Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2016

How to Have Energy for Your Spouse When Your Kids Exhaust You

by Joshua Reich

All parents run into this. They want to spend time with their kids. They want to spend time with their spouse. They want to have friends, hobbies and a life. Yet when you have kids, you find yourself exhausted at the end of the day.

Katie and I often get asked how to have energy for your spouse at the end of the day when your kids exhaust you. Here are some of our thoughts:

4 ways to have energy for your spouse at the end of the day.

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1. Evaluate your schedule. Why are you tired? Why do you feel like you and your spouse don’t have enough time with each other? How many activities are you running your kids to? Often the reason that you are too tired for your spouse is because of the season you are in; other times it is simply your fault. Many times we don’t put our spouse in our schedule. I realize how unromantic that sounds, but I say this all the time: You have all the time to do everything you want to do. And that includes time with your spouse. If you want to have time to be with them, put it in your calendar. Date nights don’t just happen. Conversations don’t just happen.

If you want to spend time with your spouse, you need to schedule it.

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2. Decide ahead of time what the night will look like. At some point in the day, Katie and I will have a conversation in person, on the phone or over text that goes like this: “What do you want tonight to look like?”

Ask your spouse, “What do you want tonight to look like?”

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This helps to set clear expectations for the night. Do you need time to talk, time alone, to watch TV, be quiet, take a walk? Is your spouse in the mood for sex? Having those conversations ahead of time helps to keep feelings from getting hurt.

The other side of this is that it helps you both to prepare. If you are tired but your spouse wants to talk or have sex, knowing that ahead of time helps you gear up for the evening.

3. Communicate to your kids your expectations for them. In the same way that you and your spouse need to be on the same page, you and your kids need to be on the same page. Your kids need to know that time as a couple is the most important thing in your family. Remember, one day your kids will move out, so your marriage matters more than your relationship with your kids. Make sure they know what the expectations are for the evening. This will take time, but it is crucial. One of the ways you create security for your kids is by communicating the security of your marriage.

One way you create security for your kids is by communicating the security of your marriage.

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4. Remove barriers. There are a lot of barriers to deepening your marriage relationship; some of them are ones you create, and others are ones that just happen. Many of the barriers that keep a couple from connecting has to do with electronics. I know some families put their phones in a basket at night or have a no electronics policy at dinner. Get rid of the things that are keeping you from connecting as a couple.

Are you letting electronics come between you and your spouse?

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Posted on Monday, August 8, 2016

How to be Thankful as a Leader

by Joshua Reich

Most of the time on blogs like mine or other leadership and ministry blogs you read about how tough ministry is, how difficult people can be and how hard it is to be a leader. All those things are true.

At the same time, if you are a leader, especially if you are a pastor, you have a lot to be thankful for. At the same time, as a follower of Jesus, growing in your thankfulness is a sign of your faith but also of your maturity. I know for me, when I am pessimistic, only seeing what isn’t working or how things aren’t what I want them to be, it makes me a poor leader, a poor husband and father, and honestly, a poor human.

So I sat down in the middle of a pity party, when things didn’t go how I wanted them to go at church and someone was mad at me, and wrote out things I should be thankful for. For you this list might be different, but here’s what came to mind for me:

How to be thankful as a pastor.

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1. My church still exists. This might seem like a weird one, but on a weekly basis I hear about another church that closed their doors. When we moved to Tucson and started Revolution church, there was a window of three years where over 20 churches were planted in Tucson (of which we were one), and only three of those are still going (of which we are one). Why? That’s God’s grace towards us.

The fact that your church exists is a sign of God’s grace towards you.

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2. I get to use my gifts. Most pastors overlook this gift. If you ask most people what their gifts, talents and passions are, they don’t know. They don’t know how God has wired them, the talents they have, how their family of origin and story have gone into making them who they are and the passions they have, but many pastors do. They get out of bed with a burning passion to see something happen for God. That isn’t a small thing.

If you know why you are on this earth, you are in the minority.

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3. My marriage. If you’re a pastor, your wife deserves more credit than you do. She endures more than you do. I know, I know. Your life is so hard as a leader, the stress, the pain, the emotional side of ministry. I get it. Yet it is nowhere near as difficult as the role your wife plays. While you can bury yourself in work and ministry as a way of letting off steam, she doesn’t have that opportunity. She endures more than you do, and you should tell her thanks. She takes the brunt of your emotional roller coaster, she walks on egg shells around you sometimes, she hears people talk behind your back, she sees the glares you don’t see, she hears what things are said about your kids that you don’t hear, she worries about you in ways you don’t understand. And yet she has stuck with you. She is your biggest cheerleader, your biggest prayer warrior.

A pastor’s wife often endures more than a pastor does.

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Protect your wife to your church. Speak highly of her always, on stage and off. I talk about Katie in such a way that I want to communicate, if you speak badly about my wife, stab her in the back, you get papa bear, and you don’t want that. Too many pastors are weak when it comes to their wives and how they defend them in their church. Sadly, you have to do this because people can be mean.

4. My kids. The same goes for your kids. It is hard being a pastor’s kid. Way harder than being a pastor, so don’t put it in the same category. Don’t put more pressure on them than is already on them. When someone says in disbelief, “I can’t believe your kid jumped off the stage and over the communion table” (true story in the Reich family), shake your head, laugh and say, “What did you expect a five year old boy to do? Did he clear the table?” He did and didn’t get hurt.

I am my biggest protector of my kids. I want them to enjoy being kids. I want them to enjoy being a pastor’s kid as much as they can. When people try to put something on them that I think is unfair, I fight to take that expectation away.

5. My team. I’m thankful for my team. Most leaders are visionary, hard driving, goal setting people, which makes us difficult to be around and be friends with. The fact that people endure you as a leader is something to be thankful for. They help you, mold you and make things better. Sadly, most leaders don’t like their teams, which is the fault of the leader. You get what you allow or create.

6. I’m not 300 pounds anymore. I’m thankful for my health. When we started our church I weighed almost 300 pounds, and in the first 18 months I lost 130 pounds and have kept it off. I know it sounds silly to be thankful for your health and very cliche, but if you’re healthy, that’s a gift from God. Not everyone is.

7. God loves me. Lastly, if you are a follower of Jesus, God loves you, and because of His love for you He sent his Son Jesus to die in your place so that you could have a relationship with Him. Never get far from this truth and reality as a pastor.

7 things I’m thankful for as a pastor. What are you thankful for?

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But what do you do when it is hard to be thankful and ministry is hard? That happens.

One thing that was helpful was something I came across in Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth, where the author said to give yourself 24 hours to mope, throw a pity party and then get back on the horse and lead.

Posted on Friday, August 5, 2016

The Tragic Story of a Hurting Pastor’s Wife & 5 Other Posts I Read this Week that You Should Read

by Joshua Reich

Here are 6 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father. I hope they help you too:

9 Insights about Adult Learning Every Pastor Should Know by Charles Stone
10 Prices You Must be Willing to Pay to be a Great Leader by Brian Dodd
What is the one thing the local church must get right in the 21st century? by Mark Dever
The Tragic Story of a Hurting Pastor’s Wife by Thom Rainer
Sin, Discipline, and Not Being the Next Pastor Who Falls by Erik Reed
‘I was wrong’ vs. ‘I made a mistake’ by Scott Cochrane

Posted on Thursday, August 4, 2016

Leaders Make Decisions Others Don’t

by Joshua Reich

While leadership is many things, vision casting, team building, strategic thinking, developing leaders, leadership can also be boiled down to one very important thing: decision making.

Now to be fair, all people, bosses, employees, volunteers, and pastors, make decisions in a church or organization. But one thing sets leaders apart: they make decisions others don’t.

Leaders are the ones who are faced with making decisions that will be unpopular, that will decide what is right and wrong in a church or organization, and that will affect others.

3 decisions leaders make that others don’t.

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Here are a few:

1. Vision decisions. It is the job of a leader to cast vision, to set direction for a preferred future. This is best done in teams, with the buy in of key leaders, but there are also times when a leader must say, “This is it; that is not it.” Vision divides, vision clarifies. Vision also unites. Vision says, “We’re going here, not there.” Vision says what the win is, which also means vision says what the loss is.

These can run up against “what has always been done”, what used to work, and sometimes what is still working but isn’t what needs to be done.

Vision also decides how resources are allocated, what money is spent on, what staff and volunteers are needed and not needed. This can be incredibly difficult.

Many people in leadership roles simply skip this. They don’t push to make a clarifying decision, which is still making a decision, but it is the one of least resistance.

2. Being willing to be unpopular. Ronald Heifetz says, “Exercising leadership might be best understood as disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.” This also means that as a leader, you must be willing to be unpopular with someone at some point. Now as a leader you don’t set out to make people mad or be a jerk (although some do), but sometimes that happens. It should never be a goal, though.

This means that to be a leader you must develop tough skin. You must develop clarity as to who you are, who you aren’t, where you want to go and where you don’t want to go. You must know which hills you will choose to die on, because you will die on those hills. Not every hill is worth dying on, but you must know which ones are.

Leaders know which hills are worth dying on.

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3. Decisions that affect others. The last thing that separates leaders is that they are willing to make decisions that affect not only themselves but others. These are the decisions that keep me up at night. Ones about hiring or firing, setting salaries, making budget decisions that will have an impact not only on the financial situation of someone else, but also their happiness if we stop doing something as a church that they love.

These are incredibly difficult, and too many pastors are unwilling to make these calls. They aren’t easy, but being a leader isn’t supposed to be easy.

These decisions, when taken together, are some of the things that make someone a leader. Are they willing to make decisions others are not willing to make?

3 decisions that set leaders apart.

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Posted on Monday, August 1, 2016

6 Ideas to Help You Discipline Your Child

by Joshua Reich

There are a lot of ideas out there about how to best discipline your child. Some are good, some are not so good. I’ve shared before that one of the most important questions a parent needs to ask when they discipline their child is if they are accurately reflecting the heart of God in that moment.

6 things to remember when you discipline your child.

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Parents will often parent to something or for something. This could be getting your child to behave a certain way or do certain actions. Many Christian parents will feel like they are winning at parenting if their child goes to church, does certain things or doesn’t do certain things. The reality is, that doesn’t say anything in and of itself, only that your church does or doesn’t do things.

Some parents, especially pastors, will parent for their reputation. They’ll put pressure on their kids to act a certain way because of how it makes them look to those around them. This isn’t a win at all, but it is easy to fall into. If my child does ____, how will that make me look? If my child gets bad grades, a tattoo, parties, hangs out with the wrong crowd, how will that make me look? I understand the fear, but parenting for your reputation isn’t a healthy long term parenting strategy.

Instead, I would say to parent with the relationship in mind. Andy Stanley says, “I want to parent so when my kids leave the house one day, they want to come back.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that.

Parent for the relationship, not your reputation.

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One of the areas that many parents struggle in and has an enormous effect on what their children become is discipline. Remember, the goal of parenting is incredibly crucial not only to how you parent right now, but also to how your kids ultimately end up.

William Farley in his book Gospel-Powered Parenting: How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting lists how the gospel affects disciplining children:

1. The gospel convinces parents that indwelling sin is our children’s problem.

2. The gospel convinces parents that authority is a crucial parental issue.

3. The gospel instructs us to pursue our children’s hearts rather than their behavior.

4. The gospel motivates parents to discipline to preach the gospel to our children.

5. The gospel motivates parents to fear God.

6. The gospel helps parents to grow in humility and sincerity.

6 things to remember the next time you discipline your child.

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Posted on Friday, July 29, 2016

How Skipping Church Affects Our Children & 6 other Articles You Should Read This Weekend

by Joshua Reich

Here are 7 posts I came across this week that challenged my thinking or helped me as a leader, pastor, husband and father. I hope they help you too:

Bourne Again by Jeff Medders
10 Key Questions for Sermon Prep by Daryl Dash
How Skipping Church Affects Our Children
7 Observations of Outstanding Leaders by Thom Rainer
The Test Every Great Leader Must Pass by Lolly Daskal
15 Productivity Tips for Pastors by Brandon Hilgemann
4 Ways to be a Better Parent by Sherry Surratt

Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2016

5 Ways to Get the Most out of Reading Your Bible

by Joshua Reich

One of the ways we battle condemnation, guilt, regret, shame, and hurt is through our mind. Our minds are incredibly powerful things. They determine our steps, our feelings, what bothers us, what we think, and the decisions we make that have an enormous impact on the people we become. We often think our minds aren’t that important, that we are feelers, or emotional people making emotional choices.

But we aren’t.

Our minds drive much of what we do. In fact, the New Testament often talks about the battle of our mind, and in numerous places the apostle Paul encourages us about what to think. In Philippians 4:8 he writes, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Why? Because what we think about determines so much.

So, how do you change your thinking? How do you battle your sin in your mind? This is important because much of our sin comes from thinking. We often think we sin and “it just happened.” But it didn’t. We chose to be there, chose to open that website, chose to say those words, chose that person as a friend.

In the same way, through the power of Christ, we can choose to not be there, to say no and not hang out with that person.

To do that, though, requires intentionality and putting on the mind of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5) The best way to do this is through reading the Bible, words inspired by God, authoritative, true and sufficient for our lives. One of the things I love about our church is that we produce daily devotional questions to go along with the sermon that you can subscribe to by emailing here.

5 questions to ask if your bible reading has grown stale.

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As you read through your Bible, it can be daunting. Here are some questions I use to put on the mind of the Spirit:

What does this passage say (not to me, but actually say on its own)?
What words or phrases stood out to me in this passage?
Why do I think those words or phrases stood out?
What is God trying to show me through that?
Are there any sins I need to confess, changes I need to make or steps I need to take because of what I’ve read?

How to get the most out of reading your Bible.

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Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Tuesday Mind Dump…

by Joshua Reich

So much happening in my world and the world of Revolution Church.
My summer break ended a little earlier than planned, but it’s been amazing to see what God has done in that time.
Some of it sad (think not how I’d plan it), and some of it exciting.
Which, if your life is like mine, how God works tends to be like that.
The sad was this past Sunday was our worship pastor Jerad’s last day. They moved back to Florida to be closer to their families.
What’s exciting about that is the possibilities about what is next and the roles people at our church are stepping into.
I had a mentor tell me in college, “If God moves you to another place, God is already preparing someone to take your place.”
It doesn’t always make transitions easier, but it is a comforting reminder that God works all things together for His glory and our good.
We kicked off What is God Like? on Sunday and I am so excited about this series.
I’m also excited that we are back in 2 services. Here’s why we went to 2 services.
If you missed week 1, you can watch or listen here.
Part of my break was going to the Acts 29 pastors retreat.
Always a good time with our network.
I was challenged and encouraged in a way I haven’t been at previous retreats.
Still chewing on some of it.
This line in particular: You should pray so much in your church services that nominal Christians hate it, while mature Christians love it and unchurched people are curious.
Over the weekend I started reading 2 books: The Black Widow by Daniel Silva (one of my favorite novel series) and The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues by Patrick Lencioni.
Lencioni’s book is incredible and one every pastor should read.
Can’t wait to walk through some of the ideas with the leaders of Revolution.
I’m starting to zero in on my 2017 preaching calendar.
Really excited about some of the topics we might cover after spending almost all of 2016 in Romans.
It’ll be a good change of pace for me as a preacher and for our church.
Romans has been good and challenging.
My kids have been having me create their own personal playlists on Spotify, which has been fun because of my love for music.
Sadly, they will never know the joy and the pain of making a mix tape. Especially recording a song off the radio.
Oh the memories!
I have my in-laws coming to visit this week, which will be a good time.
I guess they wanted to suffer with us in the heat, but I keep telling them it’s dry.
So, back to it…