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A Man Feels Called to Plant a Church but His Wife Does Not. Should He Plant?

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plant a church

From time to time I’ll meet a couple. He feels like God has called him to plant a church, but she isn’t so sure. Sometimes, it is just fear on her part.

What will it look like? What will being a pastor’s wife feel like? Will my friendships change? How will this affect my kids? Where will money come from?

Many guys, because they are visionary, excitable, wanting to serve God with their whole lives either ignore these questions or simply give answers akin to, “We’ll figure it out.”

When I meet a couple, if she does not feel called to plant a church, I tell them to wait.

If a couple is truly one and if God is calling one of them to plant a church, he will make it clear to the other one that they are both called to plant. If they plant while one is still on the fence or opposed to it, disaster for them and the church awaits them.

When I say this, I get a stunned look from many guys and they reply with, “If I do that, I won’t plant. What am I supposed to do then? I’m sinning if I don’t do what God has called me to.”

Here are a few thoughts on that question that you may have right now:

  1. If God has called you to plant, you’ll plant. It may not be on your timetable or how you would picture it, but it will happen. Maybe you’ll be part of a church plant, maybe you’ll actually be the planter. You may want to do it at 20, but it will happen at 40. Revolution got planted a full decade after God birthed the vision in my head. Why? I needed to grow up and get beat up in ministry so my pride was sanded down for God to properly use me. 
  2. Just because you feel called to ministry doesn’t mean you are. Lots of guys want to be a pastor. They see what a pastor does on stage. Everyone is looking at them, they are in front of people, they spend time at Starbucks, have lunch meetings, read books and blogs and work one day a week. What they don’t see are the angry emails, the stress that can come from leading volunteers and staff, budget meetings, counseling sessions that go awry, and the stress and spiritual warfare that comes to a pastors’ wife and kids. You may be called to ministry, you may want to be called to ministry. That is why it is important to have a church affirm your calling.
  3. Being called to ministry is something every Christian is called to. Every Christian is in ministry. Some are freed up to be pastors, some are in ministry in government, in companies or other non-profits. All Christians have spiritual gifts that they are to use. Planting and leading a church may be yours, it may not be. If it isn’t, you are not a second rate Christian.
  4. Lead your wife first. If a guy wants to plant but his wife doesn’t he’ll ask me what to do. My response? Lead your wife first. She is your first disciple. If you want to know what kind of followers or disciples a man will develop, look at his wife and kids. If you can’t lead them well, if they don’t feel called to follow you into a church plant, why will others?
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Stop Assuming the People You Preach to Agree with You

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preach

Two things happened recently that has really made me think about my preaching and the preaching of others.

One was at the Preach the Word conference where Justin Anderson made the comment, “Stop assuming people agree with what you believe. Unchurched people don’t agree with your beliefs, most of the churched people don’t agree with your beliefs, stop assuming.” He went on to say, “Pastors need to say less and prove more.”

Think for a minute all the statements that pastors make in their sermons, with little context or explanation. Assuming that everyone is on board with basic biblical truths like: everyone is a sinner, apart from Jesus you’ll spend eternity in hell, God loves you, Jesus rose from the dead, you have an idol that you worship.

Let me be the first to say, I am guilty of this. I have really been growing in this area in the last year thanks to the mentoring of Justin and others.

Then, in the aftermath of the tornado in Oklahoma came this interview on CNN:

Here are a few things this means for pastors:

  1. Explain things more. One of the things a good communicator does is explain what they mean. Too many pastors and communicators simply think everyone knows what they are talking about. I will very rarely use the words justification, sovereignty of God, sanctification, or gospel. I believe in all of them and love the truth of them. The problem is some people have no idea what you are talking about or have the wrong idea. I used to say gospel over and over in a sermon and one day someone asked, “Why do you keep saying gospel in your sermon? You aren’t preaching from a gospel.” Others see the word gospel simply as what gets you to heaven. Instead of saying sanctification I’ll talk about becoming the person Jesus created you to be. Now, as a pastor if you do this, you’ll get push back from the people who want “deep” preaching. That’s okay.
  2. Talk about why you believe things. If a pastor says something in a sermon, something they believe to be true about God or the gospel, explain why you believe that. If you are talking about grace and forgiveness, talk about why you believe those things. Show from Scripture and from your life how you’ve seen them to be true. Too often pastors simply give the finished product. They wrestle with a text or concept alone in their study and then say, “Here’s where I landed.” It is helpful to show some of that struggle and share some of that for your church.
  3. Have less points. I’ve talked about this too many times to count. If you have more than one point in a sermon, you are wasting a lot of time. Your church can’t remember more than one point and you can’t remember more than one point. Say your one point, a lot.
  4. Affirm the questions people have, don’t dismiss them. You as a pastor have questions, so do the people in your church. You don’t have to answer them all every week in every sermon, but affirm that their questions exist and are real. People wonder why God doesn’t heal them, why their spouse walked out, why getting fired could be God’s plan for them or if they are being punished for something. They wonder if hell exists or if Jesus really is the hero of all things. Affirm those questions. Tell them they are real and okay to ask. People in Scripture have doubts and unbelief and Jesus engages them.
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Your Audience Determines Your Language

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audience

Many pastors don’t want to admit this truth, but it is true. One reason we don’t like to admit this is because when you do, someone might say, “Oh, you’re just watering down the gospel.” Which admittedly can happen.

If you don’t keep your audience in mind when you preach, you will miss them and it won’t matter what you say.

When I preach, I try to keep a few groups in mind:

  • The person who is giving God one last shot. Every week, there is someone who walks into your church and says, “God, this is your last shot. If you don’t speak today, I’m done with you.” Now, the sovereignty of God says this person is wrong and God can work regardless of what this person says, but this is their attitude. They are skeptical, hurting, lost and often living in some kind of pain. They have deep questions, lots of baggage. They want to know you know how they feel, the concerns they carry and the questions they are asking. They want to know they are real and legitimate and they want help, even though they will fold their arms and not admit it. 
  • The man who was drug there that morning. Every week, this guy walks into your church. He’d rather be fishing, hiking, biking, swimming, watching football, sleeping or getting a root canal. Anything but being at church. But here he sits. His wife, sister, daughter or mom drug him there and he is doing everything to not enjoy and not get anything out of it.
  • The student who doesn’t want to be there. Like the guy above, you have students who don’t want to be there. Who see God as old fashioned, something their parents believe in, constricting, and not for them. They want visions of how God can use their life, how faith can be bigger than they imagine and how God moves.
  • The man who works with his hands. This guy doesn’t read, he wants concrete ideas not theological ideas that can be debated. He wants you to say it and sit down. He doesn’t want a round about way to get there.

What about everyone else? The Christian who has followed Jesus faithfully for 20 years? Everyone I didn’t mention? I’ve found if you preach to these groups of people, you will hit everyone else in the room.

I’ve also found that most pastors don’t preach to these people. It is hard for me to always keep them in mind.

When I write a sermon, I often imagine having that sermon as a conversation with one of my friends who fit into these categories and how I would present it to them. What I’d want them to know and the questions they would have about it.

Don’t miss this though: your words reflect who you think is there. Whether you believe it or not, your audience determines your language because your language determines your audience.

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8 Ways to Know Your Reading is Too Limited

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reading

I love books. This isn’t a secret if you’ve been around my blog for a long time. You can see what I’ve read recently here and read my book reviews here. When I meet other leaders and pastors, at some point what they are reading comes up. I get some funny looks from some guys about what I read, as I don’t always read books written by Christians or books from my theological stream. Which made me think about how many leaders limit themselves in their reading, much to their detriment.

So, here are 8 ways to know if you are limiting your reading.

  1. Every book you read is from your camp. There are a lot of crazy theological ideas out there, so you need to be wise about what you read. But the reality is though, you don’t know everything and you certainly don’t have the bible and every theological idea all figured out. I don’t either. It is good to read authors who believe differently than you so that you can be challenged. I disagree on almost every theological point with Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, but their writings have forced me to ask good theological questions and made me stronger for it. Now a short note, if you are new in your faith, this isn’t a good idea as you don’t have the foundation to question yet. If that’s you, ask your pastor or a respected Christian for some book recommendations.
  2. Every book you read has bible verses in them. You should read some books by authors and leaders who don’t follow Jesus. There are great leadership and living ideas in books that have no bible verses in them. You should read health books by people who think we evolved from monkeys. One of the reasons is to learn how to communicate, but also to see what people who walk through the doors of your church believe.
  3. Every book you read confirms what you already believe. This is similar to the first one, but if you put a book down and are not challenged in your faith or leadership, you wasted your time.
  4. You finish every book you start. I get asked a lot why I don’t write negative book reviews. Every book you review you say that you like is what I’ve been told. The reason? If I don’t like a book by p. 40, I put it down. Life is too short to read a book you don’t like or aren’t being challenged by. If it’s poorly written or boring or not challenging, it’s off the list. Don’t feel the need to finish every book you start or to read every chapter of a book, they may not all be relevant.
  5. Books don’t challenge your heart. Similar to point 3, but you should be challenged. You should find ways to improve your preaching, leadership skills or your faith, being a spouse or parent. If not, put it down. If a book does not put the magnifying glass up to your heart and life, it isn’t worth the time.
  6. You never read a novel. I love novels. I love novels about spies or lawyers in particular. Throughout the year, I stop my reading list and pick up a novel. Some of my favorite authors are Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, John Grisham and David Baldacci. Baldacci’s Camel Club series is still one of my favorites. Every pastor should read at least 1 novel a year just to give their brain a break.
  7. Every book you read is for a sermon. You should read books that have no application in a sermon. It also sometimes happens that you are reading a book that you discover something that will work in a sermon, that’s great too. If you are doing a series on marriage, you should be reading a book on money or grace just to keep growing in other areas.
  8. Every book you read is by a pastor. You should read books by CEO’s, bankers, doctors, trainers, money managers, scientists, not just pastors or speakers.

What would you add to the list to know if your reading list is too narrow?

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Be Sensitive on Mother’s Day

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Mother’s Day is a big day for most churches. While Mother’s Day is a great day to honor moms in our lives, it is also difficult for many. Most pastors’ blogs will talk about honoring women, doing baby dedications, giving out gifts to mothers, etc., on Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is a hard day for many women in your church. For some, it reminds them of a broken relationship with their mother, of someone who is no longer there. For some, it is a reminder of the loss of a child. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t mothers, even though their desire exists. For some, it is a reminder that they aren’t married when they want to be.

So, be sensitive.

Here are some things you can do at your church:

  • Honor all women. 
  • Acknowledge moms and the role they play. While you are being sensitive, please don’t ignore that it is Mother’s Day. It is; it’s on the calendar, and everyone knows it. You can be sensitive while acknowledging and honoring Moms.
  • If you give out a gift, give it to all women. We’ve given all women flowers in the past. This year we are doing free pictures for families, couples or groups of friends, or individuals.
  • If you want to give a gift to the moms in your church, give it to your children’s ministry to avoid drawing attention to it.
  • Encourage those who Mother’s Day is a difficult day to come forward for prayer with a leader.
  • Acknowledge that Mother’s Day is a great day for some and a hard day for others. This goes a long way in letting all women know they matter and that you see them.
  • Preach the gospel. You should do this every week, but especially on Mother’s Day. Remind women that their only hope, regardless of where they are on Mother’s Day, is Jesus.
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Communicating the Gospel to Your Kids Through Movies

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movies

I love movies. As a family, it is the same. Every week, we have family movie night. The child who had their daddy date that week gets to pick family movie night. This past week, we watched The Rise of the Guardians. 

If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s a quick synopsis:

When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.

One of the ways that we’ve learned to communicate the gospel to our kids is through cultural pieces like movies and stories. Every movie and story mirrors the story of God.

In the rise of the guardians, the character pitch was thrown out of the guardians. He came back to take over, to fight them. Pitch, played the character of Satan and evil. At one point, the character of Sandman was killed. At the end of the movie, Sandman rose from the dead, and defeated Pitch when it looked hopeless for the other guardians. Sandman, in that way, was similar to Jesus.

After watching the movie, over dinner we asked our kids and talked through:

  • Who was Pitch like?
  • Why was Pitch evil?
  • What was Pitch trying to do to the kids in the movie?
  • How does Satan tempt us to sin?
  • Who was Sandman like?
  • Did Jesus rise from the dead?
  • Because Jesus rose from the dead, what does that mean for us?
  • Can we conquer sin and death the way they did in the movie?

Communicating the gospel to your kids through movies and stories takes time and practice, but it isn’t as hard as you think. Every single kids movie from Pixar to anything else has this storyline. Just look and then talk about it with your kids. A great way to apply Deuteronomy 6.

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Why Celebrating Valentine’s Day can Reveal Marital Problems

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book

Today is Valentine’s Day. Today, countless couples will spend thousands of dollars on flowers, dinner and gifts. And because it’s Valentine’s Day, they will pay more than they should.

Valentine’s Day also reveals something and it could be a problem if you are married. For couples, men will pursue their wives. They will make plans, get a babysitter, buy her a gift and make it a special night, all about her. What’s wrong with that you may ask.

Read that paragraph again and see if you see it.

A couple of years ago, Katie was talking with some other mom’s around Valentine’s Day. All the mom’s were excited about a night away from their kids, with their husband and the things he was doing for her. They asked Katie what we were doing. This year Valentine’s Day fell on a Monday and our date night is Friday. She looked at them and said, “Josh isn’t doing anything tonight for me.” They looked sad, poor girl. She looked at them and said, “He doesn’t need to, every week we have date night so I know he pursues me each week and I have his undivided attention every week.”

Silence.

What if, the energy you spent on Valentine’s Day, you spent that each week for a date night? Now, there’s no way you or I could afford what you spend to make Valentine’s Day special. What if you took that energy and money and spread it over the year?

Here’s a successful date night (at home or going out):

  • As a husband, you plan it. This communicates she’s worth your time. She feels pursued. You are able to serve her. 
  • Planning means, you know where you are eating, what you are doing and got a babysitter.
  • If it is at home, you put the kids down so she can relax.
  • Turn your phone, computer and TV off.
  • Look her in the eye and give her you undivided attention.
  • Do this each week.

If, like most married couples you choose to do this once every 52 weeks, you’ll have the marriage most married couples have (which isn’t very good).

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6 Ways to Bring the Gospel into Your Parenting

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parent

In parenting, as in all of life, the goal of what you are trying to accomplish matters. It will dictate the decisions you make, how you spend your money and time, what you emphasize and ultimately, if you succeed or fail.

Too many parents, especially those in the church, have the wrong goal. Their parenting is not unique. What does that mean? It means, if you are a follower of Jesus, you should have a different goal and parent differently from those who don’t follow Jesus. Ask this, can you accomplish the goals for parenting or your kids without Jesus? Your kids can be successful, healthy, moral, marry well, have good values, and do all of that without Jesus.

Elyse Fitzpatrick said,

“Most parents who attend church want what most of parents want for our children. Jesus or no Jesus, we just want them to obey, be polite, not curse or look at pornography, get good jobs, marry a nice person, and not get caught up in the really bad stuff. It may come as a surprise to you, but God wants much more for your children, and you should too. God wants them to get the gospel. And this means that parents are responsible to teach them about the drastic, uncontrollable nature of amazing grace.”

Paul tells parents they need to expect their kids to obey, to honor them and to respect them. Many parents do not have this expectation. Whenever I hear a parent count to their child, they communicate, I don’t expect you to listen to me the first time. When I get to 3 will suffice. As kids get older and become teenagers, many parents let their guard down and don’t expect them to speak respectfully. It is easier to let them get away with it than put up the fight. I understand the weariness of parenting, but if God gave you children, it is time to step up to the plate.

Paul ends this section by letting us in on how to raise kids that are respectful and obedient. By discipline and instruction in the Lord. Whenever he uses the phrasing he uses in vs. 4, he is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is calling parents to bring the gospel into their parenting, on all occasions  whenever possible.

The word for discipline, means to “nurture, educate, or train,” and the word for instruction, means “calling attention to” or “mild rebuke,” “correction,” or “warning.”

In other words, Paul is saying that the way Christian parents are to bring children up is by nurturing, correcting, and training them in the truth of or about Jesus Christ. Paul is telling parents to daily proclaim the message about Jesus to their children and to warn or rebuke them when they forget to live in the light of what Jesus had already done. He was telling them to tether every aspect of their parenting to the gospel message.

Here are 6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting:

6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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  1. To bring the gospel to your kids, you must be changed by the gospel. If you aren’t changed by the gospel, you won’t be able to communicate the gospel to your kids. You won’t see your need for it, their need for it. You won’t see how great and mighty and all encompassing the gospel is.
  2. A culture of the gospel. Every house, family and business has a culture. A culture is how things happen without discussion. Does the gospel influence everything that you do as a family, as a parent? Does it dictate your finances, your time, rules, entertainment?
  3. Plan to bring the gospel into your home. What is your plan to teach your kids Scripture? When will you personally open the Bible? When will you do it with your kids? What will you study? For our family, we use a mixture of The New City Catechism and the Train Up questions from Revolution. Our MC uses the Train Up questions each week with the kids. We write the question and answer of the week in our kitchen and refer to it throughout the week and discuss at dinner as a family. For more on this, read Family driven faith. 
  4. Make time. The quality time argument is a myth. Your kids don’t need or want quality time, they want quantity. A big difference. Make time for daddy dates, family meal time. You may have to give up some hobbies as a parent. I haven’t golfed in 7 years. I’ll retire one day and golf then and I’ll be terrible at it. Studies show, kids who have regular meals with their parents are less likely to do drugs, smoke, have sex, run with the wrong crowd, and they get better grades.
  5. Don’t sacrifice the mission field in front of you. This argument often comes up in the discussion of a mom working. I’ve had mom’s tell me, “At work, there are so many people who don’t know Jesus, God has placed me there.” Each one who told me that then sent their kids off to have someone else raise them in daycare. What they did, while sounding noble, “living on mission at work”, they sacrificed the first mission field God gave them: their kids.
  6. Bring the gospel into conversations when your children sin. When your child sins, talk to them about it. Ask why they did that? What is controlling them? Ask your teenager why they wear that? What does that communicate about their self-image, how they believe God made them? Ask until you get an answer. Then, seek ways to bring the gospel into that. Talk about how because of Jesus we are approved, we don’t need to control things, we don’t need to be the most important. When you punish them, don’t walk away. Remind them of your love, of God’s grace and how Jesus took our punishment but there are still consequences. For more on this, read Give them grace. 
6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting.

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Sex Doesn’t Equal Intimacy

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Whenever I talk with couples that are dating or engaged, at some point sex and intimacy will come up. When Katie and I do premarital counseling, there are 5 things a couple must agree to for me to do their wedding. One of them is that they won’t have sex from that point forward until their wedding night. Regardless of their background, regardless if they live together, regardless of where they are on their journey with Jesus.

Depending on the situation, this brings with it an interesting follow-up conversation. Many couples don’t care, they’ve already chosen to wait and have stayed with that commitment. Some are excited because while they’ve wanted to wait, the lack of accountability has made it difficult and they’ve fallen back into patterns they wanted to move away from. Others are frustrated because they don’t see a problem with sex outside of marriage.

I remember once talking with a couple who lived together. They weren’t followers of Jesus and he asked me if this was simply a way for me to put my morals onto other people. It was a fair question. Pastors are often guilty of thinking of ways simply to make people behave more godly without changing their hearts.

I told him that was not the point of this. Here’s why we ask couples to do this and what I told him:

  1. The bible does tell us to save sex for marriage (Acts 15:20; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:13, 18; 10:8; 2 Corinthians 12:21;Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Jude 7). The Bible promotes complete abstinence before marriage. Sex between a husband and his wife is the only form of sexual relations of which God approves (Hebrews 13:4).
  2. Sex doesn’t equal intimacy. Many in our culture think they are being intimate simply by having sex. For men, when we think of intimacy, sex is what we think of. Intimacy is much bigger than that. It involves sex, but involves be open and honest with another person, trusting them completely, not hiding from them. Willing to share our lives, our dreams, our hopes, our failures, our hurts, and pain with that person. Far too many couples think we had sex, so we must be in love. As soon as sex enters a relationship, it changes drastically. By abstaining from sex before marriage, they are able to broaden intimacy in their relationship in other ways, ways that are non-sexual.
  3. There are seasons in marriage where sex is not an option. Whether that is traveling for a job, health, children, pregnancy, time or energy. Abstaining from sex before marriage helps a couple to prepare for these moments and for the couple to learn they can trust the other. Is a man or woman able to control themselves when they aren’t having as much sex or intimacy as they’d like.
  4. It builds trust. On some level, usually for women, having sex outside of marriage is a trust issue. For men, sex is mostly physical, but for women it is mostly emotional. It involves trusting the other person. Making a commitment to abstain from sex and keeping that commitment goes a long way of building trust for a couple.

There are other reasons, but these are the top ones. After doing weddings for 7 years for numerous couples who have made this commitment and kept it, I’ve yet to have a couple tell me it was a waste of time or be angry that they made it. In fact, I’ve had almost every couple tell me this was one of the most beneficial things for them in their premarital counseling.

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10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse

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putting your kids before your marriage

No one gets married thinking they will put their kids before their marriage, but over time without being intentional, it happens. It’s easy to do. Kids need our attention, they scream for it (literally). We also rationalize that it’s easier and the right thing to do. Or, we rationalize that we will have time for our spouse later in life, but later in life rarely comes.

Here are some ways you know if your kids are coming before your marriage:

  1. You plaster all over Facebook about how excited you are to take a date night tonight because you can’t remember the last time you had a date night.
  2. The only time you talk to your spouse during the day is for something, you don’t text or call to say “I love you” or “I was thinking of you.”
  3. You don’t touch in public, at all.
  4. Sex is fast and rare.
  5. If you sit down to talk with your spouse, the only thing you can talk about is your kids and what’s happening in their lives.
  6. You don’t have any hobbies or interests outside of your kids.
  7. Dinner is in the car several times a week.
  8. You can’t answer these questions about your spouse: What do they like to do, what is God teaching them right now, what is hurting them or stressing them out right now.
  9. Your kids don’t know what “Mom and Dad time” means.
  10. “Mom and Dad time” does not mean what it should mean. Instead it means watching TV or passing out.
  11. Here’s a bonus one: your spouse complains that the kids come before they do.

Bottom line, it’s easy to do. In fact, most parents think you should put your kids first. This is actually a lie that can destroy your family. Putting your marriage first, makes your marriage strong, which in turn makes your family stronger because of the foundation.