Tag Archives: pastor

Posted on

Being a Pastor’s Wife: Without Her, You Fall Apart

by

Pastor's wife

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.

If you missed it, you can read Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church.

One of the difficulties is that no one knows is what a pastor’s wife does. Everyone sees him preaching, leading worship, talking with people. They are touched by what he does. Words speak to them. He led them to Christ, baptized them, did their wedding, and was there for them when they lost a parent or a child.

What makes a pastor’s wife the most important person to the pastor is what you don’t see her do. For me, I am able to do all that I do only because of what Katie does in the background. The night before preaching is especially stressful for every pastor. They are thinking about their sermon, the people who will be there, the details, the people who are mad at them, any problems that are coming up, the list goes on and on what runs through a pastor’s mind the night before preaching. On Saturday, Katie makes sure that our house is as relaxing as possible. We play with our kids, watch a movie, sit on the back porch listening to music and talking together. We do as little as possible. We don’t have any major discussions (we do that on date night, which is Friday night). The next difficult night is after preaching. A pastor thinks about the conversations, what went right, what went wrong. It is either an incredible high or a low. But the night after preaching is usually the most dramatic mood swing of the week for a pastor. They have poured everything out to help those in their church. Without Katie, I would not make it through a month’s worth of these nights.

Pastors, make sure your wife knows how important she is. It is easy for her to forget because she doesn’t see or hear everything. She just hears the bad stuff. Tell her about how what she does enables you to do what you do. How by creating a relaxing home, you are prepared to do what you do and because you do what you do and God worked someone’s life has been changed. That does not happen without her.

Pastor Without Your Wife, You Fall Apart.

Click To Tweet

When was the last time you said, “Without you, I would not be able to do ________________?” Do you have a night (a weekly date night) set aside that honors your wife and give your undivided attention to her on this night? That means no phone, email, internet, TV. A night of relating.

Posted on

Being a Pastor’s Wife: Pastor Your Wife as Much as You Pastor Your Church

by

Pastor's wife

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.

Click To Tweet

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.

Posted on

Unexpected Seasons of Growth

by

growth

As much as I hate to admit it, as a control freak, my life is largely out of my control.

Yes, I control my reaction to things, what I think about things and how I move forward. But, I can’t control what someone else does and I certainly have no say over what God allows to enter into my life.

My summer did not go as I planned.

For some people, this is a reason to celebrate because it would mean new adventures, unexpected opportunities. The optimists in the world would dance a little dance and be on the merry way to see what will happen.

That’s not me.

What I have learned over the summer as things at church haven’t gone how I expected them, is that unexpected season often lead to greater growth. 

The optimists might be right in that the unexpected really does lead to greater opportunities.

This summer I’ve learned that when something you weren’t planning to have happened, happens, it creates opportunities.

When our worship pastor, who helped me start Revolution (he came when our church was 4 months old), when he left in June it gave me an opportunity to do some things I hadn’t thought about doing when he was here. It helped me see areas of our church that weren’t healthy, ways I was leading that weren’t as helpful to our church as they could be.

It opened up new possibilities.

Could that have happened if he stayed?

Sure.

I’m not sure I would have gone looking for it, or it would’ve presented itself otherwise.

Experiences like this create in me a more opportunistic streak. I am starting to look for ways to grow now instead of waiting for discomfort to push me into it. I’m starting to ask more questions about how to improve personally or as a church instead of waiting for a crisis to push me.

Posted on

How a Wife Flourishes

by

wife

The idea of roles in marriage is filled with land mines. Many people have misused and misinterpreted the beautiful verses in the Bible to make them say what they want to. Few people have actually seen healthy couples live out roles well and often have incorrect views of Biblical roles. We have visions of quiet wives who say nothing, men who dominate and abuse their families all based on Ephesians 5, completely missing the point of this passage.

In thinking about how a husband helps his wife flourish and become all that God has called her to be, here are 5 ways men often fail and how to work against these problems to create the picture described in Ephesians 5:

  1. Spiritually apathetic. This husband completely abdicates his role as the spiritual leader of his family. He often will not go to church with his wife and kids and if he does, he is very passive. Not getting involved, not praying with his wife or kids, not praying at dinner, not guiding his kids spiritually, not asking questions, not reading the Scripture to them. He lets that up to the church or his wife.
  2. Workaholic. This husband sees being a husband simply as providing for the needs of his family. While that is part of being a husband, there is more to it than making money so there is a roof over their head, clothes on their back and food on the table. This type of man is disconnected from the family in some very important ways.
  3. Dictator. This husband uses his role as a way to control and get his way, all the time. It doesn’t matter how he gets his way and it doesn’t matter what happens because he has gotten his way. He just wants his way. Often, he will use Bible verses to get it. This husband will treat his wife and kids as slaves and orders them around. Often, this will lead to physical abuse, which is nowhere near what Paul had in mind in Ephesians 5 when he called men to be the head of their house.
  4. Emotionally detached. This is the husband who is the head of the family in name only. He has nothing to do with his wife, kids. He does not lead them in any form. He simply sits by, dictating when he doesn’t like something, letting his wife take on his role and responsibility and basically do everything he is supposed to do. Emotionally, he does not know how to relate to his and kids. He does not know how to connect to his family, he is distant.
  5. Irresponsible. This is the husband who buys things without consulting his wife, makes decisions on his own and generally puts his family in financial, relational, physical and emotional danger because “He is the head of the house.” This husband sees leadership as a club to get to do what he wants.
5 ways a husband keeps his wife from flourishing & enjoying life (what to do about it).

Click To Tweet

If you are married and curious to know how your marriage is in this area, here is a simple question to ask: is the wife flourishing?

When a man fulfills the role God has called him to in marriage, his wife will flourish. She will have room to grow, there will be grace for her to deal with past hurts in her life, she will be able to use her gifts to bless her family and the world around her, she will have freedom to be who God has called her to be.

I often tell our church: Husbands should create an umbrella under which a woman is protected to become the woman God has called her to be. 

Posted on

How to Win Men

by

dv1954014

Every study on church and our culture largely says the same thing: Women are more likely than men to attend church, give, be involved, serve, lead, etc. Essentially, women are more willing and more likely to do anything spiritual than men.

There are a whole hosts of reasons: women are more spiritual, most pastors are not manly, churches are designed for women (this is true of a ton of churches but they won’t admit it), sermons are geared towards women, churches don’t know how to communicate to men who don’t have kids, pastors who do talk to men simply yell at them and tell them to get a job (while this might be needed I don’t think every man who walks into our churches is a lazy slob who lives at home and plays video games).

I was recently asked to join a team that helps to put events on for men in Arizona. I started to ask around about the organization because truth be told, I thought it was interesting since Revolution doesn’t have a men’s or women’s ministry. Essentially, we see our church as those.

I asked someone who knew them well what he thought of this organization and he said, “Their meetings are a bunch of talk about ideas, what they’ll do but in the end, no action.”

I looked at him and said, “So, like a men’s ministry.”

Now, before you misread this, I have nothing against men’s ministries, except for the fact that they often don’t work. They may help men who want to go to large events, or men who like to camp or men who like to read. Let’s be honest, most men’s ministries center around these 3 things. Every man isn’t into those things.

The reason that most churches are failing to reach men where they are is action.

We don’t call men to enough.

In most churches, we challenge men to show up, give a tithe check, maybe serve, get their kids there and be a presentable husband. Really? First off, a men could walk over this bar.

When the bar is too low, men wonder if it is worth their time. 

Here are 5 ways to raise the bar for men in your church:

  1. 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.
  2. Have a clear win. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

The reality for reaching men is they have a habit of becoming what we expect them to be.

[Image]

Related articles
Posted on

How a Leader Fails

by

book

It seems almost every week there is another leader written about in blogs who has failed somehow. Whether that is abuse of power, finances, sleeping with someone they aren’t married to or jumping off the deep end theologically.

Every time I read about it, my heart breaks. For the people who are affected, for the name of Christ that is tarnished, for the families that are broken because of it, for the lost of mission and momentum at the church and for the leader and his wife.

My heart also breaks because I know I could easily be that leader if I’m not careful.

So much happens when a leader fails.

Each time this happens, I inevitably read too many blogs about the situation. Not out of morbid curiosity, but to find out where it went wrong. Almost every time two things happen. While there are other things that each one has in common, almost every leadership failure has two things in common:

  1. The leader is not in a small group or missional community.
  2. All the rules don’t apply to the leader.

While these aren’t always the case, leaders can be in a small group and fail. Each time I read about another leader failing, these seem to be true on some level.

Here’s why this matters.

When you are in a small group or MC, you are with “normal people.” Too many pastors insulate themselves with elders and staff. I’ve had pastors tell me, “My elder team is my small group.” Um, no. Your elders are the team that shepherd, lead and protect the church together, but they aren’t your small group. In fact, that’s a recipe for disaster. Who is around your wife? Who is around your kids? What non-Christians are you spending time with?

Slowly, the leader begins to think they don’t need the sheep anymore. They have more important things to do. Now, I’m not saying a leader needs to burn himself out making himself available to everyone. As a church grows, the leader must delegate tasks and people to other leaders. This is good and healthy. But, a church is never too big for a pastor to talk with people.

I remember when I worked at Willow Creek and watching Bill Hybels and John Ortberg stand down by the stage after preaching and talk for as long as people would stand in line. I remember watching it once to see how long Hybels would do it and I timed him standing for over an hour one day.

The second one creeps up on a leader, sometimes without notice. The rules begin to not apply to them. 

Now, the higher you move in a church or organization, the more perks come with it. A lead pastor has a bigger book budget, goes to more conferences, has more vacation days, etc. I’m not talking about more perks.

I’m talking about a lead pastor requiring his staff to work in the office but he gets to work from home “because sermon prep is a solo activity.” If you get a perk like working from home, it should be available to others. If there is a policy about social media or something else, it is applies to employees, it applies to you as the leader.

The moment a leader is above the rules is the moment a leader is in danger. The moment a leader is cut off from community with people who are not leaders, is the moment a leader is in danger.

[Image]

Related articles
Posted on

7 Rules When You Meet a Pastor’s Kid

by

book

I came across this in Barnabas Piper’s great book The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity, which I highly recommend.

If you attend church or meet a Pastor’s kid, here are things to keep in mind when you meet them. They’ll appreciate it:

  1. Do not ask us “What is it like to be the son or daughter of…?” How are we supposed to answer that question? Could you easily describe being the child of your parents? Remember, PKs are normal people with just a different upbringing than you. Please treat us that way. We think of our parents as parents, nothing more.
  2. Do not quote our dads to us. This is really and truly annoying because it comes across as one of two things. Either you are proving your piousness by being so aware of the utterance of the beloved pastor, or you are being condescending and holding our parents words over our heads. Neither is impressive or appreciated.
  3. Do not ask us anything personal you would not ask of anyone else. If, perchance, you have gained some knowledge of a PK through a sermon illustration or book or hearsay, it is best to keep it to yourself. To ask a question based on knowledge that you gained in an impersonal manner makes you look like either a stalker or a reporter. Both are creepy.
  4. Do not ask us anything about our dads positions on anything. “What does your dad think about …?” is a question no PK wants to answer – not about politics, the roles of women in the church, predestination, the use of drums in the worship service, spiritual gifts, race, or anything else. We have opinions and beliefs, though. And we like to converse. So you could ask us what we think, like a normal person.
  5. Do not assume you can gain audience with the pastor through us. That’s what the church secretary or the pastor’s assistant is for. Please let us be children. We usually don’t have the ability to make a meeting happen, and we almost never want to.
  6. Do not assume that we agree with all the utterances of our fathers. I know it’s hard to believe that any child could grow up and disagree with her parents, but it does happen. It is not kind or safe to assume that our parents’ positions are ours. And when you find out we don’t agree, please refrain from being shocked or offended.
  7. Get to know us. This is a good rule for anyone, but it especially pertains to PKs. Just as you want people to value your opinions, personality and character quirks, so do we. More often than not you will get a surprise. Wow, that PK actually has a sense of humor! Who knew PKs could be so fun? Wait, he said what? Leave your assumptions at the door and let us be us. You’ll probably like what you find.

[Image]

Posted on

The Squeaky Wheel

by

book

Pastors, you know this conversation because you’ve had it a million times. “Our church needs to have ____. Our church needs to do _____. If we had ____ more people would find Jesus.” That blank could be more classes, more groups, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, a quilting group, louder music, quieter music, more services, more kids stuff.

Here’s the problem when someone says your church should do something.

They have no idea what they want. 

Carmine Gallo said, “People don’t know what they want and, if they do, they have a hard time articulating what they truly desire.”

This is why leadership is so crucial in a church.

You can’t lead based off what people say they want or what people think they want.

Often, we don’t know the very thing that would help us get out of our predicament. We can see that to be true in our lives.

Leadership then, is the ability to move people to where they need to be, not always where they want to be.

[Image]

Related articles
Posted on

Why People Attend Church

by

church

There is power in identity. When we create the right kind of identity, we can say things to the world around us that they don’t actually believe makes sense. We can get them to do things that they don’t think they can do. -Carmine Gallo, Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds

Wrapped up in this quote is a key to preaching the works: helping people see the possibilities of a sermon on their future. 

Many sermons seem to miss this component, helping people imagine the changes that would come to their life if a change was made.

Think for a minute, what if someone began reading their bible? What if someone actually let go of a past hurt and forgave someone? What if a married couple began investing in their relationship as much as they do a hobby or their kids? What if someone actually began to see the impact of seeing God as father would make in their life?

Often, sermons tend to stay in the intellectual side of things or we focus on getting to the emotions (possibly manipulating them).

What about motivation?

I know many can cringe at this because it makes them feel like a salesman, pushy, or that they are simply being a motivational speaker who is creating rah-rah cheers in their church.

This question gets at something every pastor should answer before they get up to preach: why should anybody care about what I’m about to say?

The answer is not because it is in the Bible, most of our culture does not care what is in the Bible. The answer is not because it is true, most people in our culture do not believe the Bible is truer than some other book.

It gets at why most people show up at church on a given week.

Hope. 

Most people walk through doors of a church looking for hope.

They might be lost, they might be aimless, they may have tried other things, they may be at the end of their rope or halfway to the end.

But they are looking for hope, for possibilities.

A sermon, through the power of the gospel should show them that hope.

This is one thing I say almost every week as we get ready to take communion. We are reminded in communion that when Jesus walked out of the tomb, we have hope. Hope that one day all the wrongs of our world will be righted. Hope that we can conquer all things through the power of Jesus. Hope that we can live the life God has called us.

Hope.