Being a Pastor’s Wife Part 1

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. 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.

Below is part 1 in a series of 5 posts.

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.

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.

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• I am blown away every week at Revolution and what God is doing in people’s lives
• How God is moving, working, how He is growing our church
• I can still remember driving to church and wondering if anyone would be there, so it is humbling to see what God is doing now
• Last night was great because I wasn’t preaching
• It was great to sit under Dave’s preaching and be challenged from Nehemiah 13 on the topic of Sabbath
• Definitely got a lot out of last night’s sermon
• While I feel like I do a good job when it comes to sabbath and so does our family, I was challenged with the idea of enjoying the small things in God’s creation when it comes to Sabbath
• I’m definitely going to check out Dan Allender’s book Sabbath that Dave referred to last night
• Sounds like a great read
• I was blown away last night by all of the first time and second time guests we had
• For a holiday weekend I wasn’t sure what to expect
• Our newcomer’s brunch is almost filled up for June 6th, so if you are interested in coming, please email Christe LePeau
• If you can, say a prayer for David Bostick, he is the pastor of Mt. View (the church we rent from)
• He fell yesterday and broke 3 ribs and has a partially collapsed lung
• We announced our next series last night
• So excited to partner with over 1,100 churches from around the world for One Prayer
• In case you haven’t heard, Revolution is moving
• Can’t wait to see how God works when we move in July
• Praying for big things
• I’m excited about a low key day of hanging out with some friends tomorrow
• Grilling, swimming, a good way to spend a monday
• You don’t want to miss next week at Revolution
• We’re wrapping up the book of Nehemiah with what might be one of the most challenging passages in the whole book (at least it has been to me personally)
• That’s all for now, my Sabbath is heading into full swing

Links of the Week

1. Stephen Brewster on How to brand a series.
2. What people need to know about their pastor. Great tips about interacting with a pastor and how to understand them better.
3. C.J. Mahaney on Leadership and family vacations. I read this every summer to better help me understand how a man makes or breaks his families summer vacation.

This Weekend: Understanding Life, Work and Rest (and How They Fit Together)

The last few weeks at Revolution have been amazing. God has been moving and doing some incredible things in people’s lives. Our small groups kicked off this week and the reports so far have been great.

Last Saturday we started Nehemiah 13, which takes place roughly 12 years after Nehemiah 12. While it might seem like an add-on to the end of this story, it is anything but that. Chapter 13 contains some very relevant and important lessons to our lives as we think about following Jesus on a daily basis. If you missed last week as we talked about how to change and find freedom from sin, you can listen to it here.

This week, we will be looking at Nehemiah 13:15 – 22 and looking at the idea of balance, rest, life and work and how they all fit together when it comes to our relationship with God.

If you have ever wrestled with how to balance life, stress, anxiety, how to find rest and what the whole idea of Sabbath is all about, you don’t want to miss Saturday.

So, do whatever you have to do to get to Revolution this Saturday night (and don’t forget to bring a friend with you)! To use an e-vite, just go here.

Remember, we meet at 5pm at 410 S. Pantano Rd.

See you then.

What Do You Want Them to Do?

For most of Revolution’s history I would stand up and preach and just assume that everyone got it. They could clearly see what they were supposed to do because of my clear and concise research. Because I had spent weeks thinking about a topic, I expected everyone to be able to come in cold and connect all the dots in 35 minutes.

Ironically, this is not unlike most pastors in America. Because we know what we are talking about, because we know the connection of that drama, video or song to the topic, we expect everyone else to know. They should see it it is so obvious.

I remember one day around last Christmas when I was sitting at lunch with Paul, our worship pastor, and I told him I felt our services and my preaching were becoming dry. There was a connection missing. He looked at me and said, “That’s because no one knows what to do. You tell them what the Bible says, you just don’t tell them what to do with it. You have to help them connect the dots.”

Thus began a journey of figuring out how to help people connect the dots. What I found is that this is harder than it sounds, which is why most pastors are content to leave it up to chance. It is hard to boil a big idea (the main topic that is less than 20 words) down to 3 – 5 words that are memorable. Some topics are hard to say, “Do these things with this, think about this, etc.”

Bottom line pastors, when you communicate you need to clearly and concisely answer the question, “Based on what I just heard, what do you want me to do now?”

You Can Change

For my talk this week, I read Tim Chester’s book You Can Change. Wow. This was easily the best book I’ve read on the topic of change, freedom from sin and understanding how grace works.

What this book points out and what I could never put into words but agreed with completely was how wrongly we think about grace and freedom when it comes to sin. All Christians look to Jesus for salvation, we see our salvation as coming through the cross, forgiveness and grace of Jesus. So that is all God, but when it comes to following Jesus, we make that all about us. We see Jesus forgiving our sins when we become Christians, but live like we don’t believe he forgives us after following Him or even having the power to help us in that area.

Do we still sin after becoming Christians? Yes, but the power of sin in our lives has been broken. Yet, you and I as followers of Jesus rarely live like we are free from the power of sin. As Chester points out, the question isn’t “if we will sin, but when.”

What was quite possibly worth the price of the book was when he discussed how we think of law and grace after becoming a Christian. He points out that many Christians live like they are still under the law. We “talk about what we shouldn’t do. We say things like, “I shouldn’t do that, I shouldn’t do this.”" That is what law says, according to Chester. Grace says, “I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to do this.”

Here are some things that jumped out to me:

• Does your reputation matter to you more than holiness?
• We often want to stop sinning because of the consequences of sin, not because we hate the actual sin.
• Our sinful heart portrays our actions as inevitable, unavoidable, or appropriate.
• We choose to follow our sinful desires because in that moment we believe they offer more than God.
• The #1 reason people don’t change pride, followed by hating the consequences of sin but still loving the sin itself.
• Desire is at the helm of our lives. It is determines behavior. We always do what we want to do.
• Behind every sin is a lie (easily the best line in the book).
• The real me is revealed when I’m too tired to keep up the pretense.
• Legalism is appealing because it makes holiness manageable & holiness becomes something we do.
• I am a hopeless person, but Jesus Christ died for hopeless people.
• We don’t change so we can prove ourselves to God. We’re accepted by God so we can change.
• When we try to prove ourselves by good works, we’re saying, the cross wasn’t enough.

This is a book definitely worth picking up if you are wrestling with an addiction or a sin that you want freedom from. I can’t recommend this enough.

Saturday Night Mind Dump… (Sunday Edition)

• Last night was one of those nights that reminds you as a pastor what is at stake whenever you get up to preach
• I was reminded last night of the image one of my mentors uses when he talks about preaching, he said when you preach it is like “reaching down into the road to hell and pulling people back”
• That was how last night felt
• It really reminded me of the joy and weight of what I do
• Last night was all about freedom from sin and addiction and how to change for good
• Too many Christians walk around with this idea that there is nothing I can do about the sin in my life
• Um, the cross conquered the power of sin
• Yes, we will still be tempted
• Yes, we will still sin
• But, we have already won, we can win each day
• I am blown away every week by how God is working
• Seeing people accept Christ, take next steps in their journey, get plugged in
• I sat in my car after the parking lot was empty and thought, “This is so cool”
• This past week I read through Tim Chester’s book You Can Change, this has to be the best book I’ve read on the topic of change and freedom from sin
• Seriously, if last night spoke to you in any way, you need to pick up this book
• I’ll blog some thoughts later this week
• If you missed last night, you can listen to it here
• There are only 2 weeks left in our series on Nehemiah, I’m kind of sad about that
• This series has been one of my favorites, but it is always exciting to start a new series
• Our next series is going to be really cool
• Stay tuned
• Many of you asked about the prayer I read at the end of my sermon last night
• You can check it out here
• Have you joined Revolution on the city yet?
• The city is our online community and it is also the primary way we are starting to communicate as a church, do sign ups for things and scheduling for our teams
• You can sign up here
• If you have an elementary age child, you need to mark your calendar for July 12 – 16th
• It is Revolution’s first ever Day Camp
• If you need more information, or if you are interested in helping out please email Jennifer Ingram
• I am really, really, really excited for Katie and the kids to get back on Tuesday
• They have been gone visiting family for 15 days and I am really excited about having them back
• Everyone has asked me “I bet it has been great to have a break and be alone?” If being a bachelor was that cool, I would have stayed one. I have lots of friends who love being bachelors and more power to them, I like my family
• On the plus side, I have gotten a lot of work done for upcoming series we are doing over the summer
• We are doing our first ever parenting and family series in July and I had some serious breakthroughs on it this past week
• Speaking of that, this morning I read Family Driven Faith and was really challenged in how I am doing in raising my kids in a Godly way, how I am teaching and training them and passing on my faith
• Definitely a book worth picking up
• If you aren’t a parent, don’t worry, this series might actually be more powerful for you than the parents in the room
• How you ask?
• Find out July 17th
• I feel like right now I am ending one intense, busy season and I know another one awaits at the beginning of July when we get ready to move
• So, I’m looking forward to the next month
• Getting some rest and downtime, a calm before the storm so to speak
• Really, really excited about going to Colorado in June with Katie and the kids
• No phone, computer, email, twitter, facebook
• Can I get an amen
• So excited to unplug
• 3 more weeks
• Tomorrow I am meeting with a church planter who is in town and hopes to move here and start a church
• It is exciting to see God putting Tucson on the hearts of church planters
• Then on Tuesday, I’m meeting with some church planters in Phoenix for a roundtable, rapid fire lunch
• We’re meeting with the pastor of East Valley Bible Church in Phoenix and we can ask him whatever we want over lunch
• I love things like this, not only getting some questions answered, but learning from the questions of others
• Keeps me sharp and growing
• Speaking of church planting, we are in the process of joining Acts 29, which is an international church planting network
• This will give us a great network to be a part of, not only in learning as we grow as a church, but also to gain experience to reach our vision of being a church planting church
• Now, I’m going to take a nap and then watch the Suns game
• Hopefully they will show up and make it a series
• If not, I’ll take a second nap on the couch during the game