Thought I’d share a few posts on your wife for pastors, especially church planters. I don’t mean to be sexist. If you are a female pastor or church planter, more power to ya. I just don’t know anything about being a male spouse of a church planter, so I can’t speak on that…
Your wife comes before your church. I know you’ve heard that before, and it may even sound like a cliché to you, but if its such common sense, why isn’t it more common? And, more personally, are you actually living it or is it just a cliché you agree with? Or, more pointedly, if I asked your wife if she knows that she’s more important to you than your ministry and church, would she say yes? Would she hesitate?
There are all kinds of insane statistics about how bad ministry is for marriage, and how unhappy pastor’s wives are, and how many pastors are looking at pornography or having affairs. And I’ve never seen a statistic on how many pastor’s wives fantasize about men who aren’t their husbands, but my guess is that it’s more than the amount of husbands who look at porn.
So what’s the answer for all this crap? Well, part of it is you making sure you put your wife before your church. Seriously. Listen, your church can get another pastor and will someday, your wife shouldn’t have to get another husband and hopefully won’t someday.
If you want more (and better) thoughts on this, read Andy Stanley’s book, “Choosing to Cheat.”
If your marriage is currently so strained that you can’t picture putting your wife first, go to counseling, go directly to counseling, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, my wife and I have done it. Yes, it totally helped us. Stop making stupid excuses, just do it.
- featured on newchurches.com
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A Horse & Carriage? (Part 3)
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8 comments:
Vince, a thought, a question, and a comment: Good challenge for pastors and for me. Do you (or your readers) think it's easier or more difficult in a church plant than traditional church setting to live this reality? I know a lot of it is personality, etc. - but I know for me, I sense there are way less expectations placed on me and Jen in our church plant than when we were in an established church. Unchurched people don't carry the same expectations (and that's a good thing).
What do you, and others (other than a date night) do to guard your schedule? No counseling after 5 pm, etc.??
Paul: For me, that has been the case. As the church planter, I've been able to kind of set the "rules" and "expectations" so it's made it easier. But I'm not sure if that's the case for everyone...
And for me, as far as scheduling this stuff: I do virtually no meetings at night (about 1 or 2 a year)instead scheduling them for early mornings, we do a date every Friday day, we get the kids in bed early so that we have time alone, Wednesday nights is our "no t.v. - just talking" night, and we have "family game night" on friday nights...
Wednesday night no T.V. But how do you get your American Idol results. Surely you peak at it. I mean, what is more important than Idol? I think I would look at the TV schedule at the beginning of each week and the schedule the date night around that. Or, if there is something good every night you can do two dates one week and none the next. Surely that is good enough to make her feel special (insert wink here).
thanks for the reminder as I'm LATE leaving the office right now! real quick, though: we're committed to reaching people far from God in our church plant . . . as we do events in the community in our pre-launch phase i'm curious about something...for instance, i'm wondering about whether or not to provide alcohol at our upcoming cinco de mayo party...i don't drink, but i'm just processing through if that is an image we want to project???? your thoughts. (my wife is LOVING your book by the way. i'm reading it next)
jeremy
Great question, and I know churches that would answer it in any different way, so I guess there's not a "right" answer. For me: I wouldn't provide alcohol at a church event. If it's not a church sponsored/advertised event, that might be a different story. And if someone else is providing the alcohol (like the bar our church is meeting at, or the baseball stadium we're watching the game at) that's a different story. But all of this is gray - these are just my opinions.
thanks, vince. i know how agressive you guys are in reaching lost people, so this really means a lot. i appreciate it. we feel the same way...at our house when we parties, we don't provide it, but if people bring it, we don't mind...
oh, and Paul, I just heard some really challenging stuff this weekend about the governor of GA. He said the most meaningful thing he ever did with his family was that he was home for dinner every night. that's pretty convicting stuff when you stop to think about it...could it be that simple??
something i'm trying to put into practice is no appt.'s before 10 am. make that primetime for God time and family time...i'm more fresh in the am than in the pm, so it gives me an opportunity to invest the best part of me in the most important people in my life...don't know if this makes sense or not???
I'm assuming that lovin' austin's is not a SBC sponsored church plant (hee, hee!) I think it's vital to understand the community where you plant. Having been to Austin many times, I can understand where you're coming from, but I think there needs to be some boundaries. "Everything is permissible--but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible--but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others."(1Cor10:23-24); "Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God--even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." (1Cor10:32-33) I won't quote the ENTIRE bible here, but Romans 14 has some good stuff on this too! Best of luck to you on the church plant. My dad lives in Lakeway, so I'll be sure to visit ya'll when I'm up there! (Sorry Vince, I didn't mean to use your blog as a chat room!)
No problem, that's part of the reason for it...
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