Have you ever had this happen?

You know exactly what you want your spouse, child, boss, employee or friend to do? You know what you want them to say, how you want them to respond…and they don’t?

Can your spouse read your mind?
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In fact, they do the exact opposite.

They solve instead of listen. They disobey instead of obey. They shut down instead of engaging. They drop the ball instead of following through and finishing a project.

What do you do when someone does the exact opposite of what you ask?
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In his book The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it, Dr. Henry Cloud gives an example that every married couple can relate to (I’ll paraphrase):

A woman shared with Dr. Cloud her frustration with her boyfriend.

She feels disconnected from him. So, she tells her boyfriend, “I want you to connect with me more.”

Now, men know this line. Women know this line.

The problem is that men and women have different ideas about what this means, what this looks like and how to accomplish it.

The results for this woman are the results that thousands of others have experienced.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing changed.

Why?

What to do when you feel disconnected from your spouse.
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The problem comes in that we are not clear. There isn’t anything measurable in our relationship requests.

In our minds, we know what things like “feeling loved”, or “being more connected” mean, doing a project the way we want, or what it means for a teenager to be responsible.

We just expect them to have the same definition as we do.

Think for a minute if you fall into any of these categories.

If you’ve told your spouse I want to feel more connected or loved by you and then nothing happened. Here’s why…

You never told your spouse what feeling more connected or loved means. How can they do that? For each person that is different. Is that talking about your day? What specifically do you want to talk about? Details? Feelings? A running commentary of what happened?

Now, many couples tell me that deciding this is silly. Your spouse should just know. Your spouse is a mind reader.

But they aren’t.

Here’s an example every couple has experienced.

The wife begins talking about an issue in her life. A frustration at work, with a friend or a child. Before she finishes, the husband jumps in with 3 steps to a solution, claps his hands and says, “there you go.” He solved it.

Now she’s mad.

Why?

Because she wanted one thing and he gave her another. What she wanted and needed was to be understood and have a listening ear, not someone to solve it. She sought connection and he sought helping.

Most frustrations and arguments in any relationship (family or work) stem from a failure to communicate expectations and needs.

Most frustrations and arguments in any relationship come from a failure to communicate expectations and needs.
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Take whatever your need and desire is: to feel loved, connected, for your teenager to take responsibility and define it with them. What that would look like and mean.

Those words are too fuzzy and personal to leave to chance.

The post Can’t my Spouse Read my Mind? appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

When it comes to anything in life, whether it is marriage, parenting, leadership, or work, someone pays the price.

In marriage you can either pay the price at the beginning, working through all the junk you brought into your marriage; or you can pay it later when you are unhappy and married or divorced.

As a single you can pay the price to stay pure and wait until you get married to have sex. Or you can pay the price after you get married as you work through what it meant to give your body away before you got married. Or your spouse will have to deal with that thought.

The same is true for preaching.

Either the pastor pays the price in preparation, studying, praying, planning, reading, and listening to God; or his church pays the price when they have to listen to him stand up there completely unprepared, unsure of what his big idea is, as he wanders through his sermon aimlessly like the nation of Israel did on their way to the Promised Land.

Too many pastors make their church pay the price.

I was talking with a few pastors the other day who told me, “It’s Wednesday, I’ve got a title.” If all you have on Wednesday is a title, you are not paying the price for your sermon.

In preaching, someone pays a price, the church for listening or the pastor in prep.
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Paying the price means you plan a preaching calendar, you think through where you are going as a church. You study, you pray through the text asking God to reveal to you what it is about, what your church needs to hear. You read commentaries and other books, you look into the context to better communicate the text.

Preaching every week is easily the biggest weight I carry and the biggest joy I experience.

On Saturday night I lie in bed thinking through my talk and the text for Sunday. At this point in my preparation I almost have the text I’m preaching on memorized and have thought through the ins and outs. I am now thinking more about who will be there, how I will communicate it. I begin praying for those I think of and those whom I don’t know, those who are coming to Revolution as a last ditch effort on God. This is the weight of preaching. If you do not feel this, I don’t think you should preach. Why? When you stand up to preach you are literally reaching into Hell and pulling people who are on the path to Hell (Matthew 7:13 – 14). I realize that is a paraphrase, but that is the spiritual battle of preaching. That is what’s at stake.

Sunday night I lie awake worrying if I said everything I should’ve said. Did God want me to say something else? Was I clear? I pray for those who made decisions, whether to get baptized, start following Jesus, or any number of next steps we talk through on a Sunday. I pray for the spiritual protection of those who made decisions. I know that night will be a very difficult night as Satan and his angels will be going to work on those individuals.

Pastors, do you pray for those who are coming and for those who make decisions? This is the price of preaching. This is the price of pastoring.

If you are not willing to pay it, then do something else. Lives are at stake. Souls are at stake. Marriages are at stake. Families are at stake. Eternities are at stake.

Pay the price.

The post How to Make Your Next Sermon Great appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

Many times when I talk to couples who are frustrated in their marriage, how their spouse reacts to or helps/hurts them in reaching their goals comes up.

A common cause of frustration and arguments in marriage.
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I’ve heard couples tell me, “We’re getting divorced because she is holding me back.” One woman told me, “He just isn’t on board with what I want to do with my life, so we’re going our separate ways.”

This is easy to do.

After all, didn’t we get married so we could have a teammate help us accomplish what we want to accomplish?

The cycle in marriage becomes about what we want and the goals we have in our heads: completing school, starting a business/church, certain financial benchmarks. When our spouse doesn’t get on board they are just dead weight getting in the way.

I realized a few years ago that I had made our marriage and family all about my goals. I’m a pretty driven person, and so we moved to Arizona to plant a church. We talked together about what this would mean, but as our kids started to get older, I realized that in my goal setting and drivenness, I left little room for Katie to explore her goals and dreams.

Does your spouse have room for their dreams in your marriage?
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Now there are times in a marriage when you put the goals of one over the other. Maybe an opportunity comes along you can’t pass up. Maybe you decide when you get married that when you have kids the wife will stay home with the kids, so getting the man’s career off the ground matters greatly.

If you aren’t careful though, eventually a marriage will revolve around one person, and it can slowly suck the life and dreams out of the other.

Let me suggest a good (but scary) question to discuss as a couple: Are there any dreams you have right now that I am keeping you from reaching?

Now there are some dreams you have to let go of simply because you chose to get married. There are some dreams you let go of because you have kids. Not all of them, but your life is different now.

Usually the reason we don’t create space for our spouse is our selfishness. We will dress it up in different ways. Church planters will dress it up in God’s will. I did this for a long time. God called me to plant a church, she said yes to it, so it’s now our calling and our goal.

A conversation every pastor and his wife MUST have.
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Let me speak to pastors for a minute. You help the people in your church discern God’s will for their lives. You help them learn how God has gifted them and how to best use those gifts and talents. Do you do that for your wife? She is part of your church. Who is she apart from being a pastor’s wife? Who is she as a person who attends your church, and what has God called her to?

Too many couples either give up hope on accomplishing something together, or if given enough time, their dreams will well up inside of them until they will begin thinking about pursuing them apart from the other person.

When, if you took the step of being a teammate to your spouse, you could unleash their dreams together.

How to stand with your spouse instead of against them.
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The post How to be a Team in Marriage appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

In most churches today, as has been true for the last few decades, it is made up of more women and children, than men. Yet, in most churches, it is still the men who lead and make decisions.

When we started Revolution Church and we started with the idea that the target of our church would be 20-40 year old men. Last year when we did our yearly church survey, we were 49% men, 51% women, and the average age of our church is 28 ½.

Our church isn’t that unique. Most churches plants are filled with younger people, but what we have learned over the years is how to reach men. This won’t surprise you:

1. Reaching men is different than reaching women.
2. Most churches are set up to reach women.

Reaching men is different than reaching women. Most churches are set up to reach women.
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According to Focus on the family:

• Did you know that if a child is the first person in a household to become a Christian, there is a 3.5 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow?
• If the mother is the first to become a Christian, there is a 17 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow.
• But if the father is first, there is a 93 percent probability everyone else in the household will follow.

We know this to be true, we know the impact a father has on the life of a family. Many people have their view of God tied up with their view of their earthly father. We talk about the father wound and the impact a father has on us. Yet, many churches have simply chosen not to reach men.

Companies have figured this out and largely market to 18 – 35 year old men. Are they neglecting women? No. The reality is that most women like a lot of what men like when it comes to marketing, but the reverse is not true. Churches need to learn from this.

Having a target

Every time I talk with pastors or Christians and say we have a target as a church, I get interesting questions. The reality is, your church has a target. The style of music, dress, what time church is, what kind of building you have, what ministries you have and don’t have.

How do you know if you are hitting your target?

1. Who comes to your church?
2. Who gets baptized?
3. What comments or questions do you get?
4. My favorite comment is the one I hear from a wife all the time: I wasn’t so sure about this church, but Revolution is the only church my husband would come back to, so here we are.

Here are 9 things you can do to start reaching men and see impact in the lives of people, families and your city:

9 keys for your church to reach more men.
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1. Think about men when it comes to the atmosphere, name of your church, structure and songs. Most churches are filled with pastel colors, flowers everywhere. Why? Women designed it. Not a bad thing, but it won’t appeal to men. One other thing that I think is important when it comes to thinking through the lens of men (and women) is preaching once a year on relationships, marriage, what it means to be a man or a woman. Our culture has so many questions, so many thing are unclear to our culture on these topics that people are wondering.

Most churches are naturally geared towards women, not men.
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2. Preach to men. Most churches, the win for men is to stop looking at porn. While porn is destructive and pervasive, every man is not looking at it every day. There are more things a man struggles with or has questions about. Men in a sermon tend to want logic, clarity and action steps. Women tend to want more stories, feelings and emotions. While a sermon should strive for both, most pastors end up on one end of the spectrum and their church reflects that. I often think about men I know when I preach on a passage and try to discern questions they would have about it. When men leave a church, they tend to talk about if they were challenged to think in a new way, while women tend to talk about how they felt after a service. Not all are like this, but I’ve found this to be typical. With a sermon, what do you want people to do? How clear is the main idea?

3. Have a clear win for your church. If your church doesn’t have a clear win, a clear vision, men will not sign up for it. Men want to know what is on the line, what impact something will make, why they need to show up. This especially matters to businessmen. This may take you out of your comfort zone, but learn the language of the men you are trying to reach. How do they talk? What books do they read? What is important to them?

Men want to give their lives to clarity and something that matters.
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4. Show them how actions affect their legacy. Men are concerned with legacy, how things will end up, how they will be remembered. When you minister to a man, keep this in mind. Date night with his wife is not just something for today, but has an enormous affect on the marriages of his kids. Purity in his life will be passed on to his kids and grandkids. Whenever possible, show a man who what he is doing right now, good or bad, will affect his legacy. Men think about the future in a way women do not.

5. Give them clear examples worth following. One of the reasons I didn’t want to become a pastor when I was 18 was I had never met a pastor I wanted to be like. Most men look at church leaders and see people they don’t want to be like. Or, they don’t see men they would want to become. This doesn’t mean every pastor needs to drink beer or have a tattoo, but when men follow another man, they are following someone they want to emulate. Put leaders in your church, in visible places who men would want to emulate. This will sound sexist but I’ll just say it. Men follow men. If you want to reach men, have strong male leaders in your church who exemplify Ephesians 5. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have women leaders (if you are a true complementarian church, you will have strong women leaders in your church), but many men who are pastors aren’t actually leading, they are just shepherding. And men know the difference. One thing that is important and few men can articulate this but I’ve found this to be true: men want a pastor who is working hard on his marriage, is honest about his marriage and has a marriage they want to emulate. Is this pressure on the pastor? Yes, but so is everything else about his life and ministry. Too many pastors do not have a passion filled marriage and the men who walk into their churches know it.

As sexist as this sounds, Men follow men.
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6. Expect men to succeed. It is amazing to me what happens in someone’s life when we expect them to succeed or reach a goal. People pick up on our expectations and they have a way of reaching our expectations. If you expect men to lead family devotions, tell them, tell them you believe they can do it and give them resources to do it. If you expect men to reach something, tell them and help them get there. Too many churches seem to say, “We’re content if men just show up.” Or, “You should do ___” and then never give them any tools to accomplish this. Men will often not do something if they are afraid they won’t succeed. This is why men don’t lead at home, don’t pray with their wife, they are afraid of failing.

Men will often not do something if they are afraid they won’t succeed.
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7. Give men something to do. What do most men’s ministries tend to be? A male version of a women’s ministry. They are discussion focused, a large event with men listening or trying to get men to share. While women will share before they serve, men want to serve first. Give them something to do. Help them see how their actions can make an impact. Which leads to the next one…

Men want to serve before their share & open up.
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8. Help them see how their job is a mission field. This is something churches have failed in. Give them a missional theology of work. Not everyone should be a pastor at a church, yet most of the time a pastor meets a businessman he makes him feel guilty for not being a pastor.

9. Ultimately: The reality for reaching men is they have a habit of becoming what we expect them to be. Whatever bar you have for men, they will reach it. Men are able to do impossible things in life, but the church has by and large held up a broom stick they can jump over and wondered why men didn’t come back.

Men become what we expect them to become. Expect more.
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The post 9 Keys for Your Church to Reach More Men appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

There is a great picture of what a marriage should be like in Song of Solomon 1:14. The woman calls compares their relationship to En Gedi. En Gedi is an oasis in the desert near the Dead Sea. Out of nowhere, this oasis, with lush trees, plants, water and even a waterfall spring up.

Yet, this is not what most relationships and marriages are like. Most marriages are filled with stress, pain, nagging, hurtful words, anger, outbursts and even abuse.

It doesn’t have to be this way and couples don’t get married to live in the desert, they get married hoping for the oasis. But how do you make the trip?

6 Ways to Make your Marriage Refreshing.
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Here are 6 simple ways to get there:

1. Stop nagging. Many couples nag at each other, put each other down, get on each other’s cases and are simply mean to each other. This creates an environment no one wants to be in, a family working against itself. This isn’t rocket science, yet so many couples nag, make fun of each other all in an effort to accomplish something. When a couple does this they will say that they are trying to get something done (a project, their spouse to change, wake their spouse up), but what is really happening is pushing them away. Every time nagging happens in a relationship, it comes from a place of brokenness. Sometimes nagging comes from a place of disappointment; either in yourself, your spouse or even where you thought your life and marriage would be at this point. Sometimes in life, you need to grieve that things aren’t going as expected and learn to move forward from that, but that’s another post.

Nagging in relationships comes from a place of brokenness.
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2. Start talking. One of the best ways to make your marriage refreshing is talking. Opening up to your hopes, dreams, disappointments, sharing your past, your hurts and joys. Many couples who are in marriages that are not refreshing find themselves keeping things bottled up or opening up more to someone they aren’t married to than they do to their spouse. Your spouse should know more about you than anyone else. Always.

3. Start serving. If you look at couples who are in refreshing marriages, an oasis in the desert, you will see 2 people who are striving to outserve the other. Yes, this can be broken and one of you can take advantage of this. This is my default mode in our marriage but Katie and I still work at outserving each other (although she always wins that).

Happy marriage secret: Outserve your spouse.
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4. Start pursuing. What made you want to get married was pursuit. You did things together, couldn’t wait to see each other, planned date nights and trips. You pursued your future spouse, which is one reason they became your current spouse. Along the way, the pursuit ended. One of the fastest ways to create a refreshing marriage is to pursue your spouse. Plan date nights (they don’t have to be expensive), do things the other one likes (even if you hate it), participate in hobbies together (even if you don’t like the hobby), and lastly, pursue each other sexually. Husband and wife should initiate sex regularly, this is a win.

5. Start believing. Couples who have a refreshing marriage believe in each other. They believe the best, hope for the best, they believe in the dreams of their spouse and encourage them to pursue them. A refreshing marriage is one where you never have to say, “Don’t you want to have? Don’t you want me to pursue my dreams?” A marriage stuck in the desert has those conversations. Remember, #3? This comes from a place of serving and when you’re serving, you have a willingness to put your dreams on hold if necessary, instead of fighting for them.

6. Start setting up. A refreshing marriage is one where spouses try to help the other succeed. They ask, “how can I set my spouse up for success? How can I make them look good to others? How can I help them reach their goals?” A desert couple says, “What about me and my dreams? Who’s setting me up?” A desert couple doesn’t fight for oneness but for themselves.

An unhappy couple doesn’t fight for oneness but for themselves.
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The reality is, even though every couple wants a marriage in the oasis, we will often choose the desert. It is what we know, it is easier, less work and honestly, the desert allows us to be selfish.

Don’t buy it though. No one lives very long in the desert.

The post 6 Ways to Make your Marriage Refreshing appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

One of the things many married couples fail to do is have regular check-in’s to ask “how are we doing?”

The reasons are obvious: life is busy; your kids, job, church, hobbies all keep you running at an insane pace. You want to believe you are being a great spouse or at a minimum, you are doing good. Sometimes though, having a check-in conversation means you will have a larger conversation that could turn into a fight and who wants that. Another reason is we don’t want to hear if we are failing and not meeting our spouse’s needs. We’d rather live in the world of bliss as if it is all okay.

10 questions every couple should ask on a regular basis.
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The reality in life though, if you don’t ever have a check-in, evaluation if you will, you will never know if you are doing well. Life becomes a shot in the dark, a blind hope that you are doing well.

Let’s be honest for a minute, if you are married you want your marriage to be as great as possible. I am stunned when I tell couples these questions the look of fear or resignation they have. They are scary, but you want to have the best marriage possible. Right? Right.

In light of that, here are some questions I think you should ask your spouse on a regular basis:

1. Are you satisfied?

Right off the bat, this question can lead to some intense conversations, but that’s okay. You are both adults, you signed up for this. Ask them if they are satisfied, happy. Are you? If not, how can you move towards that. As your spouse answers, don’t fight, don’t argue, simply listen until they are done and then respond “what I hear you saying is…” Don’t get defensive.

Do you know if your spouse is satisfied in your marriage?
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2. Can I wear something or stop wearing something to be more attractive?

While this sounds like a question only men care about, it isn’t. I once had a sleeveless Adidas shirt that I loved but Katie thought was the most disgusting thing on the planet. She finally just threw it away. But ask this. Be willing to include every article of clothing for both of you. Strive to be attractive to your spouse. If they don’t like a shirt, a color, a pair of underwear, get rid of it. Speaking of underwear, a good rule of thumb is to clean out your underwear drawer on a yearly basis.

A good rule of thumb is to clean out your underwear drawer on a yearly basis.
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3. What do you like sexually?

I am stunned at how little spouses know about what their spouse likes sexually. We think we know, but especially men are clueless. So are you next date night, while you’re laying in bed, ask your spouse what they like and don’t like sexually. Don’t get defensive. And then when they tell you, maybe try it out.

4. How can I make your life easier? Less stressful?

I wish I could take credit for being a genius of thinking of this question, but I can’t. Katie thought of it. But it was eye opening. Recently at our RevCommunities someone asked about cleaning up the kitchen and Katie said, “Josh will take care of it, he does that every night.” Stunned silence and jaws hit the floor. Then Katie explained this question. Her answer was, “If I could clean up the kitchen each night, load the dishwasher, get coffee ready for her, that would make her life easier when she woke up.” Often, we do things we think will make our spouse’s life easier or less stressful, but it doesn’t. So ask. Wouldn’t you like to do what your spouse would like done instead of guessing?

5. Is there something you wish we did together?

This is a great relational question. Men like to do things together recreationally, that’s a high emotional need for men. It might be watching football together, working out together, gardening, whatever. But doing things together builds into your relationship.

Doing things together builds into your relationship.
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6. How can I help you right now?

This is similar to #4 but gets at something immediate. You may have young kids and you can help with bedtime or the morning routine. Maybe one of you is in school and could use help. Again, don’t get defensive if you think you are doing this, but this is a great way to serve your spouse.

7. How can I help you get better? At what?

As your kids age and your life changes, this is a great question to ask. This helps you to keep growing and moving forward. One of the things I do on a regular basis is buy Katie books to help her keep growing as a woman spiritually.

8. What is the one thing our family should concentrate on in the next 3 – 6 months?

I love this question because it keeps you as a couple on the same page and moving in the same direction. This goal might be getting out of debt, losing weight, finishing a class, buying a house, starting a business, slowing down. But it helps if you both know and agree on what is the most important thing for your family right now, for the next year.

What is the one thing our family should concentrate on in the next 3 – 6 months?
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9. What is the next step for us? For our family?

This is a looking ahead question and is incredibly helpful so you can see around corners as a couple. Is school about to start? Are you about to pay off a credit card? What’s next? Is someone about to change a job? While you both know what is coming, we miss opportunities to talk about what will change because of that and how to best be prepared.

10. What do we need to cut out of our lives right now to live at a sustainable pace?

I think you as a couple should pull out your calendars each week and talk about what is coming up. You should also look at the next month(s) and ask “is this sustainable?” Should we slow down? Cut something out?” Too often, we simply keep running and wonder why we’re so tired without changing anything.

10 questions every couple should ask on a regular basis.
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While not exhaustive, this is a good start. In fact, as your family grows, you get older, kids move out and life changes with new jobs or jobs being quit, you should pull this list out and revisit them as the answers sometimes change.

The post 10 Questions You Should Ask Your Spouse Regularly appeared first on JoshuaReich.org.

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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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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All of us have been betrayed. A spouse who walked out, cheated. A parent who left. A child who hurt us. It might be someone you work with or a member of your church. It could be someone who changed the details of a deal that you agreed to.

All of us have been been betrayed.

And when it happens, it hurts.

The reason is simple. The only way to betray someone means you have to be close to someone. While you can feel let down by a national leader or role model, betrayal only happens in close proximity.

The Saddest Thing About Betrayal Is That It Never Comes From Your Enemies.
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Ministry is a major place for betrayal and when it happens in a church context, it hurts.

A lot.

Last week I spoke at Exponential West and at each of my breakouts I talked to several people who were in the midst of betrayal or just walked through it. Here are some things I reminded them that may prove helpful to you when you find yourself betrayed:

1. Jesus was betrayed. While this sound trite and Christianese when you have been betrayed, it should provide us comfort. Jesus knows what it is like to be betrayed. He knows what it is like to have friends fail him, walk out on him, lie and abandon him. This has helped me to walk through betrayal and misplaced trust.
2. Their true colors will be seen. Our first inclination when we’ve been hurt or betrayed is to get back at someone. We want people to know that we are hurt, that they lied to us, we want to ruin their lives and name in the way they’ve ruined our lives. In the end, if someone doesn’t have character, it eventually comes out. If someone is lazy, eventually everyone knows. While they may not know as quickly as you’d like, everything comes out.
3. It’s for your good. If Romans 8 is true, and I believe it is. Then when we are betrayed, God is and will use it for our good. In the moment, this does not always provide the comfort that it should, that’s more about us than God though. It is true and it does bring comfort for us. When you are betrayed, it is an opportunity for you to grow. You are able to see blind spots, or places you didn’t pull boundaries, or situations you didn’t give enough oversight to. Regardless, when you are betrayed, it can be a wake up call to get better at something and this is good.
4. Take the high road, your true colors will be seen. In the same way that their true colors will be seen, so will yours. Again, not as quickly as you’d like, especially if you are in the right, but they will. If you have character, that will be shown, if not, that will as well.
5. Don’t be bitter. Bitterness is waiting you when you are betrayed. Don’t give in to it. While God is working in all things, pray against bitterness, let go of the person and situation as quickly as you can (even though this may take months or years). Start. Ask people to pray with you against a hard heart. For Katie and I, when betrayal happens we pray Ezekiel 36:26 for our hearts, that God would replace our heart of stone so that it does not become hard.

When someone betrays you, take comfort, in the end they will be seen for who they are
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Many churches (and pastors for that matter) do not know what to do with pastor’s wives, how to treat them, what role they play or how important they are. It is a hard role to live in and stay in. Everyone has a lot of their own expectations of what the wife of a pastor should be like, yet, they are all different.

While Revolution (and myself) has struggled just like every other church to figure this out, I believe Katie and I have figured some things out that we have put into place which will prove to be invaluable in the future. While this is not exclusive to pastors, any leader in a church and for that matter, any husband can do better in understanding their wives and how to engage them.

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing some of the things we’ve learned that I hope will be beneficial for you.

I remember when Katie and I were engaged; she met with a woman who was married to a pastor. Katie told her about our engagement, our future plans of being a pastor and starting a church. This pastor’s wife looked at Katie and told her to “run away as fast as she could.” In no uncertain terms, she told her to not marry a pastor. Now that I am a pastor, I can see why (now, let me share my completely biased opinion).

I have not held many other jobs. At 18, I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I poured everything I had into getting there. God opened many doors for me and blessed me with the opportunity to be on staff at some great churches and be around some world class leaders.

But, being a pastor is hard work. It never ends. There is always another meeting to be had, another person who needs help or someone else to counsel, there is always another book to read or a sermon to write, there is always another fire to put out, another person who needs me this minute. Simply put, being a pastor is a lifestyle job. This is the joy and curse of it. It is what I have given my life to, I will just never complete my to do list. And that is okay. What many pastors struggle with is that it is easy to serve others and help others instead of helping and serving their own family. They pour all they have into their churches and leave their families to fend for themselves. What is interesting though is that according to the qualifications of a pastor/elder in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is that you judge a pastor/elder based on his family and how he leads them, serves them and how they work together.

3 ways help your wife become all that God has called her to be & all that she wants to be.
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Protect Her Heart 

It is easy for a pastor’s wife to get bitter. To see how her husband helps so many other people, how he listens to other people’s problems and not hers. How he can be ready to serve someone at the drop of a hat, but not pick up his clothes at home. She is left to fend for herself and her kids. What many pastors forget is that their wife and kids attend their church and not only are they pastor dad, they are a pastor to them in the same way that he is a pastor to everyone else in the church.

Because it is a lifestyle job that involves counseling, doing weddings, funerals, and being with people, you get a front row seat to everything. You see the good, the bad and the ugly (and sometimes grotesque) of people in the church. A pastor’s wife sees all of this as well. What can make this painful is when you pour into someone, help someone through a difficult patch, spend hours with someone, only to have them stab you in the back, gossip about you, take all of your available time and then tell everyone you weren’t “there for them when they needed you.”

Pastor, are you pastoring your wife? Are you making time for her? Are you helping her deal with the pains you are experiencing? As a man, it is easy to compartmentalize what is happening and you can get lost in your work, but she doesn’t have that luxury, so you need to help her. I remember one time we went through a painful experience and I got over it rather quickly, but never told Katie that I had dealt with it personally, so she kept hurting for me. One night she let me know how bothered she was by this situation and I told her, “That is over.” Not a good thing.

She will be affected by things you won’t be affected by and you need to be sensitive to those things.

Her Gifts

Another area I see many pastor’s failing in is not helping their wife find her gifts and passions. In the past year, Katie has gotten more and more into photography, which has been awesome to see. For too many years, I failed her by not helping her find her gifts and passions outside of church, and was too focused on mine.

Many pastor’s wives are not able to use their gifts because they aren’t seen as worthwhile in the church. Many people think a pastor’s wife should lead the kids ministry, sing, play piano, lead the women’s ministry or teach somewhere. Maybe she is better at discipling, she may be gifted in hospitality or she may be a talented graphic artist. Whatever it is, she should be able to use her gifts.

She should also have the freedom to take breaks like everyone else as she goes through certain seasons of life. There have been times that Katie has been heavily involved in our church and other times where she did less things because of how young our kids are. I’ve always told people, my expectation for a pastor’s wife at Revolution is that she should be like everyone else who attends our church, plugged into community, and using her gifts. Sometimes she will do a lot and sometimes she will do a little, but we’ll have the same expectation for her as anyone else, she just happens to be married to a pastor.

Help Her Grow Spiritually

Another area pastor’s can help his wife is to grow spiritually. Spiritual growth can be hard for a pastor and his family because everything about their life seems spiritual. Often, Katie and I will talk about things she wants to grow in or learn and I will put books on her kindle for her to read. Men are called to pastor his wife and what better way than making sure she is reading good books instead of garbage (which there is no end to in popular books).

Bottom line for this first post, a pastor’s wife is part of the church. They attend it, use their gifts in it, are bought in, but they can easily become bitter or feel left out. They can feel like their husband has chosen work or other people over her and her kids. Don’t do that. Protect her and her heart. Make every effort to make sure she is growing, that she has hobbies and friends so that she is able to become all that God has called her to be.

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