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Josh Reich

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7 Keys to Preaching to a Camera

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If you are a pastor like me, you have spent your whole ministry preaching to a room of people. You feel their energy (or lack thereof), you can read body language to know if they are engaged, you know if you are going too long, if you are connecting or not and then covid hit.

And now, you preach to a camera in an empty room.

What was a relational part of your ministry now feels like a disconnect. You wonder, who is on the other side of that camera, how engaged is your church as they sit in their pajamas, am I connecting with them, are they following along.

While this is a new challenge for a lot of pastors, it is not a death blow. It is a pivot but one you can still utilize to reach people.

Here are 7 keys to preaching to a camera in an empty room:

1. Be prepared. This isn’t just a covid preaching tip but a preaching tip in general, but I think it matters even more, when people are sitting at home and can change the channel. In the digital world, your preparation has to go up. When you preach to people in a room, there is a give and take to the preaching, you can improvise a little bit easier, and it plays well. When you stand in an empty room, there is no feedback to know how that landed with the audience. Because as we’ll see in a minute, eye contact becomes even more critical, you can’t be tied to your notes, but you must know the content so well that you can keep your eye contact as much as possible. This means you must prepare more. As well, you must be shorter than usual, which means more focused preparation.

2. Be clear. As you focus your preparation, you must focus your message. I’ve always been a big believer in a message having one main idea, one point you are trying to drive home, one clear action step. This matters even more now because people are sitting at home and have more distractions than their attention spans or their phones. They have their children, the coffee maker, their computer, etc. Clarity becomes even more of a big deal when you are preaching in a digital world.

3. Go shorter than usual. I used to preach for 35 minutes, but now we are doing 20-25 minutes. I think this is important because what I’m hearing from pastors is that engagement goes down after an hour. Meaning, more people click off your service at the 60-minute mark.

4. Picture people. One of the things I try to do is picture the people I am talking to, the stories I am aware of, the things I know people in my church are walking through. Even imagining what they are doing that moment helps me to speak to what they are doing and walking through. I know some pastors have put pictures of their church in the auditorium, so if that helps you picture them, do it.

5. Eye contact matters (a lot). Even more, than being in a room, eye contact matters. Looking right into the camera matters, especially when you are saying your main point, something difficult or something pastoral. And pastors, the moment you think you are staring at the camera too much, you aren’t. You need to look right at them. This feels so weird, but it is incredibly crucial.

6. Your body movement matter. On a screen, you need to exaggerate in some ways. You are trying to live in a room you aren’t in. It isn’t that you are an actor, but I think it helps to feel this way. It helps to move in some ways that maybe you won’t with people in the room.

7. Be you. Finally, be you. You are their pastor. They aren’t watching some national TV preachers when they watch you; they are watching you. So be you. If you stand behind a pulpit, do that. If you sit, do that. If you get all excited, do that. Simply be their pastor. What has been amazing to me is watching so many pastors in this season and seeing how differently everyone preaches. What a beautiful picture of the church that it takes all kinds, and God placed you at your church, so be you.

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The Gift Leaders Give to Their Teams

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I’ve worked as a lead pastor, church planter, campus pastor, and student pastor. I’ve sat on both sides of the leadership world, and what’s interesting is what people long for.

When you work for someone, you want many things, but one thing above all begins to rise to the top. When you attend a church, you want many things from its leaders, but one thing rises to the top.

This current world of covid, our political climate, the tensions around systemic racism has only heightened this desire from people.

What is it?

Clarity.

Clarity is one of the greatest gifts you can give your church.

Pastor, clarity is one of the greatest gifts you can give your church.

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The people who attend your church, the volunteers, the staff on your team, they want to know where they are going. They want to know where you are taking them. They want to see what you believe and why you believe it. When someone follows someone, they are putting their future hopes on the line with that person.

Why would that matter so much?

Clarity says this is where we are going. This is what is essential now. This is right; that is wrong. It helps everyone to know what they should or should not spend their time on, what the church should spend its money and resources on.

Years and years ago, Howard Hendricks said, “If it’s a mist in the pulpit, it’s a fog in the pew.”

If it’s a mist in the pulpit, it’s a fog in the pew. -Howard Hendricks

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That isn’t just about preaching, but so much more.

If a sermon isn’t clear, no one will get what you are talking about. If you don’t have a clear main point, application steps, people will feel lost.

But right now, it has become even more important for churches and leaders to be clear.

Are you having in-person worship gatherings? Why or why not? How long will you wait? What will make you return to in-person worship gatherings?

The reason this matters is it tells your teams what they should be working on. It also gives everyone a measuring stick that moves them out of their political opinions.

For example, many churches came out in March when they stopped meeting in person to say, “We aren’t doing any camps this summer.” That’s clear. It tells your church what you are focusing on. It shows your staff what they should or should not work on. Did those churches get angry emails? Yes. But they were clear.

Recently, Andy Stanley said that North Point wouldn’t have in-person worship gatherings until 2021. Right? Who knows. Clear? Yes.

One of the most deflating things that can happen on a team is for the leader to change the win mid-stream. It makes the team wonder, why did we work so hard if we aren’t going to go there? It also makes it difficult to know whether or not to throw everything behind a leader the next time he or she says, “This is the hill we’re climbing.” If your team has felt a lack of clarity in the past, they will wonder how much effort to give the next time you say something.

If your team has felt a lack of clarity in the past, they will wonder how much effort to give the next time you say something.

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What keeps leaders from clarity?

For some, it is fear. It is easier to hedge your bets, wait to take a stand. But while you wait, you also miss opportunities. You also run the risk of your team, wasting effort on things that will never happen.

One thing that sneaks up on leaders is when it is clear to them, but no one else. Leaders must continuously ask their teams, “Is this clear?” That becomes monotonous to a leader, so they often don’t do it. They settle for the thinking, “Because it is clear in my head, it is clear to everyone,” and this is an invisible killer for leaders.

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1 Leadership Lesson I Wish I Learned Sooner

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Recently, I was talking to a brand new church planter. He was excited, anticipating what lay ahead for him.

He asked me, “What is one thing you know now that you wished you would’ve known when you first planted a church?”

I had to think. There are lots of things I wish I would’ve known. I wish I would’ve taken to heart rhythms and pace personally. That I would’ve poured more into my soul than leadership insight, that I would’ve put more emphasis on individual conversations instead of big numbers.

After a minute, I said, “I wish I would’ve understood that when it looks like nothing is happening, that something is happening.”

I grew up in a farming community, and farmers understand that there are seasons to their planting and crops. There is a season of clearing away branches, dirt, and weeds. There is a season of prepping the soil. There is a season of planting, watering, fertilizing. There is a season of harvesting the crops and selling those crops, enjoying the harvest.

Then there is a season where the dirt sits.

I didn’t understand or appreciate the season where the dirt sits. I pushed and pushed so that ministry was a constant pursuit of up and to the right.

This is true in the church, church planting, leadership, and relationships.

There is a season in a marriage where you are digging in, working on emotional health, navigating your family of origin stories, and trying to move forward. This is uncomfortable work, but necessary for a marriage to fully bloom.

In leadership, you must spend seasons working on your character, who you are, and who you are becoming so that when you get there, you have the integrity to sustain the work.

In a team, you must spend the seasons growing together, learning how to work together so that you can work together when the storms hit your group and organization.

We all love the planting season, the growing season, the watching new things take off, but for those to happen, we must have the seasons where the dirt rests. You, as a leader, must have the seasons where you rest, so you are prepared for the hard seasons ahead.

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1 Thing Every Leader Needs to Remember

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Every leader knows that they are the chief visionary of their team, church, or organization. Vision is one of the things that energizes leaders the most. We love to think about vision and strategy. We love to dream of the future, the things that don’t exist yet. We can see them, and we can’t wait to bring others along.

But there is a flip side to this coin.

We move on to the next thing quickly.

What starts as a vision series at a church, ends up becoming a few pictures on the wall. What starts as a building campaign, slowly gives way to programs. Eventually, a church looks up and can’t remember why they began that program or ministry. They can’t tell you why they do what they do on Wednesday night. No one can remember why they started that camp or that outreach program, they just do it.

Most leaders think, if it is clear to me, it is clear to everyone. If I know why we do something, then everyone knows why we do something.

Most leaders think, if it is clear to me, it is clear to everyone.

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The reality though, tells us this is not true.

I remember sitting with a group of leaders from a church, and we were talking about why they did what they did, what their vision was. In that conversation, no one once recounted the mission of the church. The statement that “their whole ministry was built on.” Instead, they talked about how they did things, what they did each week.

It wasn’t that they forgot why it just didn’t matter as much as how or what.

Here is what leaders can’t forget: The moment that you think everyone knows the vision or why is the moment you need to share it again. 

The moment that you think everyone knows the vision or why is the moment you need to share it again.

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I know what you are thinking. You are tired of talking about it. It is ingrained in your head, so surely it is ingrained in their head. And besides, not only do you do a vision series every year, but it is plastered on the wall, with pictures and catchy slogans and verses!

Amid ministry and life, it is easy to forget. While planning new programs and recruiting and training volunteers, we get focused on what we are doing and how it needs to be done. This is hard for the leader who didn’t think of the vision or wasn’t there when it was created. Yes, they signed up for the vision, but you need to help them know it and care about it as much as you do.

You do this through stories, showing how this person’s life change or this opportunity for your church connects to the vision. Pastors need to continually say, “Because we are about ______, we are doing _______.”

Pastors need to continually say, “Because we are about ______, we are doing _______.”

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This becomes especially important as a church grows or as it hits a crisis like we did this year.

As a church grows, new ministries get started, and slowly the pastor who was involved in many decisions is no longer in those meetings, so the clarity of vision becomes even more critical because it is being multiplied. Do your staff members have the vision embedded in them so that it influences their decisions?

Here’s a simple way to know: Do you and your teams use your vision to evaluate anything? Often, when we talk about an event or a church service, we talk about the number of people who showed up or how we felt about it, etc. But your vision is where you should start. Did we accomplish it? Did this event or service help us to move that forward? To accomplish why we exist?

Do you and your teams use your vision to evaluate anything?

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Too many churches miss what is right in front of them when it comes to their vision. It not only helps you to make decisions, but it helps you to know if you are accomplishing things and are on the right track.

This is why this is the one thing every leader needs to remember and remind themselves and their teams.

The power of vision.

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How to Enjoy Summer in the Midst of Covid

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If you’re like me, you are rolling into the summer of 2020 tired, maybe exhausted. You have spent the last several months doing church online, preaching to an empty room, navigating the politics of covid with your people, shepherding your church to think about race in America. You have been homeschooling, quarantined, and just had your life changed in ways you didn’t even imagine in January.

There’s also a chance that your summer plans have changed. The place you were planning to go to, that trip you had booked, has been altered or canceled. I know the place we usually go to in California is closed. So traditions in the Reich house will be different this summer.

So, how do you enjoy the summer then?

I think everyone needs to plan their time off as much as their time on. Even in covid, you can still do this and to come back and roll into a ministry year in fall (who knows what that will look like), you need to rest.

To do that, you must identify what will help you to rest and if you can pull that off. For me, resting involves not creating. That’s not creating sermons, blogs, podcasts, not reading books for sermons or leadership books, but merely resting my brain. This is hard because this is what I do each day, but to rest, I need to. I need to read books that nourish my soul, books that are fun and take my mind off of work. One of the things I do most summers is read through sermons by people like Eugene Peterson. These have a way of refreshing me and reading novels or historical books that take me to a different place. If you’re a leader or creator, you need to give your brain a break.

What pastors need to do to rest in the summer.

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As you are thinking about your time off, what is refreshing and recharging for you and your family, think through relationships as well. Who do you need to spend time with? Who will help you to feel refreshed and not drained? Because we have been so starved for face to face relationships over these last few months, this is crucial. And yes, because of covid, you need to be wise about this. But plan a time to be with people who will lift you.

What leaders need to do to rest in the summer.

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Many leaders, though, are not spontaneous. If that’s you (and that’s me), plan some last-minute spontaneous things. Do some adventures at night with your kids: watch a movie out back, get some late-night ice cream.

While this summer will look different than any other summer, you’ve experienced. I mean, when was the last summer you lived in a pandemic? You can still enjoy summer. You can still make it great, but it will take some planning.

How to enjoy summer in a pandemic.

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Finding Someone to Walk with You as a Pastor

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If you are a pastor, you need some kind of accountability. You know it. You also need friends, people who care for you, shepherd you and walk with you and your wife. This is becoming even more and more obvious as pastors fall out of ministry, burnout, or also take their own lives. It is all tragic.

As pastors, we stand up and talk about the need that people have for community and accountability. The problem is that it can be challenging for a pastor to find community and accountability. Who can they turn to? Who can they trust? Some of this comes from the culture of a church but also your own experience as a pastor. On a deeper level, it shows up in your family of origin.

For pastors, the people who are most eager to be your friend or your accountability partner are usually the last people you want to fill those roles. They typically have agendas or are expecting things you won’t be able to deliver.

Here is the rub for a pastor. Men can vent about their bosses or someone at work. But, if a pastor opens up in their small group  and says, “I’m frustrated at work right now.” Or he says that to an accountability partner, the game has changed. Who is the pastor talking about? Are there sides to take? Who got on the wrong side of this leader?

The same goes for a pastor when they need accountability for purity, integrity, want to talk about their marriage, their kids, or their struggles. Not just anybody can fit this role.

Here are a few things to look for in an accountability partner or someone to walk with you as a pastor:

Someone you trust. If you can’t trust your accountability partner or friend, you are off to a bad start. You won’t be honest, and the relationship won’t bring about the goals it sets forth. You have to trust the person completely. This is why many pastors don’t have an accountability partner or close friends.

Someone who understands your role. Being a pastor is different than being a doctor or a landscaper. The person who walks with you through life or holds you accountable has to know this. They have to understand the spiritual and emotional side of ministry. All work is hard work. Ministry work is just different hard work. Not harder, just different. The people closest to us have to understand this.

Someone who loves you. They must love you as a person and want what is best for you. This doesn’t mean telling you what you want to hear, but it does mean wishing to see you succeed and become the person God created you to be. Loving you means saying hard things to you sometimes.

Someone who isn’t begging for it. If someone is begging for this role in your life, it is usually not a good idea. When people want to get close to a pastor or his wife, there is typically an agenda you want to avoid at all costs. Not always, but you need to have wisdom in this.

Someone who is a big fan of yours, but not too big. They must cheer for you, but can’t be over the top. All of us need cheerleaders in our lives, and pastors are no different—people who celebrate when you celebrate, who get excited when you get excited.

Someone who might not attend your church. They might be outside of your church. At the very least, you should have another pastor, you can vent to and get advice about things you can’t get from someone who attends your church. If you want to share frustrations about your church and something you are walking through, it is often best to have a person who is outside of your church.

Someone you are not married to. Your sole accountability partner should not be your wife. Period. You should be open and honest with your wife, keeping no secrets, but someone else should hold you accountable. Too many men, of all jobs, their only friend as they get older is their wife, and that places too much of a burden on her and creates loneliness for you.

The last idea, some of the best people I have found for this in my life, have been other pastors. They know what you walk through, the challenges you face, and the hurts you carry. They have a unique perspective that can be helpful. They know what your wife and kids experience and how to pray and encourage you and them.

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God is Close (Psalm 23)

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When you think of God, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

For many of us, God is someone that is off in the distance. Watching life unfold, He may be involved here and there, but we often have this picture of an absent parent. Either physically or emotionally absent. We wonder if He is involved in our lives, how involved is He?

Another way to think about this, how do you experience God?

Some experience God as accepting of every decision we make, merely cheering us on in life, or maybe we experience Him as judgmental and filled with wrath. Ready to strike us dead if we drop the ball one more time.

According to A.W. Tozer, “What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.”

What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. -A.W. Tozer

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Why would that be so important? 

The reality is, what we think about God determines how we pray to God, how we live our lives, and, more importantly, it determines what our relationship with God is like. 

For example, if you believe that God gives good gifts and is generous, or if you think God is holding out on you, that determines what you pray for. 

If we’re honest, whether you have a church background or not, most of us see God as distant.

Especially in this current moment.

But how close is God? The answer can be found in Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

In this culture, 2500 years ago, a shepherd was so much more than that. A shepherd could also be a king. David was a shepherd, and a king is telling us who God is and what God is like that you and I are under the rule of God as king, but also in the care of God as a shepherd.

you and I are under the rule of God as king, but also in the care of God as a shepherd.

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A king and shepherd take care of their people, their flock. A shepherd would sleep at the opening of the gate when the sheep slept to keep them safe. They make sure they are at peace, at rest, have what they need. David is telling us, this is what God is like. This is who He is.

Because God is close, we are never alone.

Because God is close, we are never alone.

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What do we have because God is close?

Everything we need. We lack nothing. Because God is my shepherd king, because God is close, I have everything I need. One of our struggles, at least mine, and maybe you can relate, I may have everything I need, but what about what I want? Because God is close, he knows what we need. And because He is a good king, a good shepherd, if he withholds from us, that’s because he knows what is best for us. 

What does God do?

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

God leads me. God leads us. God is in front, guiding our steps, protecting us, seeing what is ahead, what dangers and good things lie ahead. And he leads me to rest, to refreshment. 

I don’t know about you, but right now, this image in verse 2 is something my soul longs for. Green pastures, quiet waters, refreshing. 

These last few months have been hard on all of us, and in the presence of  God, we are made new, we are recharged. 

Green pastures and water are what sheep need to live, to keep going. 

Do you know one of our most significant needs and also our biggest struggle? Rest. Stopping. Slowing down. This is why you get sick the first few days of vacation because you sprint into it. 

David says, because God is close, we can rest. 

Because God is close, we can rest.

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Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap. To stop. 

Because God is our good king and shepherd, we can stop pushing, stop pushing our kids, stop pushing our agendas, stop comparing ourselves to others. To just rest. 

But he leads us to plenty of food, green pastures. 

The funny thing is how much we are like sheep.

Sheep do not naturally lie down and rest. They are easily scared animals, easily stressed out, they run, freak out, worry, are anxious, and they are crowd followers. If one sheep goes into the water or walks off the cliff, so do the rest of the sheep. 

Now, think about this last season of covid: have you been scared? Stressed out? Have you run from anything or anyone? Freak out? Worry? Anxious? 

I have!

I need Psalm 23; I need this hope that I have a good king and shepherd who leads me and protects me and knows what I need and guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

What does God do when life is the darkest?

Look at verse 4: Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

There is a phrase that is easy to overlook. That we walk through the darkest valley. There is an end to the valley. There is an end to the darkness.

And we can have that confidence because God is close, we are never alone.

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Friday Five

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As churches are beginning to resume physical services, it feels like a lot of things are changing and changing quickly. If you’re a leader, you might be feeling the pressure of this and beginning to feel tired of this last season but also physically and emotionally exhausted. If that’s you, below are some posts that I hope will be helpful to you.

Here are my favorite podcasts, books and blogs in our Friday Five:

Favorite books:

Katie and I are doing a zoom book club on Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs with the author Steve Cuss. I read the book last year, so it has been helpful to re-read it and interact with Steve Cuss and others on it. If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to read it, especially in this season where anxiety is on the rise. 

Favorite podcasts:

Speaking of Steve Cuss, he did a great interview with Carey Nieuwhof on seeing the signs of stress and managing anxiety.

Favorite blog posts:

Chuck DeGroat has a great guest post from Robert Stewart on Seeking to Understand the Rise, Fall, and Loss of Young Pastors. This is a sobering post for sure.

At this point, there’s a good chance that you are getting tired of doing online church or even attending an online church. It is hard. But Carey Nieuwhof had two posts that I think are incredibly helpful and honestly, straight fire for leaders: 5 reasons your online numbers are suddenly dropping and 8 ways to lead the new digital church.

2 posts that are straight fire from @cnieuwhof.

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As a bonus, here’s a video that will hopefully bring you a laugh.

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Why Love is So Important in Relationships [Especially in Quarantine]

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Katie and I recently did a message on 1 Corinthians 13 in our series Fully Charged. 

It is one of the most well-known passages in the bible. It’s read at most weddings, but what is it telling us? On the one hand, it is about relationships with other people. What it looks like to relate, to have a healthy marriage, friendship, or family. It also shows us what God’s love for us is like towards us. We see a picture of a Father in heaven who loves us in a way that is hard to fathom. But it is also about what spiritual maturity looks like for the follower of Jesus. In the context, Paul says we could have all kinds of gifts, but if we don’t have love, what do we have?

I think this passage is especially important in the world we live in, where we are sheltering in place, spending more time with our family, and missing some of the community that we have built.

Dave Willis said, “We are facing a defining time for marriages. No couple will emerge from this the same as they were before. You’ll either emerge from this crisis stronger by leaning on each other or weaker by fighting with each other.” and I think that’s true. 

So what does it look like to have a healthy relationship in quarantine? Paul lists out what love is and is not.

We’ve already seen that love is patient and kind, and that love does not envy, boast, it is not prideful, dishonoring of others or self-seeking, and how anger and being historical show up in relationships.

But how does it show up in relationships, and why is it so important? Especially in quarantine.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, we’re told what love does, and I think, what makes love so powerful in our lives:

Love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails. 

Love protects. We often think of protecting in love as someone standing up for someone or keeping harm from happening, and it is that. It is also protecting your heart, your mind, your desires for love. 

Do you protect your calendar for your most important relationships?

Do you protect your eyes, mind, and keep up the fight against lust so that you can experience all that love has to offer?

Do you face the pain and scars you carry so that they don’t wreak havoc on your most important relationships?

Protection is so much bigger than what we make it out to be, and the reason that many of us don’t face our past is that it is painful.

Love trusts. Many of us struggle to trust, and so we miss love. 

We struggle to be vulnerable, to share all of who we are. 

I know I do. I like to keep things to myself, I’m afraid of being laughed at or sounding silly, and so I hold back. When I do, I miss out on love. I miss out on sharing love and receiving love. 

Love trusts. Love opens itself up. Love is willing to share stories, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. That doesn’t mean you share everything with everyone, but love means that you share it with someone, and that might be one of the hardest parts of love. 

Love hopes. Hope is a picture of the future, what could be, what this relationship could become. 

And that hope guides my actions, my reactions, my words, and feelings towards the other person. 

One of the things that a married couple must continue to build into and fight for is hope for the future of your relationship and family. It is easy to look at another relationship and see what you don’t have or where you aren’t yet. But don’t lose hope. It is so easy to do that.

Love perseveres and never fails. Love doesn’t quit. Love walks in when everyone walks out. 

Many times, we give up on people or relationships before we should. Often, this has to do with ease or letting go of stressful situations, but love requires us to dig in and persevere.

It is easy to look at the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 and think, I have no hope for love! Because it is a lot, it is a high bar. But also have a deep longing to experience this kind of love. 

These verses give us a picture of God’s love for us. 

But it also shows us where we are supposed to be in our most important relationships. 

Yes, we fall short. 

But this list gives us a glimpse of areas we need to grow in, ask God’s help to accomplish so that those around us feel our love. 

Yet, in God’s grace, Jesus has this love for us. Jesus extends these to us. He keeps no record of wrongs, he serves, his love never fails, it protects, it hopes, and it lasts. God is not easily angered and delights in the truth. The truth of who God is and the truth of who He made us to be. 

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Relationships in Quarantine – Anger & Being Historical

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relationships

Katie and I recently did a message on 1 Corinthians 13 in our series Fully Charged. 

It is one of the most well-known passages in the bible. It’s read at most weddings, but what is it telling us? On the one hand, it is about relationships with other people. What it looks like to relate, to have a healthy marriage, friendship, or family. It also shows us what God’s love for us is like. We see a picture of a Father in heaven who loves us in a way that is hard to fathom. But it is also about what spiritual maturity looks like. In the context, Paul says we could have all kinds of gifts, but if we don’t have love, what do we have?

I think this passage is especially important in the world we live in, where we are sheltering in place, spending more time with our family, and missing some of the community that we have built.

Dave Willis said, “We are facing a defining time for marriages. No couple will emerge from this the same as they were before. You’ll either emerge from this crisis stronger by leaning on each other or weaker by fighting with each other.” and I think that’s true. 

So what does it look like to have a healthy relationship in quarantine? Paul lists out what love is and is not.

We’ve already seen that love is patient and kind, and that love does not envy, boast, it is not prideful, dishonoring of others or self-seeking.

But two things that can destroy any relationship and they show up in most relationships is anger and being historical.

Anger is connected to patience. We get angry; however, that plays out for us when our spouse or the other person in the relationship makes us wait. They fall behind, make a mistake, don’t do what we want when we want it. 

Love isn’t easily angered. It takes a deep breath; it doesn’t lash out, mentally, verbally, emotionally, and especially physically. 

Yet, do you know who we are the harshest within relationships? Do you know who we say the worst things too? Those closest to us. Many of us will say something to those closest to us: our spouse, kids, parent, in-laws that we would never say to someone else. That isn’t loving. Yes, you are comfortable, but that isn’t showing them love and isn’t loving them the way God loves you. 

As an 8 on the enneagram, anger is my go-to emotion. And for most men, it is the only acceptable emotion, but anger often covers over our feelings of shame, fear, and vulnerability. 

I know for me, the moments I feel most vulnerable with Katie, I try to cover it up with anger. I try to hide. I’ve had to learn to ask myself, “What is my anger showing me?” That is an uncomfortable question for sure, but one that is revealing and tells me a lot. Because our feelings tell us something, and we must dig into what it is telling us. 

One way that anger shows up, especially in marriages (but any relationship), is through being historical.

You’ve probably seen this. Maybe in the house, you grew up in, a friend relationship, or even your own.

Where you keep score, who cleans up the most? Who takes the trash out? Who does what and how often they do it. Many times, we do this because we feel like we are being taken advantage of, but instead of having that conversation, we lash out in anger. 

The reality is, no relationship or marriage is 50/50. Who does more than another may change based on health, life stage, and age, needs of other family members or jobs, or school.

In many relationships, though, there is a giver and a taker. If this isn’t faced and dealt with, it can cause real pain. I’m the taker in our relationship, and Katie is the giver. In the first half of our marriage, this caused immense pain for her because of my selfishness. It was difficult for me to face it, deal with it, where it came from, and how it was affecting her and our marriage. Now, we haven’t switched roles because it is more natural for me to take, but by God’s grace, I have grown in my giving as well. And she has grown in her ability to say what she needs, which is has been an enormous blessing.