Tag Archives: marriage

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Do You Believe in Your Spouse?

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Do you believe the best in your spouse? Or do you expect them to fail? Are you pushing them to become all that God created them to be?

Do you believe the best in your spouse?

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I have learned that people will often reach the bar we set for them. If the bar is low, don’t expect a lot. Expect to be disappointed.

Do you believe that your spouse can become all the things that God has called them to, or do you expect them to fail? If they are a follower of Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit living in them, which means they have the power to become all that God has called them to become in Scripture. What if you started believing that? Praying for that? For God to work in their lives and make them into the man or woman that God has called them to become?

How we see people is how we treat them. If we see them as a failure, we treat them as such. Katie is my biggest cheerleader, and I hope and pray I am hers. She believes I can do great things. She believes it, encourages me to become, and pushes me to become that.

There is also great power in this. Most people do not understand the power they have in a relationship in terms of their presence, their voice, their silence, eye contact, encouragement or insults.

Most people do not understand the power they have in a relationship in terms of their presence.

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You have the power to bring the best out of your spouse or discourage them. Yes, each person is responsible for themselves and determines what they do, but in a marriage, the closest human relationship, there is great power to bring out the best or the worst in your spouse.

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Love Is… (1 Corinthians 13)

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I know that loving people is hard. It can be exhilarating and bring us so much joy, but it can also bring us heartache.

Last week Katie and I were with one of our mentors, and he said, “The people God has placed in our lives are there to activate what God wants to transform.” That is hard because everyone in my life isn’t always easy to live with. They can be messy, difficult, get in the way and get on my nerves. I can do the same to them as well. That is what relationships are like.

The people God has placed in our lives are there to activate what God wants to transform. -Rich Plass

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I want to encourage you to continue thinking through how you can bring love to your relationships, especially the most important and closest ones to you.

If you aren’t familiar with 1 Corinthians 13 on love (a very popular wedding passage), let’s remind ourselves:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

Love is patient. We are impatient people. We want food fast, internet fast and we get annoyed when Netflix buffers. We are also impatient relationally. This plays out by being demanding, bulldozing people and pushing too hard. It’s the worst with those closest to us, pushing them, expecting them to be what we want, to do what we want. Yet love says, “However long it takes for you to get your act together, I’ll be here.” Our culture says, “If they don’t change fast enough, if they hold you back, move on.”

Can you imagine Jesus saying, “You aren’t changing fast enough, so I’m done with you”, or, “You aren’t responding to me fast enough, so we’re done”? This is difficult, especially if you are a control freak in your life.

Love is kind. Kindness is actions, words, emotions and so much more.

In your relationships, do you use your presence and words to show kindness, or do you tear the other down? Kindness often is keeping your mouth shut when you’d love to open it. Not in a way to cover sin, but in a way to say, “That isn’t a big deal; I’ll let that go.”

Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. Envy is a longing for something that isn’t currently ours. Boasting is puffing ourselves up, focusing on ourself and our needs over the needs of others. Arrogance is thinking we’re better than we are. Rude is controlling the agenda and everyone around us.

When we envy others, boast, are arrogant or rude, we push people away.

Often we do these things to be right, but also to protect ourselves from getting hurt. If I envy you, then I can blame you for my problems. If I boast, I can put you down to make me feel better. The same is true of being rude. If I’m arrogant, I protect myself from getting hurt. If I’m not proud, I’m willing to open up my heart to hurt, yes, but I also open up my heart to love.

All these emotions and actions do is isolate us. In this passage Paul is inviting us to let go of these desires.

Love does not insist on its own way. Many times love is self-seeking and about what we want.

Why do we insist on our way? For protection, fear, pride, anxiety, control, just to name a few. Love gives in relationships; it doesn’t take.

Love doesn’t insist on perfection. In our photoshopped, air brushed culture, we insist on perfection. We take and re-take selfies. We only post our highlights or our low lights in a way to get love. Think the next time you post something, are you posting it for affirmation? Most of us do.

But love says, “I’ll accept you. I’ll walk with you.” Love says, “I won’t have an independent spirit.” This doesn’t mean you are co-dependent, because that’s unhealthy, but do you bring an independent, “I’m going to do what I want when I want” spirit to your relationships?

At the end of the day, this is empathy and a willingness to see from the other person’s perspective in a relationship.

Love is not irritable or resentful. We all know people who are resentful and always irritated. They keep a list of wrongs in relationships, reminding people of past hurts. They also always expect the worst in relationships.

Do you know where this comes from? It comes from their family of origin, but often it comes from the picture they have of the relationship.

For me, I am often my biggest critic. Every situation I am in with anyone, I have a picture in my mind of what that interaction and time will be like. What this does is prevent me from enjoying the moment. I have to constantly battle this. Multiple times a day I have to remind myself, “This is good enough. The world won’t end.” When we let go and enjoy, we more easily let go of hurt, we more easily let go of things that didn’t go the way we wanted them to go.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. This goes with the last one.

Do you rejoice over the mistakes of those closest to you? Being able to say, “I told you it would go that way”, which puffs us up to show that we are right. We look at people who make mistakes in our lives and think, “How did you not know that would go that way?”

This also gets into the area of being historical in relationships. Do you find yourself saying, “Remember when…”, “You always…”, or “You never…”? Don’t miss this: No strong relationship is filled with the words always and never.

But what if the other person in my life is hard to love? What if my spouse is difficult? What if my child is hard to get along with? What if my parents or in-laws are always getting into our relationship?

Paul ends with what I think are the hardest parts of this passage, because they cost us the most.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. This is the hardest part of love. This last verse shows us not only what God’s love towards us cost Him, but it shows us what love will cost us. It also shows us how strong love is.

Love can bear all things when we love the way God loves us. Love does not give up hope. Love is not naïve, but love is powerful. The love that Paul has been talking about in these verses is love that can bear all things, believe all things and hope all things.

But what if the other person doesn’t love like that?

Love endures all things. That’s why Paul ends with love endures all things.

You have the choice to endure all things, in love, even when things are the hardest and the darkest. Even when facing your hurt is painful, even when that person hurts you emotionally, you have the choice to love.

Will they return that love? Maybe not.

We love those around us the way we believe God loves us (1 John 4:19), whether we believe in God or not.

For example, if we believe God is indifferent towards us, this is how we approach most relationships. If we believe God is holding out on us, we will hold out on those closest to us in relationships. If we believe God has a short fuse, we will tend to have a short fuse. If we believe God doesn’t care what we do, this is how we will treat those closest to us.

1 Corinthians 13 shows us how to love each other, but also how God loves us.

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How do I know this?

1 Corinthians 13 is a picture of God’s love toward us. All of these remind us of what God’s love is like.

God is not impatient or unkind with us. He is not pushy. God does not say to us, “Do you remember when you…”, or, “You always…” Instead, we are told that when we take the step of following Jesus and confessing our sins and need for Jesus, God remembers our sin no more. It is hard when we are hurt, carry around shame and regret and guilt from past relationships to see the truth. We are so used to seeing that relationship and all relationships through the lens of pain. Yet Jesus sets us free from our shame, regret and guilt. He is the power to overcome those experiences.

But why is love so hard?

Because, “The people God has placed in our lives are there to activate what God wants to transform.” So, as you read through the list in 1 Corinthians 13, you begin to see what God wants to transform in your life through what is difficult for you to live out.

Think of one thing, one relationship, and work on that. Change and growth take time, so don’t feel like you need to fix every relationship you have. That’s not possible. Give yourself permission to take your time. God isn’t in a rush.

1 Corinthians 13 shows us how God loves us.

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In Honor of Valentine’s Day

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love, valentine's day

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share the top 10 marriage and relationship posts that Katie and I have written over the years. Thanks for learning and growing with us over the years. Bookmark this page to use as a resource you can come back to. Katie and I hope this helps take your marriage to the next level.

  1. Lies Couples Believe About Marriage
  2. 11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage
  3. 10 Questions You Should Ask Your Spouse Regularly
  4. 18 Things Every Husband Should Know about His Wife
  5. The One Thing Destroying Your Marriage That You Don’t Realize
  6. 10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse
  7. When You Manipulate Your Husband, You Lose Him
  8. 7 Reasons You Aren’t Communicating with your Spouse
  9. Surviving a Hard Season in Your Marriage
  10. When You Aren’t in the Mood for Sex

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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How to Make Your Next Sermon Great

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sermon

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.

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Seasons in Life, Leadership & Church

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leadership

I grew up in a farming community, so everyone was very aware of the seasons and what those seasons meant for life. Certain things happened during certain times of the year. You planted, watered, prepped the dirt and harvested plants at certain times. If you did it at the wrong time (too early or too late), you could harm the crops and miss what could be.

Life, leadership and church are the same. There are times when things are high (harvesting the crops) and times when you are prepping the dirt (getting ready) or pulling out weeds, and it feels like nothing is happening.

Then, like a farm, you start over.

When you start a church (or a new chapter in life), you are clearing the field, getting the seed ready, tilling the ground. Things like building a team, building in that team, getting the word out, working through logistics and schedules to get a church off the ground. This is hard work. There is no shortcut through this, although I meet plenty of church planters who want to skip this. It’s easy to see why; it is hard. Long hours, you see very little fruit because you are planting, you are weeding, you are watering. Some younger leaders can relate to this season as they work under a pastor, waiting for the time to plant a church. Many guys see this as “biding their time” but need to see it as the time of pruning, the Spirit of God working in and on them for what lies ahead. This season is mostly behind the scenes. The work that is being done is often being done in hearts, lives and in meetings as people work to shore up systems and how things are done.

In our lives this is trying to get a career off the ground, trying to finish school, pay your dues at a company, working to get your marriage off the ground, trying to figure out kids, how that all works as you parent. This is the beginning of things. This is hard work. In this season most dreams, most goals stop because of the difficulties.

Don’t miss this: this is not a wasted season. If you don’t do this hard work, preparing, studying, reading, getting ready, you can’t actually plant a crop. You can’t start a business, you are unprepared to start a family. We too often rush into things we are not ready for.

Don’t rush to the next thing in life. You may not be ready for it.

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Then you water, you clear the weeds away, making sure the crop gets sunlight, plenty of fertilizer and water.

This is the time that you start to see life. The first person to become a follower of Jesus, the first baptism, first marriage saved, you launch something in your church. This is exciting, this is what you hoped for. For many guys, though, this can be depressing because it is slow. You will see plants come up that just die. You will see weeds that overtake plants. Or plants that don’t grow to what they should be. Leaders you poured into who walk away, marriages you counseled only to have them quit. Moments of betrayal and feeling stabbed in the back, feelings of God abandoning you. At this point you will probably hear of how God is working in the church down the street. Don’t despair; they are in a different season.

You are in your season, they are in their season.

Your marriage starts having small wins, you begin to see eye to eye, you’re connecting again. You get pregnant after a long, difficult season of infertility. Your work is beginning to get noticed, you get some accolades, a promotion, get accepted for that master’s program.

Like a church, you can start to get jealous at this point. Someone else seems to have an easier time. Their child isn’t as difficult, their marriage (while yours is great) is better.

The next season is the harvest. Plants are growing, you are reaping rewards from your hard work. In this season you have unprecedented momentum. You can do little wrong. Every idea you try seems to work. Your sermons click, community groups multiply, money is great, staff is getting along. There is a buzz about what God is doing in your church. You might even be getting noticed in your city, people are talking. This is the season you hear about on twitter, blogs and at conferences.

This is where you can look back with some accomplishment on a project that has taken awhile. Maybe you had a lot of work you had to do in your marriage, you sell a business, a business is finally humming and hitting on all cylinders, you graduate, and all the work you put into your schooling is done. It is a season of accomplishment.

This is the season everyone wants to live in.

The reality, though, is that this season comes to an end, and then you start over. What often keeps pushing you through this cycle is the reality that the harvest season does come.

So how long do these seasons last? It depends. Some leaders, churches, careers and marriages get stuck in an early season and never reap any benefits. Some after going through the great feelings of the harvest and seeing things start over simply throw up their hands and quit. Most people seem to stay stuck in an early season and wonder why life is so hard.

If you are in a hard season in life, don’t despair. It doesn’t last forever.

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The important thing for a leader is to know what season they are in personally and where their church is so they can lead effectively and know how their church is doing. People need to be reminded that hard seasons do not last forever, but they also need to be reminded to enjoy the seasons of growth and momentum.

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How to Figure out God’s Will

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God's Will

Every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

This truth has had an enormous impact on how I live my life, how I make decisions, how we do our calendar as a family and how I lead Revolution Church.

But how do you know what to say yes and no to? That’s the most common question I get from someone who has read my book or has heard me say this in a talk. Honestly, it’s different for each person.

Too often we focus on what we want to do in the next day, week or month and then make a decision based on that. Let me frame it a different way for you: What kind of person do you want to become in the next month? In the next half year? One year from now, who do you want to be?

Will this involve doing something? Yes, but it changes the context.

For example, if a year from now you want to be closer to Jesus than you are today, a stronger disciple, then you will make the choice to say yes to community, yes to serving in your church, yes to reading your Bible, and yes to inviting people to church. That will then determine what you say no to.

Often we hope that something will happen. We will simply become kinder, more generous, thinner or smarter without putting in the work or even be willing to make a choice towards something. If you want to become a person who is known for ________, then you will have to make decisions for that to happen. A wish and a hope are not enough.

How to figure out God’s will for your life.

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Take your marriage or another relationship. What if six months from now that relationship was stronger? It would mean that what you are doing right now would have to change. You would need to make more of an effort, you would have to say yes to giving time and energy to that relationship and saying no to something else (ie. golfing, sleeping in, working too late).

We often think we have no power over where our life goes, what our marriage becomes, the relationship we have with God or how kind we are. Yet we do. Every day we make decisions that get our life somewhere.

Here’s the problem: we never sit down to ask, Where do I want to end up?

How to figure out God’s calling in your life.

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How to be a Team in Marriage

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marriage

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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How do I Get my Husband to Lead at Home?

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husband

One of the questions Katie and I get a lot is, “How do I get my husband to lead at home?”

How do I get my husband to lead at home?

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One of the biggest reasons men don’t lead at home is twofold: 1) They don’t think they can do it, and 2) Their wife is leading (because he isn’t and stuff has to get done), and she is very good at it.

2 reasons men don’t lead in their home.

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One thing men don’t do often is duplicate efforts. If you as a wife are leading at home, taking up the mantle of the spiritual life of your family, keeping the family on track in scheduling to make sure you aren’t overwhelmed, he won’t do it.

While Scripture calls men to lead in their homes, most women do it, and honestly most women are better suited to do it. But as I have seen over and over, and Scripture is on point with this, when we get off track from God’s way, even with gifting in the mix, it is disastrous.

So if you are doing anything you want your husband to do, stop doing it.

I remember Katie pulling me aside one time and saying, “I really want you to do _____ in our family, and right now I’m doing it. I’m going to stop doing it in hopes that you will pick it up.” I didn’t start overnight, but I was able to see the importance in something.

I think for a man to lead, he needs to drive the bus of what comes into his home in terms of TV and entertainment, protecting his family on the internet and what is taught spiritually. This does not mean he does it all. In fact, Katie does more of this than I do because she spends more time with the kids, but she looks for me to lead the charge on this.

Protect your family’s schedule. This means you need to make sure date nights and daddy dates are happening, you aren’t involved in too many things and you make sure priorities happen. (Which means if you make baseball practice and scouts more of a priority than church and community for 10 years, don’t be surprised when your kids go to college and leave church. It is not the church’s fault; the onus is on you as a man.)

Women, if your husband isn’t doing this, don’t berate him, don’t send him a link to this (unless you’ve talked about it), don’t hand him a book or tell him there are husbands doing this, so he needs to step up.

Ask God, pray for him, ask God to make him into the man God wants him to be, not the man you want him to be. And stop doing the things God has called him to do, even if that means something might not get done for a time.

Let me end with this. Men often struggle to do something they think they might not be good at, even the real risk-taking adventurous guys. They will take risks at work, but they are often scared to death about failing in front of their wife or kids. This is often the biggest barrier to a man taking the lead at home. This gives the wife a great opportunity to cheer him on and help him succeed.

A barrier to men leading at home is their fear of failure.

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Too many people do not set their spouse up to succeed. If you want your husband to take the lead at home, instead of nagging him one more time, how could you help him succeed? How could you cheer him on? What is one thing you could do to partner with him in this?

3 ways to get your husband to lead at home.

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4 Things Healthy Leaders Do

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healthy leaders

No leader or pastor starts their career or starts a church with thinking about quitting. All of them start with grand plans and dreams of the future and finishing, retiring, making it to the end with friends and family around them.

Yet statistically that is incredibly rare. Most quit, give up, fall out of the race or simply stop trying while still collecting a paycheck.

According to stats:

  • 78% of pastors say they have no close friends.
  • 1,500 pastors quit each month.
  • 70% of pastors battle depression.
  • Only 10% of pastors will retire as a pastor.

Recently I’ve had several pastors talk about not wanting to burn out, which seems like a good goal. But the moment you start talking about burnout, you have moved into a dangerous place.

Let me throw out a different question, one I think is better: How can you lead and live at a sustainable pace?

How can you lead and live at a sustainable pace?

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There is a great passage in Matthew that you have more than likely heard a sermon on, or if you are a pastor you’ve preached on this passage. It is so common and so easy to forget the power in it.

To remind you, this is what it says in The Message version:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

I think according to this passage, there are four things healthy leaders (or non-leaders) do:

4 things healthy leaders do.

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1. Healthy leaders don’t try to be God.

We say we aren’t trying to be God or we say we can’t save anyone, only the Holy Spirit can, but many leaders carry the burden that they can, or at the very least, they will try.

We think, “If I can just talk to them, or get them to read this book or hear this podcast, that will help.” It might, but it might not.

We can also drift so far from God personally that we simply lead out of our abilities and strengths. This is easy to do if you have a strong speaking gift. You can cover up your lack of relationship with God by being charismatic or interesting on stage.

Healthy leaders don’t try to be God.

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2. Healthy leaders walk and work with Jesus, not for Jesus.

Yes, Jesus is the chief shepherd and the senior pastor of your church, but you don’t work for him. We work with him and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We follow what the Spirit starts and is doing.

We talk about our priority list as Christians being God, family, job. Yet it is easy for a pastor’s list to be God/job, family because of how closely connected his job and God are. Often this is so subtle that no one sees it, or if they do they don’t say anything about it.

I firmly believe there is a calling that comes with being a pastor, but, and please hear this: being a pastor is also a job. A job that will end. A job you will retire from one day.

If we aren’t careful, we start to become unhealthy when our identity is too wrapped up in what we do. This is why we get hurt when someone rejects a sermon, our advice or the vision of the church. We feel like they are rejecting us, because our sermon, that vision, is who we are. It is our identity.

That’s a dangerous spot.

Healthy leaders walk and work with Jesus, not for Jesus.

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3. Healthy leaders don’t force stuff.

The reason I love this version of these verses are two phrases. The first is, Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I am like most leaders. We are incredibly driven, we make things happen, and we force it.

How many times have you played a conversation in your head before it happens: you’ll say this, they’ll say this, then you’ll respond, then they’ll respond, and this is how it ends. Then the meeting goes just like that and you think, “That could’ve been an email.”

We also can very easily force our kids and our wife to be something they aren’t.

One of the saddest things to watch is, as a man is pushing his calling and planting his church, his wife is sitting there dying emotionally, physically, spiritually.

Here’s a question for you as a leader: Is your family too much about your calling and goals? Does your wife have space for hers?

Healthy leaders don’t force stuff.

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4. Healthy leaders don’t carry burdens they aren’t meant to carry.

I’m a perfectionist. In every part of my life, I carry a burden of wanting everything to be perfect. Every experience with my kids and my wife, I build up in my mind, and when it fails to reach that I get stressed out and angry.

Another struggle for many leaders is they don’t know how to handle the emotional side of ministry. We struggle with our emotions of hurt, depression, loss, anger, and then as those emotions entangle with the emotions of those in our church and we walk with them through divorce, miscarriages, death, suicide, and addictions (just to name a few), we become at a loss of what to do with all the burdens.

Healthy leaders don’t carry burdens they aren’t meant to carry.

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In the end, Matthew 11 is an invitation from Jesus to live freely and lightly. That’s the second phrase in this passage that is so beautiful. Many pastors do not live in this place. Many followers of Jesus never experience this, yet this is supposed to be the normal Christian experience.

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Being a Pastor is Also a Job

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pastor

One of the things pastors and Christians talk a lot about is the calling of a pastor. While we often make that an incredibly mystical and mystifying conversation, being a pastor is more than that.

It is also a job.

Now before you get out pitchforks and torches, hear me out. I’ve said this in several circles, and the reactions are often the same. Some see this as completely heretical; others are convicted immediately as they think about it.

A pastor is a calling. Being a pastor is also a job.

Being a pastor is a calling, but it is also a job.

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A job ends. One day you will retire from your job. Your job is also something you do.

To many pastors their job never ends. They talk about dying in the pulpit, and for them their job is not something they do, but who they are.

Now to be clear, being a pastor is a calling. It is a role. It is a spiritual gift. But it is not the sum total of who I am. I am a man, a friend, a dad, a husband, a brother, a son and a neighbor.

Here’s why this is so important: Too many pastors over spiritualize their calling, which leads them to burnout, overworking and ultimately, sin. In fact, many pastors make their identities center around who they are as a pastor. I’m pastor so-and-so, which raises their level of importance.

This is also another reason why pastors take it so personally when a sermon doesn’t go well, people don’t respond to what they said, or someone is angry at a vision change. Why? Their role and personal identity are wrapped up in them. They haven’t separated the two, so when someone doesn’t respond the way they’d like, that person is rejecting them. But they aren’t. They are rejecting the message, the opportunity.

When you talk to pastors who burnout, you hear things about the needs of people, how they couldn’t say no, how they preached too much, didn’t take care of themselves, carried burdens into their sleep that they should’ve let go of.

In all this we sin, yet because we’re called we somehow give each other a pass, or at the very least talk about how hard ministry is and the suffering we endure.

Most of that, though, stems from our pride and need to be needed. We train our people in it, and they respond because it speaks to something in their hearts, a desire they have that resonates with wrapping up what we do with who we are.

While some have pushed back on this, this is a tension you have to wrestle with as a pastor. You are not as important as you think you are. You are not as needed as you think you are. And one day you will stop preaching, stop leading the meetings you lead, and someone will take your place.

It has been interesting to me watching pastors get closer to retirement and seeing the look of horror as they struggle with what is next. Many of them continue preaching and leading when they should hand those tasks off to someone else, but they don’t. They go past their effectiveness because this is their calling, without ever questioning how effective they are at their job.

Here’s another example. Many Christians trumpet the order of their priorities: God, family and job. For pastors their job is connected to God, so it is easy to see something like this: job/God, and family. It is dangerous because it is not always obvious.

Here are some ways I try to balance this tension:

  1. When someone rejects a vision, plan, strategy or sermon, do I take it personally? If so, why? Is that healthy or prideful?
  2. Do I have an overinflated view of my impact on my church?
  3. When was the last time I said no?
  4. Do I stop working at night and over the weekend? Do I stop thinking about work when I’m not working?
  5. Do I live out what I tell people they should do with their jobs: relationship with God, family, then work?
5 questions to help you be healthy as a pastor.

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