour time, energy and effort into your marriage, you will see the benefits in the people who attend your church.

Pastor, the marriages in your church will resemble yours.

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There is no man nor church in the world that can come to God in prayer, but by assistance of the Holy Spirit . . . If men did see their sins, yet without the help of the Spirit they would not pray . . . There is nothing but the Spirit that can lift up the soul or heart to God in prayer . . . The soul that rightly prays, it must be in and with the help and strength of the Spirit; because it is impossible that a man should express himself in prayer without it. He explains, O how great a task it is, for a poor soul that becomes sensible of sin and the wrath of God, to say in faith but this one word, “Father!” . . . O! says he, I dare not call him Father; and hence it is that the Spirit must be sent into the hearts of God’s people for this very thing, to cry Abba, Father: it being too great a work for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it.

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John Bunyan
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7 Leadership Lessons from Extreme Adventurers

What can leaders learn from athletes and adventurers that push themselves to the limit and beyond? Who climb the highest peaks on the planet and ski to the furthest reaches of the globe?

A lot.

Enter Alison Levine and her book On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership.

Here are a few things I think pastors can learn from extreme adventurers:

1. Waiting on the fixed lines for too long can be dangerous and can jeopardize a summit bid. While climbing, you can run into traffic jams of other climbers and get stuck. Frostbite, loss of oxygen, tiredness, running out of food and water while you wait. All of these things can be a disaster while waiting. Churches often find themselves waiting to make a decision and miss an opportunity. Too many committees, teams, voices, people who need to say “yes” can all lead to a missed opportunity. While maybe not physical death like on Everest, it can lead to the death of your church.

Waiting in a church can kill your church. Be ready to make a decision.

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2. People often forget that the top is only the halfway point. The majority of deaths on big peaks occur after people have reached the summit, because they have used every ounce of energy they have to get to the top and have nothing left to get themselves back down. It is easy for churches and leaders to run hard through a season (say Christmas, Easter or the fall kick-0ff) and then immediately roll into the next season without catching their breath. You need to make sure you either break, slow down or leave something in the tank for the next season. It was mind blowing to me when I read this part of the book, that more people die on the way down because they pour everything into getting there.

3. A great fallacy regarding progress is that it is defined by constant forward motion in the same direction. We assume that any steps in the opposite direction take us further from our goal. Not true, sometimes we have to go backward in order to make progress. Leaders can get impatient and want to push through when their followers, churches or cultures are not ready to move forward. Sometimes, what seems like a waste of time or slowing down can actually be a good thing.

Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward.

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4. On the subject of recruiting talent: “Screen for aptitude, then hire for attitude.” Churches are horrible when it comes to hiring. The turnover of pastors is astounding, volunteers quit and burnout, people serve in the wrong roles. People take jobs at churches they don’t like, working for pastors they can’t stand. Building teams is something many pastors can do better at, because the team determines where the church ends up.

5. Leaders should never expect the people on their teams to take any risks that they would not be willing to take themselves. This is a basic leadership principle, but one that many forget. Leaders set the pace. They set what is okay, what is acceptable and what is not. Leaders should not have different rules. While there are some benefits and things that come with seniority, being the boss as opposed to being an intern, everyone pulls the weight.

6. People are more willing to risk their lives and well-being for people they know. Pastors struggle with friendships and building strong teams, but your effectiveness as a leader will come from how well you do both of these things. As a leader, your best friends don’t have to be the staff you work with, but you should spend time with them. You should know them and they should know you.

People are more willing to risk their lives and well-being for people they know.

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7. Landscapes can change in an instant. In extreme adventures like climbing Mt. Everest, this is incredibly true. The same is true for a church. A culture can change, you can get thrown out of the place you meet in, you can lose a number of members, the economy can tank and giving goes down. You can lose a staff member on short notice and in an instant, everything is different. While you don’t need solutions for every worst case scenario, you do need to be prepared for things changing without notice.

For more from her adventures, check out Alison’s Ted Talk below.

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Lies we Believe About Marriage

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Marriages are strong and marriages need work for all kinds of reasons. Sadly, few marriages got the distance and even fewer are happy. A lot of that has to do with expectations of marriage (before and during) but many of the issues in marriage stem from lies we believe about marriage.

7 lies people believe about marriage.

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Lie #1: My spouse will complete me. This is one we are fed from the time we start to notice the opposite sex. It is in movies, books, articles and deep down, we hope that we will find someone that will meet all our needs, be everything we want, but the reality is, no one can do that. It is not possible for someone to meet all your emotional, spiritual, and relational needs. There will always be a gap and this is why our spouse’s inability to meet all our needs points us to Jesus. On the flip side of this, we can’t meet our spouse’s every need, so we can’t save our spouse (as many try to). We can’t change them, we can encourage them, but we can’t make them do something, although many try.

A common lie about marriage many believe is their spouse will complete them.

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Lie #2: My happiness is my top priority. From our earliest age, many people are taught that they can win at everything, do whatever they want, get a trophy for showing up, so life becomes about my happiness and what I can get. This isn’t reality. This becomes a litmus test for how we feel about our marriage. In fact, the moment that we are unhappy we assume something is wrong. Something might be wrong but you might also be married. Marriage doesn’t always bring happiness but it does bring joy, which is very different but more important because joy is long lasting and not fleeting.

Being unhappy might not mean something wrong in your marriage, you might just be married.

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Lie #3: There is only one right person for me to marry. This is born in fairy tales that somehow there is one person on the planet for you to marry and if you marry the wrong person the entire axis of the universe will be thrown off. Few people say this, but many people subtlety believe it before and after they get married. They put enormous pressure on “finding God’s perfect person for them” that they are paralyzed from experiencing community and relationships. After they get married, couples struggle when hard times hit and they wonder if they married the wrong person. First off, how arrogant do you have to be to think you could marry the wrong person and start a cosmic destruction? This also gets into figuring out God’s will (which is another post but I think we put too much pressure “God’s perfect will” for our lives). Let me say, there are so many things you can do for God that instead of sitting around wondering if it is God’s perfect will, you should just start doing something.

Instead of wondering if it is God’s perfect will, you should just start doing something.

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Lie #4: What I do on my own time won’t affect my marriage. This gets at the selfishness many people feel in their lives. The idea that once you get married, you still stay a single person, you just happened to be married now. This is why many couples keep separate bank accounts, their own calendars and “do their own thing.” The reality around separate bank accounts is that you are always keeping one foot out the door, not letting go of some trust issue in your past. And, if you don’t trust your spouse to share a bank account, there is a deeper issue that needs work, the bank account isn’t the issue. The reality is, how you spend your time, money, how you think about yourself, whether you protect yourself to stay pure in your marriage has an enormous impact on your marriage.

Everything you do affects your marriage. For good or bad.

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Lie #5: A great marriage doesn’t take work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this after a sermon or counseling a couple and every time it is heart breaking. Often, we look at couples who are happy, handling the ups and downs of life well and wonder how they did it. Like seeing the success of Steve Jobs without any of the struggles. Idealizing marriage can be like that. It takes work. It is hard. In fact, I would say there is not a great marriage on the planet that was not filled with seasons of difficulties.

All great marriages have experienced difficult seasons.

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Lie #6: My past has no impact on my marriage. This is one I encounter a lot in premarital counseling. The thinking that your past relationships, porn addiction in college, the father issues you have not dealt with yet, the divorce your parents went through or you went through; that those things will have no bearing or minimal impact on your present and future marriage. Not true. All those things have an enormous impact on how you see yourself and your spouse. If you are a woman and all your life men have broken promises and used you, that is exactly what you will expect your husband to do. If you grow up and are abused and see sex as something dirty or something that is a way to live out selfishness instead of a place to give and serve your spouse, that will have an enormous impact. Lastly, most of what people do in a marriage is either a reaction against what their parents did or what they saw their parents do. It is what we know, so until we see that, see it for what it is, evaluate if that is healthy and then deal with it, we will continue the cycle of the past.

Most people in marriage react against what their parents did.

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Most people in marriage mindlessly do what their parents did because that’s what they know.

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Lie #7: You can’t choose who you love. Typically when someone tells me this lie they have already sinned or are about to. It is often used to excuse why they are getting divorced or committing adultery. Yet, when we take this lie to its fullest extent, we would never want someone to love us this way. We wouldn’t want our spouse, kids or Jesus to show us love only when they feel like it. Yet, for many couples this is how they live their married life. The reality, the truth is that many days you will wake up in marriage and have to choose to love your spouse because they will not be lovely, they will not be easy to love, there will be a big piece of you that does not want to love them because you want to be selfish, you want them to stop doing something or at the very least, you want life to be easier. But love is a choice followed by an emotion.

Love is a choice followed by an emotion, an act of the will.

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While there are many more, these are just a few I’ve encountered that bring a lot of hurt and damage.

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One Way You Rob Your Marriage of Intimacy

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Have you ever noticed that it is sometimes easier to be more open about your marriage or an area of your life with someone other than your spouse? Sometimes it is easier to vent about something on Facebook, to a friend or co-worker than to your spouse.

Pastors do this too.

One of the things people love in a sermon is when a pastor is open. When they talk about their life. When they share about their struggles, what they are learning, how God is moving in their life.

Some pastors struggle with this. How much to share, when to share, what to share.

Many pastors love doing this though.

Why?

Because people will talk about it afterward. People like to talk about themselves, even if it is a struggle or past hurt. We like the spotlight on ourselves.

Pastors are no different in this struggle.

Here is where many pastors then rob their marriages.

I don’t think this happens intentionally.

Pastors can be more open in their sermons than in their marriages.

Pastors can be more open in their sermons than in their marriages.

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I remember after one sermon I was really on. Everything went great that day. Afterward Katie said to me, “I never knew any of that stuff.”

She was right. I was more open in a sermon than with her.

It’s easy to do and many wives know the feeling of sitting in church and hearing their husband share something for the first time and thinking, “I wish he told me that before.” Not because they are embarrassed, but because they want to be close to their husband. They want the vulnerability in their marriage that he is showing on stage in a sermon.

You should be more vulnerable in your marriage than in a sermon.

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Back to you if you aren’t a pastor.

Are you more open online or with a friend than with your spouse? Do you share more things in a small group than you do with your spouse? If you do, you are robbing your marriage. You are keeping your marriage from having depth. 

As the quote says above, vulnerability takes courage. Whether on a stage or one-on-one, but I believe it takes more courage in a marriage than a sermon or online or with a friend.

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I See You Tried

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In marriage it is easy to focus on the negative things your spouse does. They didn’t pick up their clothes, they don’t pursue you, they don’t cook the food you like, the whine or complain “about everything.” The list goes on and on. Yet, celebrating when your spouse tries is a secret to a strong marriage.

Think about the last time your spouse put forth effort. Did they clean up the kitchen? Put their clothes or tools away? Did they take a shower and look nice for you? Did they bring home a gift? Pick up groceries without being asked?

What did your spouse do that you can celebrate?

Instead of saying, “Why didn’t you do ___?”

You could say, “Thanks for trying, for putting for effort.”

Celebrate when your spouse puts forth effort.

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Could they do more?

Yes.

But chances are they won’t if you don’t celebrate what they are doing.

Your attitude and reaction to your spouse has nothing to do with your spouse and everything to do with you.

You choose your reaction to your spouse, your spouse has no control over your reaction.

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I know, what they did determines your reaction. You can overlook something. You can be disappointed with something. You can cheer something on.

It is your choice.

I remember when we first started doing regular date nights. I was not good at planning them. The romantic in every guy seems to go out the window the moment they get married. Yet, Katie cheered on my effort. I even remember her saying once, “I see you tried. Thanks.” She wasn’t be sarcastic, but she was noticing the effort I put in to pursue her.

What did your spouse do today that you can celebrate instead of pointing out fault? Did they do it exactly how you wanted it done? Maybe not, but they did try. 

Celebrate that.

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