The Pastor's Wife & the Other Woman!

The Pastor’s Wife & The Other Woman:

Bringing Balance to your Ministry & Marriage

And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.

(Exodus 18:17-18)

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

(Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

(All scripture references in KJV unless otherwise noted.)

The Pastor’s Wife & The Other Woman:

Bringing Balance to your Ministry & Marriage Joe & Pennie Wright

Published by the Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network 2020

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2020, January

ISBN <>

Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network Post Office Box 111744 Nashville, TN 37222-1744

Website: www.Smallchurch.net or www.bscln.net

Ordering Information:

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact the Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network. Tel: (615) 490-3107

Email: [email protected]

Digital Graphic Designer: Brittney Elaine Smith [email protected]

Dedication

Over the years, Pennie and I have read many dedications and wondered throughout the writing of this book, to whom the dedication would be made. Obviously, our family has been, is and will always be of utmost importance to us. Ashley, Amanda, Anna, Andrew & Micah, you are not only our progeny and hope for the future but you each in your own ways have given us the tools to become who we are today. The celebrations and challenges you bring to our lives make us better people, better parents and most of all, better children of a powerful, creator God! Thank you for becoming the Godly women and men who can make two Fathers and two Mothers proud. We are also thankful for the many friends and co-workers within the Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network who took a prayerful chance to allow a crazy couple with wild-eyed dreams to see a vision that was just too large for anyone but our God. Our prayers are that the BSCLN will continue to engage, equip and encourage the leaders of all the smaller-attendance churches across our great nation and around our world. Of course, our most sincere and deepest gratitude must go to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! What an amazing thing that our God found a way to do the impossible. He died that we may live! Whoever heard of such a sacrifice? Finally, we could not leave this dedication without a recognition of two very special people who have left this world before us to live eternally with God. Pennie’s first husband, Bob and my first wife, Teresa gave Pennie and me the opportunity to learn, live and love with abandon as well as purpose. I will always be thankful for Bob who cared so deeply for Pennie that he kept her continually within the Lord’s presence. Pennie looks forward to meeting Teresa in Heaven that she might hug her as a sister and share the stories of living life with one more crazy preacher!

Contents

Acknowledgements ...... ix Foreword ...... xi Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 1: “The Other Woman” ...... 3 Chapter 2: “Houston, we have a problem!” ...... 7 Chapter 3: “I Have To Do What?!?” ...... 13 Chapter 4: “Is That Important?” ...... 31 Chapter 5: “What Time Is It?” ...... 35 Chapter 6: “Whose Job Is It Anyway?” ...... 57 Chapter 7: “How Do I Love Thee?” ...... 71 Chapter 8: “Is That All?” ...... 81 Endnotes ...... 93

Acknowledgements Most recent studies show that 25% of churches have less than 24 people in them on an average Sunday morning while another 26% have less than 49 people in them. Increase that number to 75 people and you have discovered the size of 66% of all churches. Indeed, we are a nation of small churches. The BSCLN exists to “Engage, Equip and Encourage” the leaders of these small churches dotted across our land. Many of these leaders are bivocational pastors who must by financial necessity work a separate job to make ends meet within their households. As you can guess, this places tremendous stress and pressure upon them, their families and most of all their ability to lead within their churches. For over four decades, the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network has been rooted in early biblical church strategies, centuries of Kingdom contribution, and current mission challenges. Would you be willing to partner with the BSCLN in a financial manner? Your gift would be used for the ongoing mission of engaging, equipping and encouraging the leadership of some of the most important churches in our land, the smaller-membership churches. Some of the BSCLN goals are (1) Mission-focused churches that are strong in evangelism, missions and ministry, (2) Passionate pastors prepared to lead in preaching, worship and prayer experiences, and (3) Training of pastors and leadership teams for ministry, service and congregational health. Please, visit our website for more information about the work of the BSCLN or you may contact us to become a partner in this exciting and challenging opportunity of kingdom service:

The Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network Post Office Box 111744 Nashville, TN 37222-1744 (615) 490-3107

Foreword

I have called Joe Wright a friend for over twenty-five years. We have shared ministry experiences, celebrated victories, wept over heartaches, encouraged each other during challenges and done a little fishing along the way. I have not met a more sincere man, nor have I doubted his love for his God or his family. For years, I observed his love and devotion to his first wife, Teresa. I walked beside him as he grieved her early departure from his life. I have watched his surprise and excitement as God brought Pennie into his life. Joe has been overwhelmed by the goodness of God. He will agree wholeheartedly with the writer of Proverbs who said that he who finds a wife finds a good thing. However, I am convinced that Pennie would say that she found a good thing when she found Joe Wright.

I wish that I could repeat the above paragraph about many of my other friends in the ministry. Sad to say, I know too many ministers whose marriage is on life-support. Most of the difficulties can be traced back to a lack of priority, taking your spouse for granted and being confused concerning which comes first: you, wife and family or your church. I have often counseled young ministers that if you lose your church, you can probably get another one. However, if you lose your wife, your will probably lose your ministry.

Years ago, I was leading a conference for ministers and their wives in Knoxville, Tennessee when a young lady approached me during a break. She told me she was engaged to marry one of the young preachers in the meeting. She was concerned about something several older ministers had told her. She had been told that she might as well get used to the fact that her husband would be married to the church he pastored. She said that did not sound right. I told her that it was not right. The church is the bride of Christ. You will be the bride of the pastor. Many young preachers need to hear that early in their ministry.

Joe and Pennie have written about one of the prevailing problems in the ministry with clarity and conviction. Their advice could help many of God’s servants not make the same mistakes others before them have made. Churches today are desperate for a good role model for marriage. What better model than their own pastor as he loves and cherishes his wife before them?

This is a book that a wise pastor will read several times throughout his ministry. Pressures and demands can cause a sincere pastor to get out of balance. A book like this will help him get his bearings as he tries to balance family, church and often a second job.

The concluding chapter about the Ten Commandments for maintaining balance which Joe and Pennie have adopted contains a lifetime of wisdom. I suggest that every ministry couple use these concepts to formulate their own rules for keeping their lives focused and balanced.

God has placed Joe Wright as the Executive Director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network for such a time as this. Most of the churches in America are served by a Bivocational pastor. Many of these churches would not have a pastor if their pastor was not willing to work an extra job to support his family. In my years of working with Bivocational pastors, I discovered that the number one issue for all of them is time management. However, the number one failure of Bivocational pastors is neglect of family. It is my prayer that our Lord will use this book to make a difference in the families of many of His servants.

Joe and Pennie, keep up the good work. We are not home yet.

-Ray Gilder (January, 2020)

Introduction When Pennie and I came to serve the Bivocational & Small Church Leadership Network two years ago, one of the first duties I had in this new position was to meet with strategic leadership of churches and conventions across the United States. We were to discuss ways to implement new strategies of engaging, equipping and encouraging the leadership of smaller-attendance churches as well as those who had chosen Bivocationalism as their primary strategy for financially underwriting those leadership ministries. Within days of beginning this new phase of our ministry, Pennie and I were brought face to face with what we have come to believe is the single greatest struggle of leadership; how to balance the very public requirements of leadership with the very private obligation of loving and caring for family. Over and over, we ran into opportunities to speak into the lives of others as they attempted this impossible feat of serving the Lord in two totally disparate arenas: the public church and the private home. We saw situations almost daily of ministers and other leaders struggling to find ways to be good husbands as well as church leaders at the same time. Many of them were not doing so well at it and they were under attack by the enemy on both fronts. Divorce, severance of leadership, depression and ultimately, an injury to our Lord’s kingdom often results when a minister is not in harmony with his family and work. We quickly realized there was very little in print nor online that addressed the challenge that ministers and their families are facing. There is a tremendous amount of marriage enrichment material from a worldly point of view available, but there is very little that is focused solely on the minister’s unique needs. With only our personal experiences, struggles, observations and most of all, God’s leadership, we set out to shine a little light on this problem and maybe offer just a few remedies and tips for balancing our marriages and ministries. This book is written from the viewpoint of a husband/pastor and his wife, but its precepts may be applied in many different scenarios where balance must be maintained between job and home.

Come and join Pennie and me as we take you on a short journey through our discoveries of enriching our lives through finding this balance. It is our prayer these words and experiences will bless and benefit your lives and your ministries as together we seek to be a blessing to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

-Joe & Pennie Wright

Chapter 1: “The Other Woman” My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. (Song of Solomon 2:16)

The wife looked at her husband with serious and earnest eyes. She sat somewhat uncomfortably in the crowded restaurant her minister husband had selected after her cryptic phone call of that morning. She had said, “I want to go to lunch with you. We need to talk.” Not really hearing the gravity of her voice, he had chosen the normal spot he might have taken a church member to “just go to lunch.” It wasn’t necessarily quiet, intimate nor romantic. The restaurant was just known for having a good lunch and that was all he thought his wife was wanting. People came and went around them as they sat in the kind of silence couples who have been married for a while assume when eating out. You know the joke: “How do you tell which couples in a restaurant are married? The ones talking are out on a date while the ones eating are the married couples!” With a nervous restlessness in her motions, the pastor’s wife folded her napkin and placed it on her plate for the waitress to take away. Turning her eyes to her husband, she waited for him to finish looking at the texts that had come in while they were eating. At least he had waited until the meal was done. When he placed the phone beside his plate, she leaned slightly forward and with a small catch in her voice said, “We need to talk.” “What’s up,” he replied.

“We need to talk about the other woman!”

“What?” the pastor almost exploded from his seat. “What do you mean the other woman? There’s no one but you! There never has been; there never will be! Where would you get such an idea? Has someone told you something that I need to know about?” With a sad smile, the pastor’s wife looked at the man she had loved for a long time and with grief in her voice replied, “We need to talk about the other woman. She’s the church!”

“Physician, heal thyself,” was an And he said unto them, intended indictment against our Lord by Ye will surely say unto the local people who knew of Jesus’ me this proverb, background. He asked the question first Physician, heal thyself: so that He could answer it without their whatsoever we have rancorous and jealous interruptions. The heard done in townspeople wanted the same miracles Capernaum, do also that apparently they had heard about here in thy country. elsewhere. Jesus knew it was a common (Luke 4:23) proverb that a physician should be the healthiest person in town and if not, then that would only show the physician’s personal inability to care for himself and those he loved. This leaves you and me, dear friend, in a dire predicament. If we are to speak with spiritual authority into the lives of others, must we not also show an ability to care for ourselves and those who are closest to us? How can a pastor who leads what is considered a great and successful church yet who fails miserably within his own home be considered a success? A number of years ago, I was met with this challenge in a much more personal way than I had ever thought might be possible. I was pastoring a small church in a close knit and unique community. It was my second pastorate and I was in my second year there. I thought I had a good handle on how things were going until one very fateful Deacon’s meeting. It was a Sunday evening and while the church was preparing to have a potluck meal in the Fellowship Hall, the Deacons were having their monthly meeting. I normally do not say very much during these meetings but I had what I thought was a somewhat inconsequential matter to bring to their attention. My young wife of six years had asked me if we could attend her ten year high school reunion. I never had and still do not have much of a personal desire to attend such things but for her, I would swallow my distaste of such get-togethers and take her. Unfortunately, her high school classmates had chosen Father’s Day to hold their festivities. When at last my time came to share any thoughts I might have at the end of the meeting, the weary Deacons were already thinking of the good food awaiting them in the Fellowship Hall. I shared that I would not be able to attend our church on Father’s Day as I had promised my

wife that I would take her to another city and there we would attend her ten year high school reunion. The room grew quiet and finally one of the Deacons, you’ll recognize the one, spoke up and said, “Pastor, you know we expect you to put the church first! Father’s Day is too important a day for you to be missing. You don’t need to go!” There was an expectant hush that settled over that little room and I remember sliding up onto the edge of that cold, metal folding chair. The Chairman of the Deacons, a Godly man, turned to me with an expectant nod and said, “I expect you want to speak.” “Yes sir, I surely do,” I responded. Sliding even farther out onto the edge of that chair, I leaned over and looked the outspoken Deacon in the face. With a quiet voice and as much courage as I could muster, I spoke. “My wife was mine when I came here and her needs will always outweigh the needs of this church. I promised to take her and I will take her because this is something she asked for. Also, you need to know, I am prepared to leave the church over this. It’s that important! But, if it comes to that, I can share with you the title of my last sermon! It will be, ‘A Godly man’s obligation to his wife!’” I sat back, knowing I had probably just signed the death warrant for my ministry in that church. I still wasn’t sure where the courage to stand on my personal conviction had come from but I wasn’t about to back down. I believed deeply that my greatest asset in the ministry would always be my wife and if push came to shove, I would always seek to come down on her side and I wanted her to know that, too. The Chairman of Deacon’s had a somewhat satisfied smile on his face as he looked around the room and asked, “Does anyone else have anything to say?” It was graveyard quiet. He turned to me, looked back over his shoulder and finally said, “I think we all agree you should take your wife to her reunion.” Shortly after the meeting, I had the opportunity to walk into the church kitchen and come unexpectedly upon one of my younger Deacons who was standing nose to nose with his uncle who just happened to be the Chairman of Deacons. I overheard him saying, “I’ll tell you this. My wife’s needs comes first, too!” I slipped quietly back out of the kitchen as his uncle nodded and a surge of pastoral pride crept through my soul.

I stayed at that church another year and the ministry was blessed and my relationship with those Deacons was blessed. But, do you know what was even more wonderful? Those Deacons went home and told their wives what I had said in the meeting and those wives conveyed that message to my wife. When my wife heard of my newfound courage to place her needs before the needs of the church, I was blessed. And dear brother, that is the way God planned it. Be a blessing to your wife before you try to be a blessing to others. God will always honor that!

Chapter 2: “Houston, we have a problem!” I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him, I called him, but he gave me no answer. (Song of Solomon 5:5-6)

It was intended to be the third trip to the moon by the enterprising American NASA organization. James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise had full intentions and extensive training to continue a newfound tradition of American’s walking on the lunar surface. But, that all changed in seconds only two days after the lift-off of Apollo 13 when an oxygen tank exploded and crippled the service module on which the command module and the astronauts depended. Jack Swigert reported to Ground Control, “Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.” When Ground Control replied with, “This is Houston. Say again, please”, Mission Commander Lovell tersely spoke, “Uh, Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT." I don’t know what a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT is but I can usually recognize a problem when I see it and “Houston, we have a problem!” Pastors are struggling to fulfill the expectations placed upon them to perform not only as a husband and father but also as a minister and breadwinner. According to recent research 52% of pastors feel they are overworked and can’t meet their church's unrealistic expectations while 35% of pastors battle depression or fear of inadequacy.i When you couple the struggles pastors are having just serving within their churches with the ongoing stress of being a good husband and father you end up with a recipe for disaster. Our largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, reports at least 47,500 churches and congregations while another recent report lists over 380,000 churches in the United States.ii It has been a recognized statistic that at least 80% of these churches are best described as small membership churches. This means a very large portion of these churches are led by pastors who must support their families through working jobs that are outside of their church work. These pastors are often referred to as Bivocational, 7

covocational or multi-vocational. All three names recognize that they are busy individuals with great amounts of stress as they seek to meet the needs of those who are dependent on them, namely their congregations and their families.

CHURCH BUSINESS!

“Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.” You may recognize this verse, Acts 6:3 and may have heard it preached many times as the inauguration of the diaconate in the New Testament church. Unfortunately, the “business” of the church has not always been spiritually understood. When the world’s view of business invades the kingdom of God, mismatched strategies and goals are often the result. Many pastors as well as their congregations labor under the belief that churches must operate and run like worldly businesses using worldly business practices. When we look at the church like a secular business then we will also view our characteristics of success by worldly standards also. The drive to pastor ever-larger churches captures the imaginations of many younger pastors and their idealistic strivings to climb the ecclesiastical ladder of success means they often leave behind the sense of God’s leadership in their never-ending desire to move toward this phantom of success. Buildings, busses and budgets are the Monday morning topic of many pastor’s get-togethers. One pastor shared with me that his church calling had always been focused on renovating or beginning a new building campaign. He took great pride in recalling all of the buildings he had led the churches to renovate in detail to anyone who would listen. It amazed me that like Solomon, he had built much in the way of architecture but simply neglected to share how many people had come to know the Lord under his ministry. “Just what is the business of the church?’ As pastors struggle with this question, they are often met with opposition from those who believe that the church must show success by worldly standards instead of a simple presentation of the gospel of Christ to a lost and dying world. This struggle leads to stress within the pastorate and is a widely documented and easily recognizable cause of ministerial burnout. 8

Pastoring in today’s increasingly anti-church environment also carries with it the stigma of the position. Pastoring used to be a widely respected and honorable profession. Now, Americans no longer believe that pastors are as trustworthy as in the past.iii

Gallup has measured Americans' views on the honesty and ethics of the clergy 33 times dating back to 1977. Although the overall average positive rating is 55%, it has fallen below that level since 2009. This year marks the lowest rating to date, with 42% saying the clergy has "very high" or "high" honesty and ethical standards. The historical high of 67% occurred in 1985.

Disastrously, pastors no longer are viewed as the solid arbiters of truth as they once were. Politicians, used car salesmen, TV and newspaper reporters and auto mechanics sometimes are more respected than the local pastor. Gallup reports a “steady decline” in the belief that the clergy has the high level of respect that we once enjoyed. Another aspect of minister’s uncertainty arises out of the question of whether a minister has received a calling or chosen a career. Recently a number of articles have been released exploring just this question. Traditionally ministers and/or pastors referred to the reason they entered the ministry was in result of a divine calling that preempted all other choices. They referenced the prophets of the Old Testament and the disciples of the New Testament in which the “word of the Lord” spoke them out of their everyday activities into a spiritual obedience and service. Many ministers of today view their work as just that, “work.” It serves as their career complete with insurance, 401-k’s, company cars and endless obligations.iv

When Moses heard God call him to free the slaves in Egypt, he first responded as though he were presented with a career decision. Was he qualified? Did he have the proper experience and unique skills required by such an undertaking? He talked to God as though he were in a job interview: Who am I to do such a thing? What if the people don't follow? And did God know that he was a poor public speaker?

All of this was irrelevant to God. All that mattered was that Moses believe God could be trusted when he said, "I will be with you."

In short, all that mattered was the call-and that Moses bind himself to the One who issued the call. There were no road maps, only the Voice.

Whether a pastor struggles with church-based internal issues, lack of public status or internal questions of ministerial validity we must recognize that it is becoming increasingly harder and harder to pastor in today’s world.

THE PASTOR’S FAMILY

The flip side of the public pastor’s busy life is that which is lived in private with his wife, children and even extended family. The pastor is not immune to the same challenges which face all men as they struggle be an Ephesians 5 husband and loving father while still serving as the breadwinner for the family. I served eighteen years as a Director of Missions in West Tennessee. Under my care were 43 churches that were filled with Godly people seeking to fulfill their scriptural mandate to be living witnesses of God’s love in their communities. Leading each of these churches were men who worked diligently to minister to those placed within their care. These men often came to me with confidential requests for prayer and advice. They needed someone in whom they could share their thoughts, concerns and most of all, burdens. During 10

that eighteen years, over and over I saw them struggle with the ability to balance the needs of their family with the needs of the church. It would be a lie to say I never saw any of these fine men face times of marital strife, parental uncertainty or even temptation that would bring an end to their ministry were they to succumb to it. It was also not unusual to be visited by minister’s wives with the express purpose to request help in salvaging a dying marital relationship. One of the most haunting situations I ever experienced occurred as I witnessed a pastor’s wife sobbing and whispering, “I’m so alone, alone.” She had just witnessed her husband give selflessly of himself to others while she was left with nothing of him at the end of the day. My heart broke for her as I knelt beside her and prayed for their relationship. On the other hand, one of my most satisfying moments of ministry came the day a minister called and shared that he and his wife wanted to come in and talk about their marriage. At the appointed time they arrived, sat down in my office and began to share how well their marriage was going. I asked, “I thought you needed marriage counseling. It sounds like you guys are doing really well. What do you need from me?” The minister answered, “We’ve been married a few years now and though things are going well, we know how easily that can be lost. Would you just walk through the scriptures and remind us of God’s love for us and His blessings on our marriage?” What a lesson he taught me that day of how easily we can head off the danger of failure in our relationships by just a little preemptive action. My friend, would you believe that you can be an effective minister fulfilling God’s call upon your life while at the same time being a husband and father that is both pleasing to God and his family?

Chapter 3: “I have to do what?!?” Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: (Song of Solomon 8:7a)

I’ve been married twice. The first time, I had the opportunity to meet, court and eventually marry a sweet and beautiful, young Christian girl named Teresa. She was the light of my life for almost thirty-five years. We met and spoke our first words while attending college though I had noticed her a number of years earlier. We went to the same elementary, middle and high school but we definitely did not run in the same circles. She was smart, musically-gifted and above all, one of the prettiest girls in the school. I, on the other hand, was what we called in the mountains a “simple country boy.” I wasn’t a bad boy and didn’t do bad things most of the time but, I didn’t run in the nicer circles. My idea of extra-curricular activities was to rush home after school and either grab a shotgun or a fishing pole and make for the back of the farm. I would spend uncountable evenings just enjoying myself away from the challenges of social life and reveling in the freedom of the woods and water. Obviously, this did not endear me to many of the potential womenfolk which I came into contact with at school, church and other outings along with my family. To say I was uncouth would be to insult the word, yet there I was a “simple country boy” when I came face-to-face with Teresa during my second year of college. From the beginning, she seemed to see something in me that no one else had ever seen: potential. Four years later, we were married and I was on my way to much learning and cultural refinement. Like some redneck Tarzan come out of the woods, Teresa worked hard to help me grow into the man she envisioned I could be. Between going with me to seminary, partnering in pastoring churches, having babies and keeping home and heart together, Teresa was the center of my existence. When she passed from my life after 31 years of marriage, cancer robbed me of the one person I thought would always be there and would always see the best in me. I was a better man because of Teresa.

Two years of abject loneliness later, God once again miraculously intervened in my life with the introduction of another beautiful young lady named Pennie. Now, Pennie had also enjoyed a wonderful marriage of 32 years to a Godly man named Bob. They met while very young, they married young, they had their three daughters at a young age and they were looking forward to enjoying life together when cancer became their enemy as well. After a valiant fight of over two years, Bob left behind a grieving widow and a family that struggled to fill an unfillable emptiness. It was at this point in my life that God began to speak, not to me but to Pennie. You see, a church member came to my office one day and shared that he knew someone I needed to meet and her name was Pennie. I immediately informed him that I was not finished with my grieving and I wasn’t interested in meeting someone else. I was adamant but he was insistent. To get him out of my office, I decided to tell him I might call upon her at which point he passed her number on a small slip of paper across the top of my desk. I refused to give him a direct answer that I would call her and upon his leaving, I picked Pennie’s number up and dropped it into the garbage. But, God doesn’t give up so easily. That church member reached out to Pennie and shared my pain with her. She too, was not looking for another relationship and easily deflected his encouragement until he happened to mention that “Joe just needs a friend.” With that one word, God broke Pennie’s heart and started the journey of our love and healing. Under God’s leadership, Pennie began praying for me and eventually reached out with a carefully written email. I responded and things just sort of went from there. Now we are two and a half years into our love and I must admit, God is good! Why is it important that I share with you these snippets of my life and love stories? The answer is simple. While all this was going on in my personal life, I continued to work with churches in my public life. I was serving as an associational missionary for 43 churches, preaching almost every Sunday, dealing with the numerous problems that arose within an association when working with multiple personalities, creating opportunities of missions and ministries in our local communities and finally, trying my best to be a friend, mentor and

encourager to the pastors, ministers and their families within the association. This was my calling. You see, one day while back there in the woods as a boy of fifteen, God called me to be one of His ministers and though it took me a couple of years to surrender to that call, I finally buckled down and decided to be the best minister I could be for my Lord. Even while traversing the valleys of grief and loss, I never lost the identity God gave me when He called me into His service. I was a minister whether I was serving with a wife or not. Still, I recognized that my wife served as my personal pastor, counselor, confidant, closest friend and prayer warrior. Teresa and now, Pennie help me to be the man God has called from those hills of east Tennessee and without that support, I struggle to be of use to God. So, which is more important, my relationship with God or my relationship with my wife? Obviously, the answer to that is my relationship with God but I would be a fool to not recognize God’s handiwork in placing Pennie in my life! But in reality, that is not the most pressing question for today’s ministers. The most important question we need to deal with is, “Which comes first, our calling to the ministry or our commitment to our marriage partner?” The Bible is replete with stories of God’s call upon men and women whose lives were given in service, devotion and oftentimes, sacrifice. These individuals were just like you and me. They lived with uncertainty, brokenness, sin and loss. Yet, they were of great value to our Lord’s service.

• Abraham left his homeland, Ur of the Chaldees and traveled to a far land to take possession of Canaan for his covenantal posterity. Along the way, he planted seeds of faith by being a man following the call of his God. • Moses went from floating the river, eating in Pharaoh's house, killing an Egyptian and spending a long time wandering in the wilderness to leading God’s people out of slavery. • David will always be known as the man after God’s own heart even though his life is characterized by his warfare, ruthless leadership and rooftop adultery. • Peter was a somewhat successful fisherman who left his business to follow a man who spoke into his soul. No longer 15

would he fish for fish but after such a call, he would now fish for men.

What did each of these men have in common? They were obviously called of God to some greater service than what they would have achieved in their respective lives. Yet, there is one more attribute that they each hold in common. Each one was given in marriage. Abraham was married to Sarai who accompanied him on his journeys and witnessed the miracle of childbirth in advanced age. Zipporah was Moses’ wife who he met while on the lam from Pharaoh and who bore him children. She taught him that circumcision was better than God’s wrath on their journey back to Egypt. Bathsheba was the bathing beauty who was married to another man when David decided to have her. Neither legally nor morally correct in the beginning, still there is no doubt about his devotion to her as well as to their son, Solomon. Peter’s wife is unnamed but Paul testifies she accompanied Peter on his missionary journeys and it is Peter who gives us the beautiful picture of the partner wife who by her attire and attitude wins not only the love but the faith of her husband. In none of these marriage accounts do we ever see our Lord expecting us to turn our backs on the wellbeing of our relationships with our wives. They serve as our helpmates, counselors and partners in the good work we have been called to do. So, how should we understand the difference between the ministry and marriage? To be able to hold our ministry and our marriage in a healthy balance, we must understand how each came to exist.

Ministry

Ministry is an activity that is often defined as the caretaking of another person or group whereby their wellbeing is increased. Merriam Webster defines the term as an office or a position that oversees a group of people. When we look at the terms ministry and minister, we immediately think of that person whose only service is to help the church seek a healthy and personal walk in their faith. When ministers speak of their work they often tell of their “surrender to the call” of the ministry which comes from God. The call is that incessant voice within the soul of a person which cannot be 16

quietened nor ignored. It is often seen as adversarial in that the call goes against the natural and worldly desires and pulls inexorably in the direction of God. There is no doubt that all believers are called of God to faith but the call to ministry is different. It constantly brings to an individual’s awareness that there is more expected in obedience and service to God than just a daily walk with Him. The one who is called into the ministry is expected to subjugate their desires to seek the service of those whom God loves, the inhabitants of this world including believers and unbelievers alike. It is a “surrender” to the call of God when someone decides to give up their dreams, hopes and plans and instead focuses solely on what God may decide for them to do the rest of their lives. The call may be mistaken for many reasons but when rightly discerned it is undeniable. Many authors have taken pen in hand to explain the uniqueness of this occurrence in the life of a minister but one of the most direct was Charles Spurgeon.v

“Do not enter the ministry if you can help it,” was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his judgment.

If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants.

Spurgeon taught his students that if possible one should try to escape any sense of answering a call to the ministry unless it is absolutely sure and undeniable. One recurring question posed by Christian students is, “How can I be sure I am called?” The struggle to understand, accept and ultimately surrender to a call of God into His ministry is sometimes an arduous and lifelong journey. Often many have not decided to answer a call until late in life and after much pain and turmoil. Martyn Lloyd-Jones asserted there were six identifiable characteristics of a call to the ministry.vi They are: 17

1. An inner compulsion that cannot be denied 2. An outside influence of others testifying of God’s call on the individual 3. A loving concern that develops for others 4. An overwhelming constraint that will not allow a release from the call 5. A sobering humility that leaves an individual aware of their own personal need for God 6. A corporate confirmation is a final characteristic that the call is recognized by the body of the church

The minister who “surrenders to the call” is an individual who is deeply committed to the things of God and His people. They are mostly highly motivated and often rather pugnacious in demeanor. A single- minded attitude is usually associated with a minister which can lead to trouble when that “call” to the ministry comes into conflict with one’s commitment in marriage.

Marriage

Paul, that great evangelistic missionary in the first century, set the stage for conflict between one’s obedience to a call and one’s commitment in marriage when he posited that it might be better to not be married. Paul was obviously so committed to his ministry of evangelism and church planting that there was no room left for a commitment of marriage. Yet, Paul recognized that many of us are by necessity and/or nature able to make such a commitment. Paul said, “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9) Paul recognized that the majority of humanity is drawn to the first institution God created, marriage. God placed a deeply-seated desire within most of us that life is best when shared with someone who walks the same pathways and holds our hands. Marriage is neither something to be denied because of God’s call nor is it something to be ignored because we might have found more excitement in a new area of life. Paul’s primary concern for husbands is that they will love their wife even as Christ loved the church and showed that love by His 18

sacrifice and ongoing caretaking. When I was a young man, just beginning to notice girls, my Mother decided to intervene. She was of the generation that felt extremely uncomfortable with some conversations and my Dad felt even more uncomfortable. Their answer to the lack of ability (or courage) was to buy me a book and ask me to read it. I’ve never forgotten the name of that book. It was simply entitled, “Love Your Wife!” The point of the book is found in Ephesians 5.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. (Ephesians 5:25-28)

Peter also wrote that many minister’s abilities are lessened because as they allow the needs of the ministry to outweigh their commitment to their wives, their prayers become hindered.(1 Peter 3:7) Imagine the minister who finds himself at odds with his wife and then struggles to understand and have authentic concern for the struggles of others. Be honest. How hard is it to concentrate on your sermon after you have just had an argument on Sunday morning with your wife?

Balance

Like it or not, God’s married minister has a dual role that he cannot deny. The caretaking of his wife and family is just as important as any wife and family within the church. I would argue they are more important. For the minister to do a good job of ministering, he must be physically healthy, spiritually whole and personally at peace in his own home. Balance is key! A healthy balance between the needs of the ministry and the needs of the marriage is paramount. When you entered the ministry, you were answering a call. When you entered your marriage, you made a commitment. It’s 19

call versus commitment. They are not antagonists, rather they constitute two opposite ends of the same line. Balancing between the two creates an environment where the healthy minister exists both in harmony with his obedience to God as well as the love and caretaking of his wife. Now, the big question is, “How do you balance the two?”

Chapter 4: “Is That Important?!?” My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. (Song of Solomon 2:10)

The first church I served in was so small that they didn’t even call me the Youth Minister, only the “Youth Guy!” When I would take the dozen or so youth out for a Sunday afternoon get-together, if we were too late getting back to church I would be faced with bringing in a large part of the evening crowd. That wouldn’t have been embarrassing unless I happened to bring them in so late that Brother Hubert was already in the pulpit. One time he commented, “Well, it looks like our Youth guy finally brought in the other half of my Sunday Night crowd!” I never brought them in late again, believe me. The Song Director of that little church was also named Joe. He was a big man who sang with a big voice. His philosophy was if you couldn’t hit the note, at least hit the rafters and he led the way! To this day, I detest trying to worship by singing with a music leader that I can’t hear. Anyway, to a young minister like me, Joe was a large man. Not just in stature, he was large in his walk with Jesus. I never knew him to be perturbed with anyone and he was always quick with a loving answer to any question about the Lord or the Christian life. To say I looked up to this man would be to put it mildly. One day I was at the local grocery store and just as I stepped into the line for the cashier I noticed Joe’s wife in front of me. Since the line was moving slowly and there were a couple of people ahead of her I decided to ask a question that had been on my mind ever since I had known her husband. I asked Joe’s wife, “Is Joe really like that? I mean, is what I see at church really who Joe is?” You see, Joe had the strength of Samson and the humility of Jeremiah and I just could not balance what I saw of him at church with the regular guys I knew. Joe’s wife looked at me very seriously and she said something that still impacts me almost forty years later. “Joe is the same at home as you see him in church. There is only one Joe and he doesn’t change!” The words of this loving wife speaking of her loving and gentle husband set a standard of behavior that has always challenged me to be a better man. He had found a 21

balance between his call as a minister and his commitment as a husband. I want that balance in my life, too. I bet you do as well. To find such a balance we need to first identify those areas that must exist in their rightful places within our lives. There are four areas in which ministers must, and I mean must, focus on so they can find a balance between their call to the ministry and their commitment to their marriage.

A Personal Walk With God

Much has been written about ministers and the spiritual disciplines they should practice in their personal walk with God. I can’t tell you how many times I have been made to feel guilty about the fact that I don’t arise at 4:00 a.m. every morning to spend 3 hours in prayer and Bible study, following that with 2 hours of sermon preparation and then spend the rest of the day in hospital and home visitation. I have beaten myself up many times because, at least in my world, there are not enough hours to fulfill all these obligations. One of the spiritual disciplines is Bible study. I must admit that Pennie helped me to better understand a healthy closeness to God in my own personal study time. Shortly after we were married she came to me with a small request that I had never heard before. She said, “I want to spend a few minutes every morning reading scripture for the fun of it. And you can’t use that time for sermon preparation or to preach a sermon to me!” I had never thought of just reading God’s Word for the fun of it. Anytime I opened my Bible it was for the express purpose of allowing God to speak to me so I could share that message with the church, Bible study or small group that I might be leading. In the unfortunate event that I had already put together all the sermonic presentations that I needed in the foreseeable future, I would file those thoughts and studies away for reference. Never had I just read the Bible for fun; I always had a plan to use what I read. Then Pennie changed all of that. “Let’s read for fun every morning.” No plan, no program and no purpose! Imagine that! About four months after we started Pennie and I had a big fight! One morning I got up and shared that I had much to do that day and I was really looking forward to getting started. I sat down and began to check my emails while I thought Pennie was in the kitchen preparing her morning 22

coffee. When the house grew too quiet after a few moments, I went to check on her and found her reading our scriptures without me. The fight was on! “Why did you start without me,” I demanded. She replied, “You said you wanted to get started on your day and you had much to do. I thought you wanted to skip our reading this morning and I didn’t want to do that.” I discovered that I had really become attached to those few moments when we read God’s Word to one another and I felt deprived of the opportunity. The fight was short and intense but God used it to bring us even closer to one another and ultimately, closer to Him. Dear minister friend, it is important that you spend some quality time with your God. Don’t let well-meaning friends dictate what or how much you should do. Go to the One who will help you understand what you need. I found that the best Bible study I could be involved in at this time is not three hours of alone time with my Bible, but just a few moments spent in “fun” reading with my wife. What a difference that has made in how I enjoy my Bible. I still spend the necessary time in sermon preparation but my most enjoyable time is spent with my wife in reading the Bible for pleasure. Another personal discipline is praying. You’ve heard from numerous sources how your abilities to perform as a minister are prayer dependent. Paul said in “And he was in the 1st Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without habit of entering alone ceasing.” I think of all the scriptures that into the temple, and was speak to praying, this one sticks out for frequently found upon me. I love to talk to the Lord. I don’t his knees begging much care for the style of praying as forgiveness for the many understand it, either formally or people, so that his knees privately. Praying has often been became hard like those portrayed as some kind of spiritual of a camel, in communication that was begging, sparse consequence of his and most of the time, unanswered. My constantly bending them idea of prayer is a conversation with God in his worship of God, that is personal, relevant and oftentimes and asking forgiveness filled with the stories that we share for the people.” together. James, the brother of Jesus has often been held up as an example of devoted prayer. Eusebius, a third century historian quoted an earlier 23

historian named Hegesippus who shared that James was a habitual pray-er.vii Now, that’s some serious praying. It’s hard for me to spend more than a few moments on my old knees before they begin to hurt so badly that they impede my ability to think clearly. I’ve never had really good knees and they have gotten steadily worse over the years. If my prayer- life is dependent on the amount of time I spend on my knees, I’m not going to be a good prayer warrior. If instead, we are willing to receive a lesson on prayer from an unorthodox source, we might have the opportunity to better understand Paul’s admonition to pray without ceasing. The oldest man in the Bible lived to be 969 years old and his name was Methuselah. Now Methuselah’s father was a man named Enoch who only lived 365 years during a time when 600-900 year life spans were normal. What happened to Enoch? Verse 24 of Genesis 5 tells us, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” There are three parts to this verse. Enoch walked or spent considerable time with God. Enoch did not die but something did happen to him. God took Enoch home. Enoch’s story in the Old Testament is a small glimpse of a simple life lived simply. Enoch loved God and spent lots of time with Him. I think Enoch loved long walks in which he and God conversed about life in general. They loved one another mutually and especially enjoyed one another’s company. I believe the day came when Enoch and God were out walking and the sky began to darken toward evening and Enoch must have looked up and said, “I guess I need to get back home.” I think God might have said something along the lines of, “We are closer to My house. Come on home with Me!” And, Enoch did. God took him. What a beautiful picture of an intimate prayer life lived continually in the presence of God. Prayer is not a light switch that turns our spiritual relationships on and off. Instead, it is the ongoing conversation of a parent and child as the former leads the latter through a life created specifically for them. Let me close this section with another story. Archie was a Deacon in my first pastorate. He agreed to go with me to visit door to door in our community and I had chosen a certain street on which I wanted to visit every house. About the fourth house 24

we came to had a fenced in front yard in which lived a gigantic Husky dog with one blue eye and one brown eye. You might ask me how I knew his eye colors. Well, I had ample opportunity to observe the color of his eyes as he growled, chewed on his side of the fence and very clearly wanted me to come through the gate so he could eat me. I dropped my head and quietly prayed, “Lord, don’t let this dog bite me” and I opened the gate. That dog ran circles around me nipping at the cuff of my pants but always just slightly short. To this day, I still am not sure that there wasn’t an angel holding onto that dog’s collar to keep him from reaching me. Halfway to the front door, I was surprised to hear the gate clang firmly shut behind me and I turned around to see Archie standing on the other side with a Deacon’s grin. He said, “You didn’t pray for me, Preacher!” Archie needed to learn to walk with the Lord!

A Private Faithfulness to Family

My earthly father was a Bivocational Pastor for almost all of my life which means that he pastored a small country church while holding down his other jobs. We worked a small side-hill farm in the mountains of east Tennessee and Dad also worked forty hours every week as a butcher with the Swift Packing Company in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. In other words, my dad had three jobs as well as being a faithful husband to my Mom and a loving father to my two sisters and me. The average day for my dad was to arise at 4:00 am, be at work downtown by 5:30 am, leave SPC around 3:30 pm to go home to work our fields and livestock until dark. Then he would often go visiting in homes or in the hospitals for church people who needed their pastor. I’ve seen him on many nights walk through the door and without supper fall into the bed so he could do it all over again the next day. Still, Dad found time to be a husband and father to our little family. His word was often stern and his judgement always final. Yet there was never a doubt that he loved each of us. When he was with us he was with us without interruption. He would go to my ball games, my sister’s band concerts and Mom’s requested suppers outside of the house. It now seems to me that his days just seemed to have enough hours in them to make sure he always had time for our family.

I’m not sure how he did it, but Dad was always where he needed to be. I do not remember a moment when anyone in our family was negative about a lack of Dad’s presence. He just always seemed to be there. Me, I’ve not done as well. Looking back on my life with both our boys grown, married and with their own children, I find myself wishing I had made more time to be available to them. How does one intentionally become a good family man? First, you need to realize your family needs more than your love. Many men believe that as long as their wives and children know they love them that should be enough. It is enough if you define love as only a feeling and not an action. My dear brother, aren’t you glad that Jesus had more than just good feelings toward you and me? It would have been so much easier for the Lord to have shown His love by staying on His throne and just telling us that He loved us instead of coming to this world and dying on a cruel cross. But that’s not what He did! He laid down His perfect life that you and I might have a life when we only deserved death. His love was not just talk; it was so much more.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16

The great definition of love comes from John 3:16 which illustrates God’s own sacrifice in the giving of His Son to pay the blood price for every last living human on planet earth. You and I could never earn enough to be able to pay that price and our best is as filthy rags in the eyes of God, but still He loved you and me. He did not have good feelings for us, but instead He decided to do something. He personally paid our sin price. 1st John chapter 3 verse 16 defines how you and I should express our own love. We should emulate the Father and live sacrificially for others as well. 26

Your family should be the first ones you live sacrificially for, not the church. The church is important but your family must come first. Dear friend, does your wife know you love her? Really? Does she feel comfortable that if given the choice, you would lay your life down for her sake? She deserves that reassurance. All married ladies deserve a husband who will love them before all else and even more so the minister’s wife. Your wife sacrifices so she can share you with the church and its needs. You take your precious time to prepare sermons, visit the sick and hopefully teach others to do the same. The only way you will be able to make the time for your family is to follow three important rules. First, intentionally set aside time to The old minister be with your wife and children. Do you shared with his church plan time to do your church work? Of that every Thursday course, you do. You know what time night would be spent you will be preaching on Sunday as well with his widow. “Your as the next Deacon’s meeting that you wife is not a widow,” better not miss. Why should time with they exclaimed. “She your family be any different? Set aside will be if she doesn’t inviolate time that will only belong to get this time with me,” your wife and children. Don’t just he assured them! expect it to happen by accident. Make it happen! These certain evenings will belong to my wife and these times will belong to my children. These times do not belong to me; they belong to my family. Just as surely as you would say that your Sunday morning worship time belongs to the church, so also should you say certain times belong to your family. Dear brother, this is important stuff. Do not neglect to give your wife and family the time and attention they deserve. They were a part of your personal ministry team which came with you to this place of service and when God calls you to your next position of service you really want them to still be right there beside you. Secondly, enlist your Deacons or some other group within the church to hold you accountable for the caretaking of your wife and children. You know they are serious about holding you accountable if they ask you regularly about things you have done with and for your family. If they don’t inquire and ask you the hard questions, find some who will. 27

Lastly, take a vacation brother. One of the things my Dad did was to not only go with our little family on outings but to intentionally take us places together with the intention of being alone with us and no one else. My family cherishes the memories of Dad and Mom going to the beach or the mountains or just putting a mattress in the back of the pickup and sleeping outside with us in the backyard on one of our wild safaris. Dad seemed to enjoy those times as much as we did. I’ll never forget the evening Dad and I were driving around after dark up in the mountains just talking. We were camping and getting away from life for a couple of days. As we were riding along on one of those narrow little roads a mountain lion leapt off the bank on the right of the road, landed once in the middle and then proceeded to leap to the top of the bank on the left-hand side of the road. As that big cat’s nose was disappearing across the line on the left of the road the tip of his tail was just coming into view on the right. After a moment’s silence, Dad turned to me and said, “Was that what I think that was?” “I think so, Dad.” was my response. Dad then very seriously said, “Let’s go back to camp!” And, we did!

A Commitment to Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Okay, we’re going to get personal now. How many times have you heard the phrase that you had “quit preaching and started meddling!”? Well, I’m going to meddle. What have you done for your own personal health lately? Do you plan to wait until the doctor discovers something at a checkup and begins to ask those painful questions before you become willing to take a hard look at your own personal health? As ministers, we develop that sixth sense or maybe it’s spiritual discernment that allows us to suspect someone isn’t being truthful about their lifestyle. It just seems natural as a minister to be able to look at another’s life and tell when something isn’t exactly as it seems. The problem we have is we never place ourselves under that same kind of scrutiny. Recently I was asked to serve on a question & answer panel at a ministers/wives conference. As I sat there on the stage fielding questions about ministry and marriage, this question came out of left

field. Fortunately, there were two other ministers on stage with me and I had a moment to formulate my answer. When the emcee turned to me repeating the question, “What have you done for your own personal health lately?” I had my answer ready. “I made the mistake of marrying a Cardiac Rehab Nurse!” I said with feigned remorse. Over one hundred pastors and wives laughed with me but I went on to explain. Until I had met Pennie I wasn’t interested in being healthy. I had lost Teresa my first wife and I just really didn’t care whether I lived healthily or not. I didn’t want to die but I wasn’t really interested in living very much either. Then Pennie opened my eyes to an option that I had never allowed to really enter the inner sanctum of my thoughts. God wasn’t through with me! He still had things for me to do and Pennie was to be a part of that. Add to that revelation that I had truly and deeply fallen in love with this amazing woman and I decided I really did want to live. I didn’t want to exist; I wanted to live abundantly, joyously and with abandon! I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t healthy and working at eating and exercising correctly. A Cardiac Rehab Nurse takes those patients who have survived traumatic cardiac episodes and attempts to teach them new lifestyles that will enable them to live longer more productive lives. That’s what I decided I wanted. My love for Pennie is a growing and wonderful revelation for a man who believed he didn’t have anything to live for any more. Here’s what she has taught me. First, be aware of what you are eating. There are way too many books, programs and diets out there for me to attempt to give you a list of what to eat and not eat. Pennie has taught me that a small piece of Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cake with dark chocolate icing after a healthy dinner is not a bad choice. Before Pennie came into my life, I would make this most wonderful of cakes and could eat a whole one in just a couple of settings and I often did just that. Talk about indulging in unhealthy habits. Another of my favorite suppers was the easy meal consisting of a piece of white bread smeared with mustard on which a hotdog was placed. This was covered with a slice of yellow cheese, placed in the microwave until the cheese melted and then rolled up into a cylinder and eaten while standing up. During our courtship Pennie seemed to have some kind of convulsion over the phone when she would ask what 29

I was having for supper and the hotdog was the answer. I could hear her unspoken disapproval though she never uttered a word other than, “Oh, Joe!” We don’t like to hear that our eating habits should be done to the glory of God. But the way in which we treat these wonderful bodies that God created for us is just another way to bring Him glory.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

Secondly, be aware of how much exercise you are getting. I heard a pastor say one time that his doctor said he needed to get into shape. “‘Round’ is a shape, isn’t it?” he asked. I didn’t like the fact that I agreed with him just a little too much. Exercise equipment comprise the bulk of machines in the common Cardiac Rehab Department. The heart is a muscle that best functions when it is healthy and strengthened through exercise. This goes for the rest of your body. Exercise is normal. It’s what you do when you get up out of your recliner to go get that third (or fourth or fifth!) piece of pizza. Now if we could only put the refrigerator a quarter mile down the road so that we could walk just a little further to get that extra nutrition we would be a little more healthy. One of the things I have learned in the last couple of years is that you don’t have to make exercise into work. Find some fun things that you can do and then make the time to do those things. Pennie and I have discovered that we love to play ping pong. Now it’s not your childish run of the mill bouncing back and forth but the ‘let’s work up a little sweat’ kind. She wants to be better than me and I want to give her a good run for her money! You’ll find that there are activities that are just as challenging to your body as doing squats and leg lifts. I apologize to those who love squats and leg lifts but they just are not fun to me. Repeatedly, bending over to chase that little white ball that Pennie just slammed onto my side of the table and I couldn’t return is a humbling but fun exercise. I challenge you to find something to keep you moving. Maybe start dancing! I won’t tell if you keep it in the house and boogey down with your loved one and you don’t tell on me! 30

Finally, lastly and most important of all, go to the doctor brother! I know, I know, I know we do not like doctors. They tell us things about ourselves that we would rather not hear. I don’t like hearing the truth about myself if it is not complimentary. Not too Three old fellas were many years ago, my doctor took my vital sitting on the park signs and wrote that I was obese on his bench when one asked computer. I could see the screen and I the others, “What do immediately called him out on it. He said you want to hear at your that the official weight range for my funeral? I want it said height and body build was thirty pounds that I was the best less than what I presently shown on the worker on my job; there scales. Everything else was good but that wasn’t anyone else who one number. could do my job better!” He took the time to explain what would happen to my body as I aged and The second said, “I how it would affect my ministry in the want to hear someone future if I did not bring that number say that I was the best down. I left that office with a newfound husband and daddy any respect for my desire to be healthy and man could ever be!” useful to God and to be alive and well for my family. It truly was a wake up call I The third fella was would never have received if I had not silent until the other two gone to the doctor when I did. encouraged him to My friend, make it a point to have a speak up. “What do check up every year during the month of you want to hear at your your birthday. Go ahead and make that funeral?” To which he appointment now regardless of when your replied, “I want birthday might be. Make the appointment someone to say, ‘Look and then keep it. he’s moving!!!’”

Do Something To Make Yourself a Better Minister

The fourth area in your life that demands attention is your brain! One of the greatest mistakes for any minister is to cease learning. Not every minister has the opportunity to go away to school or even to study online. When I was a young man in my twenties, recently graduated from college, I decided that the best course for me 31

was to leave the small healthy church I pastored and pack up my wife and firstborn toddler and go away to school. I do not regret that decision, but if I were faced with that today I would have many more options to grow as a minister than back then. Today there are so many avenues of education that it can be just a little overwhelming to make any decision at all. The old standard of going away to seminary for three years is no longer the only option available to today’s students. Online learning is growing by leaps and bounds and there are some who say the future of most education will be from home and the virtual classroom. Other options for education are cohorts or small groups of individuals who receive education from large institutions but who meet for classroom work at the local level. Often these opportunities can be resourced through local denominational entities such as associations, parishes or conventions. Continuing education is often achieved through studies, programs and books that are easily available to today’s Christian student. All major Christian denominations have publishing entities that produce, publish and provide excellent and challenging material. There is no reason for a minister to not be involved in ongoing learning. Please allow me to give you some advice on how to be a faithful learner. First, if you have not received any biblical training, this would be the place to start. Examine your lifestyle and desires to ascertain whether a terminal degree is your goal or basic biblical education to help you to grow as a believer and ultimately, a leader of others. If receiving a degree is your goal, then choose an educational provider which is professionally and academically recognized and financially attainable. If a degree is not your goal, locate other tracks which deliver the same content but are not necessarily focused on the fulfillment of degree requirements, but instead focus on individualized learning based upon what you desire or require. Secondly, along with your pursuit of education, search out others who are in the same situation as yourself. Local minister’s associations and denominational groups will allow you to identify others and develop relationships with those who are searching too. Remember, teaching is based on the ability to impart information from one person to another. Nothing requires that this has to be done in an official classroom. The best kind of experiential learning takes place at a table

with an open Bible, a coffee cup and a few friends sharing what God is doing in their lives. Next, give some thought to taking yourself out of some of the leadership roles in your place of ministry and intentionally placing yourself in a student’s role in some kind of study group. I love to go to Bible studies that others have prepared and ultimately, allow me to sit in the back just soaking in thoughts that were not generated in my own cranium. I don’t always agree and many times, I am tempted to jump in and rescue a floundering teacher but I restrain myself and try to allow God to use their teachings to jumpstart ideas within my own thoughts. If you are a pastor, you might be surprised to find that there are teachers in your own church who teach at least as well as you do and you may also find yourself learning things you did not expect. Finally, books, articles, studies, research and even commentaries are now available online and usually many of them are accessible for free. There is a wealth of information on the internet that is only a few keystrokes away. Many Bible students find that the search and surfing for Bible information is the most enjoyable part of the journey. Like any trip, it is usually the place that we stumble unexpectedly into that makes the greatest impact on the journey. My dear friend, don’t ever stop growing and learning in your life’s service. Whether you need to focus on your relationship with God, your relationship with your wife, your own health or your continued growth as a minister, don’t stop!

Chapter 5: “What Time Is It?” Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. (Song of Solomon 7:12)

Time is an important commodity that we take for granted much of the time! (See what I did there?) Have you ever given thought to the numerous verbs we apply to time? We kill time, take off time, wait a long time until we find it’s about time to hurry time until we run out of time and then we try to find more time! For the minister managing time can be a ‘make or break’ proposition for his ministry. Very early in my life, just around the time I was newly married and trying to pastor my first church, I learned that I could fill up my life with busy work. That way if people asked if I were busy then I could truthfully and without hesitation answer, “You bet!” I did not feel guilty for such an answer until I began to notice that I was excessively busy but not accomplishing as much as I should be. Also, my new wife began to notice that I did not have the necessary time to spend with her that she desired as well. I realized that I needed to learn to manage my time differently. As a minister you will learn there are no easy answers nor programs that will create calm out of chaos, but there are many things you can learn from different sources that will enable you to develop your own personal strategy for managing time. Over the years I have discovered a few truths that I try to pass on to younger men struggling with the issue of having enough time to serve the church, woo the wife and care for their children.

Organization: The Development of Priorities

The first place we as husbands, fathers and ministers must improve is our ability to organize our lives to be of benefit to the other important people to whom we relate. Whether that relation is to a wife, our children, many church members or even unto God, we must decide what are the important issues of our personal lives that impact those relationships. Merriam-Webster defines the word ‘important’ as 35

“marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence: valuable in content or relationship.”viii Those things within our lives that have the highest priorities are the areas in which we must concentrate our best and most valuable time and efforts. The decisions that lead up to knowing what our priorities are often not clearly or easily grasped. Knowing one’s priorities in life can be a daunting and challenging task for anyone, let alone a minister who has so many different individuals clamoring for their attention. It has been said that “Jonah was eaten by a whale but most ministers are nibbled to death by a million minnows!” There is great truth in that statement. John 10:27 tells us that Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”. Learning to prioritize among all the voices calling our names is one of the hardest and yet seemingly easy tasks facing all ministers. It seems easy to decide priorities until we are faced with the multitude of people, needs and obligations that face us daily. I’ve found there are actually three categories that allow us to observe any situation and ultimately decide on its priority. They are importance, significance and consequence.

IMPORTANCE High priority issues are always important. As Merriam-Webster points out, they are “valuable in content or relationship.”ix When something is important you understand it has value within your life and the lives of others. Maybe this can be said in a clearer way. The relationships we have with others are the most important things of life. There cannot be any doubt about the importance of your family, your church responsibility and most of all, your personal walk with God. Yet, how you balance and organize these relationships within your life will dictate how much time and energy you give to them. One of the greatest dangers for anyone is to take it for granted that a relationship will stand and prosper without attention and nurture. When we are faced with this deception, we give lip-service to our agreement but we deny its validity by continuing in practice and ignorance. I heard a Christian counselor share one time that “it takes three to make a good marriage, two to be wedded and only one to break a marriage.” How true that is. Two people can get married but with the addition of God’s presence and blessings, that marriage becomes 36

something more than what the world can understand. Still, when only one within that marriage becomes apathetic and lazy about maintaining the relationship, that marriage begins to stumble upon hard and rocky ground. Relationships are the foundation of both the family as well as the church. Creating, encouraging and maintaining relationships lies at the very heart of who we are as married ministers. Whether those relationships be with our wives, our children or our church members, we must raise the level of importance we allow those issues to hold within our decision-making processes. Remember, if it is not about nor linked to our primary relationships it will never be as important.

SIGNIFICANCE Another aspect of organizing our lives and developing our priorities is to understand the significance of our individual relationships. Again, we turn to Merriam-Webster who defines significance as “likely to have influence or effect.”x Something is significant if it will influence or affect the wellbeing of yourself and others. I love to counsel couples who are planning to get married. I will always ask them to define and give examples of what the term ‘love’ means to each of them. They will individually reach back to their early home life as well as to the myriad experiences they have faced and share a heartfelt testimony that is almost always rooted in some kind of emotionalism. The media, culture and environment in which we live has sought to define love as a feeling that lives rooted deep within our emotional character. This could not be farther from the truth when understood through the focused lens of God’s Word. God defines love not in emotional terms but in commitment and covenant. God has self-defined Himself as love and rests His identity in His intention that He will never recant that commitment to humanity nor will he break His own special covenant no matter our propensities toward sinfulness and spiritual rebellion. When Noah was tasked with building the ark, Noah was the last of those individuals who walked in a personal relationship with the Father. God could have completely destroyed the Earth and all upon it during this great cataclysm but instead, He chose to save the one who continued to believe, Noah. We see the love of God illustrated in that 37

only one individual was significant enough for God to promise that He would never destroy His people again by flood and to signify that decision by the rainbow that fills the sky so beautifully.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8)

It is a priority to God to maintain His relationship with believers who faithfully follow Him. He makes decisions on our behalf by how those decisions and their outcomes will influence and affect each of us. When we talk about the love of God, we must understand it in the framework of what God is willing to do to keep a relationship with each of us. Significance is the effect our decisions will have on the important relationships we are trying to maintain within our lives. A decision to change toothpaste brands hopefully won’t affect your marriage to the extent that without warning depleting the checkbook on that exciting sports car will. You already see the difference. If you have been married for very long, you realize there are things that must be communicated before a decision should be made. Likewise, making policy changes within a church but neglecting to go through the appropriate channels will result in a challenge to your pastoral relationship with that congregation. That is what I mean by understanding the ‘significance’ of a decision.

CONSEQUENCE Developing priorities revolves not only around the importance and significance of those relationships that are affected by our decisions but also by the consequences of our decisions as well. There are always consequences for everything we do. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action there will always be an equal and opposite 38

reaction. We can best understand that reaction as the consequence that must be expected when the initial decision is made and then action is implemented. You and I make decisions every day to choose priorities based upon their importance, significance and maybe most importantly and significantly (see what I did there?!) their consequences. I learned as a boy that certain actions would be met swiftly with punishment while other actions resulted in positive outcomes. When our youngest son was entering high school as a freshman, I reminded him that good manners would gain him much attention. I encouraged him to answer all questions and comments from female teachers and even other young ladies within his class with the appellation “ma’am”. I sought to ingrain all his interactions with respect and genuine honesty as well as telling him, “the girls will like it!” One day Micah came home and excitedly blurted out, “Dad, that stuff really works!” Upon closer inspection, it seems Micah chose to open a door and hold it open for a couple of senior girls. They asked him a question and his response was, “Yes ma’am” to which they replied, “You’re sweet!” The poor boy was both starstruck and amazed that Dad knew what he was talking about. I still laugh quietly over his discovery that good manners will almost always result in a good first impression. I could take the time to tell you about the consequences of things that were not as positive but I expect each of you could list as many as I could. Let me share only one. I had a Deacon who thought it the height of great comedy to tell jokes at the expense of his pastor, me. One time while we were traveling on a bus with a group of senior adults, he decided to stand and regale the group with stories that had a Don Rickles quality to them. You remember Don Rickles? He was the king of stories that made fun of other people. This deacon told the story of his pastor (me) who was experiencing what many of us have, a rapidly receding hairline. He shared with the group that I had styled my hair three different ways in my life: parted on the right, parted on the left and departed in the middle. Personally I enjoyed the laugh that resulted because I like being in the center of attention even if for a light-hearted insult. The leader of the senior group then asked me if I would like to respond. I did. The mistake I made was thinking this deacon could 39

take a joke as well as I could, so I stood and shared a similar joke that placed the group’s attention squarely back on him. My thought that he could take it as well as dish it out was entirely wrong. I made a terrible mistake that day. He couldn’t take a joke and immensely resented me from that day forward. I lost a valuable relationship that day that I regret to this day. There are always consequences to whatever we do so we must prioritize accordingly.

Procrastination: The Delay of the Important

I put this part of the chapter off as long as I could! Just kidding, I actually looked forward to sharing the material for this part as I am an inveterate procrastinator just like most humans. We have the ability to decide when and what we do and that ability overflows into all parts of our lives. When it invades your ability to balance your ministry with your marriage then procrastination has become your enemy and must be dealt with directly and with authority. Your church and even more your family will appreciate your direct intervention on their behalf. When I was a boy in middle school I was faced with numerous opportunities to examine my own procrastinatory tendencies. Many times, my mother would find me stressed and upset that I had a paper due in class the next day. Inevitably she would ask the awful question, “How long have you known you needed to do this paper?” When I responded that I had known for days or even weeks she always responded with a plea for me to do my work in a timely manner. Even today I can hear the pain in her voice as she would remind me that the stress of the “last night writing blues” would not be on me if I had only done my work earlier in the week. As a pastor, I learned that sermon preparation did not take place on its own but it came about with prayer, planning and a passionate decision to perform what was necessary to deliver God’s message to His people. As a husband, it didn’t take me long to learn that being a good marriage partner would not happen by accident. I believed myself to be an alright kind of guy but Pennie reminds me daily that she is important enough in my life to intentionally accomplish the necessary tasks I am faced with as a husband. Our children are grown now but I remember how hard it was to just make the time to be a good daddy.

Over the course of my life I have identified the areas in which I have to focus so I might be able to accomplish all that was expected of me. Whether it is developing a regular sermon series, romancing an exciting wife, being a doting granddaddy to 12 wonderful grandchildren or most of all growing in my own faith and strength as a man, I have learned to limit my procrastination. By examining my decisions, expressing deadlines to myself, excluding distractions that rob me of my focus, exerting discipline on myself to get things done and finally rewarding myself by expecting dessert at the end of the process, I have become better at limiting my own procrastination.

EXAMINE YOUR DECISIONS Previously in this chapter, we spoke of the importance of determining your priorities and how that would affect your ability to manage your time. Clear priorities give you set standards by which you can understand whether you are making progress or not. Like a hunter who aligns the sights on his gun, it doesn’t matter how well you shoot if you do not know what target you are shooting at. If you do not have a definite target then you may be hitting downrange but most likely you will not be hitting where you want. The target represents the specific priority which needs to be “hit.” Learn to be honest with your priorities as well as Husbands, love your wives, just as ruthless. Some priorities will Christ loved the church and gave always trump other priorities and himself up for her to make her we must recognize such a holy, cleansing her by the washing preeminence. Making a decision with water through the word, and between the obligations of your to present her to himself as a church and the obligations of radiant church, without stain or your family will always wrinkle or any other blemish, but represent one of the most holy and blameless. challenging balancing acts in Ephesians 5:25-27 your life. One thing to remember is that ultimately And I John saw the holy city, new the church belongs to Christ Jerusalem, coming down from God while your wife belongs to you. out of heaven, prepared as a bride Many pastors make the mistake adorned for her husband. of treating the church like a Revelation 21:2 41

spiritual mistress and never realizing they are messing around with another man’s future bride. Don’t ever forget that Jesus Christ plans to come back and claim His bride. The Bible is very clear on that promise. Examining your decisions on what is important to you means resolving to perform the most important things first. This may cause conflict with others as they may believe their desires should have a higher priority, but it is ultimately your call and it will take the strength of your character to place things in their rightful order.

EXPRESS CONCRETE DEADLINES I love to get things done! One of my husbandly duties is to share the cleaning of the house as much as I can. Pennie loves to go fishing and other outdoor activities with me, so I feel it is very appropriate for me to take part in what goes on inside our home to help her. One of my chores is doing dishes. Pennie is an excellent cook and my waistline shows it when I’m not careful. She labors extensively to produce and provide lovely dinners that always amaze me with their goodness. There will usually be copious amounts of dirty dishes after she is finished and I always feel inclined to make the effort to show my appreciation. After my first wife Teresa died and I was alone and eating my own cooking for almost three years, you can bet I appreciate all that Pennie does for me in the kitchen. Doing those dishes is a nightly priority for me that must be done before bedtime. Setting deadlines for priorities whether they be regular or non- recurring is important to accomplishing your goals. Asking the question first thing in the morning, “What must I get done today?” is a great way to begin each day. Write the answers down on a piece of paper with today’s date at the top. Place them in order so that you work on the most important first. Sometimes, priorities are regulated by others such as when supper will be done. Still there are priorities that you should accomplish first thing so they will be done and rightfully crossed off your list. Deadlines give you a sense of accomplishment that is important in fulfilling your list of priorities. There will be days in which you must jump from one responsibility to another without feeling accomplished at anything. These are the hardest days. If you can point to the completion of one or more prioritized obligations, you will end your day with a sense of victory and planned preparation for the next day. 42

EXCLUDE UNFAVORABLE DISTRACTIONS I just stopped writing this section because my stomach reminded me that it’s twelve-fifteen and I was hungry. I am easily distracted by my stomach. It speaks to me! It responds favorably to Pennie’s cooking and most of all, my stomach reminds me that no matter how many obligations I have agreed to fulfill it will still interrupt me to meet its needs. Interruptions and distractions keep us from accomplishing what we deem important. I bet you already understand the philosophy of distractions. Have you ever been preaching and come to one of those good parts in your sermon that you are so excited about and want to illustrate well and at just that point, the baby on the fifth-row back chokes on her Cheerios®? Every head in the place swivels toward that baby and your point is missed by everyone. Frustrating, isn’t it? I have learned to stop if the choking is bad enough and wait to see if the child will be okay. If it is a recurring distraction, I will sometimes repeat myself to make sure the point I wanted to make gets to the ears of my listeners. Either way, I take steps to make sure all my work of development and preparation are not wasted. Distractions have to be dealt with. They can rob you of your ability to accomplish both your work for the church as well as your caring for your family. Develop strategies within your own life that enable you to deal with the multitude of distractions that will seek to wrestle your attention away from the important things that you need to accomplish. If you can manage and minimize distractions you will be able to focus on what is important enough for you to accomplish right now.

EXERT FOCUSED DISCIPLINE Managing the necessary tasks to be good stewards of our time is hard work. Not only do we have to decide what is most important but we have to develop ways to accomplish those tasks whether they be for the Lord’s Church or our personal family. To perform hard work you have to be strong enough to accomplish the task, know enough to get it done and most of all be single-minded enough to see it through. Paul wrote of the attitude he held about accomplishing the work of the Gospel. 43

Being a good pastor, a good husband and a good father is hard work and takes a heightened amount of dedication on your part to pull it off. It will not come easily. You have to work to make it happen.

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1 Corinthians 9:25-27)

Paul speaks of bringing his life into subjection or slavery using the greek word ‘doulagogo’xi to illustrate the necessary effort for successful accomplishment. If you are to become adept at managing and balancing time to good effect, you will have to work hard and be committed to the task.

EXPECT JUST DESSERTS I absolutely love a certain kind of chocolate cake. Pennie will take a regular dark chocolate cake mix and add a large handful of dark chocolate chips to the batter before she bakes it. Once it is baked, she will allow it to cool and then cover it with a thick coating of dark fudge icing. This is MY dessert. It seems everyone in our family including 5 grown children, their mates and 12 grandchildren all have their own special dessert. We have special meals for family birthdays and the selection of all the details of the meal rests squarely upon the birthday boy or girl. These meals range all the way from pizza & burgers to steak & shrimp. The one constant for each birthday meal is that a dessert is specified and cheerfully requested. Pennie makes sure each request is met fully. The celebratory meal is always the highlight of the evening often surpassing the excitement of the birthday gifts. I have learned over the years to offer myself dessert as a gift for focused hard work. It might be a much-coveted small piece of chocolate cake, a quick moment’s ride to a quiet pond for a little fishing or just an evening walk holding Pennie’s hand while we talk about our day. Either way, it is good to reward yourself for hard work.

Remember, do not skip ahead to the dessert too early before finishing but make sure that if you have worked according to plan and accomplished what God has given you to do during the day that you reward yourself for being a good steward of your time and efforts.

Delegation: Helping Others Help You!

One of the hardest lessons any minister will ever have to learn is the art of delegation. Delegation is the ability to allow others to attempt and accomplish tasks that could also be done by a leader. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of believing you can only do the work yourself and then allow no one else to join you in the work. If your desire is to balance your ministry tasks with your marriage obligations and you understand the necessity of managing your time well, then learning to utilize the time, energy and talents of others must come to the forefront of your leadership skills. Delegation is considered a chief management skill within the corporate world and there are numerous conferences, books and programs that focus on developing that skill. Yet, so many ministers miss the need of learning this important ability and often come to a point of burning out in their ministry and even sometimes causing irreparable harm within their home. There are so many resources available both in the corporate world as well as on the internet that I am hesitant of trying to tell you the necessary steps to achieve this ability. Even so, please allow me to share some hard-won insights into this issue that I have learned over my journey.

LEARN TO ALLOW OTHERS TO WORK! The greatest obstacle to good delegation is not in the expected place. I hear over and over again from ministers that they do not have the people to accomplish the tasks they wish. Pastors and other leaders point to the absence of someone highly qualified as a reason to maintain their personal involvement and even personal control over situations. What they believe to be the primary reason for their lack of delegation is most often a thinly veiled subterfuge for their inability to ‘let go’ of a situation and allow someone else to be involved.

Many years ago, when I pastored my first church I learned that I was the primary reason many church members were not involved in ministry. I was too instrumental in teaching them that I was the only one that could do the work. In my own mind I could not let go of the reins of leadership and allow someone else to accomplish a task but, that was not the reason I told myself. I went to great lengths to explain that there was no one else who could do what was needed and therefore, I was the one left to fulfill the work. Let me stop right here and tell you, “Down this path lay monsters!” What I mean is that you are lying to yourself if you continue to say God cannot equip others to do the same tasks you are able to do. What we are really saying is we do not want to share the work with others. This may be because we are afraid of appearing weak in our leadership, afraid of losing control of the situation or maybe afraid of experiencing failure within the work of the church. All three of these reasons reflect a lack of faith that God is the One Who actually controls the work of the church. God can and will raise up the necessary workers to accomplish the work He wants done. Your job is to realize this and allow others to work along with you.

Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. (Exodus 18:17-18)

But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” (Exodus 18:21-23

Moses led the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt but he had to learn one important lesson. A leader cannot do everything; he must choose when and where he exerts his leadership or he will burn out. Moses father-in-law came for a family visit and was impressed with Moses and the job he was doing until he watched Moses sit in judgement over the people and all their petty squabbles. Jethro reprimanded his son-in-law and said, “What you are doing is not good.” I wonder if Moses agreed. Jethro gave Moses the advice to choose honest, capable and most of all, Godly men who would help carry the load for Moses. Does that sound familiar?

Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. (Acts 6:2-4)

When the early church in the New Testament grew to an unmanageable size, the apostles requested that honest, capable and Godly men be chosen to help with the ministry. This allowed the apostles to focus and better fulfill the ministry God had placed upon them. They understood very clearly that no one alone could accomplish all that God was calling us to do within and outside of the local church.

DEVELOP THE SKILLS OF OTHERS FOR THE WORK. I have learned that there are three different ways of developing skills and work talents in others that will free me up to fulfill my calling both as pastor and as a husband and father. These three different ways of helping others to work are training, teaching and mentoring. The first of these, training, is the ability to instill a specific response to a specific situation. I love to fish and over the years have worked hard to train my fingers to feel the slightest twitch in my line and to immediately set the hook. This is recognized by psychologists as a “stimulus/response” mechanism. When the necessary stimulus or situation occurs then the

trained response immediately kicks in. It’s what happens when that fish picks up my bait and I feel it through the line. I immediately pull back and try to set the hook so we can have fish to eat! I have trained my hands to recognize that almost imperceptible tug and to instantaneously give a hearty tug right back. This works for the most part. Training works when the correct stimulus is available and the correct response is given but when the result is caused by the wrong stimulus, the limitations of this type of equipping is observed. I set my hook into more rocks, twigs and even the bottom of the lake than I do into fish. I am always getting hung up because I too often ‘set the hook’ when the twitch I feel is not a fish. This type of equipping is best limited to those areas of service where the stimulus is dependable and expected. Anything that might throw a new and challenging situation will require a more advanced style of equipping. This leads us to teaching as a more advanced style of equipping others to come alongside of you and help accomplish the work. Teaching involves the instilling of information and includes a necessary amount of decision-making as part of a response to service. Husbands can be trained to take out the trash but learning the differences between flowers and weeds sometimes takes some teaching. I was working with Pennie in one of our flowerbeds one day and before she could stop me, I had pulled up almost all of a special little plant that to me look suspiciously like weeds. Being a loving husband and wanting to help, I jumped in and removed her dainty little plants with much vengeance and to my chagrin I had to endure her lessons in which plants she did not want there and which ones she actually did want to remain. This was not simple training but intensive teaching. Teaching involves not only time and thought be invested in the student but the ability to differentiate between different scenarios. Teaching takes time. You as the leader will have to make the time to teach as well as clearly think through the information you want to impart to your student. You must also choose carefully the person who you make such an investment in. I am an excellent ‘garbage taker outer’ but I am not trustworthy at distinguishing between dainty flowers, miniscule plants and noxious weeds. Pennie

has learned that I require extensive teaching on the subject that I might make good decisions on her work’s behalf. The last style of equipping is the most time challenging and yet has the potential for the most and best return on your efforts as a leader. Mentoring is the partnership between leader and learner where the leader walks alongside the learner and the two divide the work together with the leader tasking the learner with the work they are able to perform under the regular and continuing tutelage of the leader. How long did it take you to learn to pastor? I bet, in all honesty, you admit that you are still learning and expect to do so until God allows you to step away from the ministry. Also, I bet you can point to strategic individuals who have walked alongside you at important points in your journey and helped you to accomplish and grow in your faithfulness and service. These are mentors. I recommend all pastors cultivate mentoring relationships within their lives. The ability to have or be a mentor means that you are struggling to grow and become a better servant to the Lord and the service of His kingdom. You should learn to mentor strategic potential leaders within your ministry who can help take some of the burden of the ministry off you. Paul specifically sought out men like Timothy and Titus who could serve not only as pastors but “as Paul’s apostolic delegates who were temporarily assigned to their locations.”xii These two men were not only chosen but individually mentored by Paul. They multiplied his work by being able to perform much of the same work as Paul in his absence. Yet, they walked closely with him not only in thought and performance but also in faith. Paul in essence tried to clone himself and did a very good job of doing so. Would your ministry rejoice over the addition of a Timothy or Titus? Of course, it would! But, you need to remember that Timothys and Tituses do not just spontaneously arise from your congregation. They must be nurtured and mentored by someone who seeks for God’s will to be done in someone else’s life as well as their own.

SET OBTAINABLE GOALS THAT OTHERS CAN REACH. It is readily agreed that one of the most recognizable quotes of Thomas Edison is, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” I’ve used that quote a number of times in sermons as 49

well as other conversations but, I never use that quote when I want to motivate someone. Who wants to hear that they may fail 10,000 times before they may ever taste of success? Like a child learning to walk, we must recognize we do not begin life in running shoes! Toddlers do just that; they toddle. Likewise, many of our decisions have to be based on other’s abilities to accomplish whatever task may be set before them. If we only present them with a picture of a finished project, they may embrace that result without ever comprehending the strategy and process that must take place before that result can be attained. This is where a thoughtful and even savvy leader comes in. Creating a pathway to success is always broken up by intermediate way-points that in and of themselves are small successes. A visionary leader always understands that every destination includes stops along the way for those following. Making sure that no one is lost along the way is important for ultimate success of any venture. As I write this paragraph, Pennie is unboxing a set of hammock seats that look somewhat like a cloth sack that is supposed to be hung on the back porch from a rafter. Unfortunately, they are not that simple. I am enjoying sitting here at the computer while she struggles with the written and pictorial instructions and tries to make sense of them. I could go over there and try to help her out but the situation is a better illustration for this manuscript than her need for my help. So, as she tries to decipher overly complicated instructions, I sit here requesting you not to do the same in your ministry or your home. Learn to help others accomplish their goals by helping them have intermediate victories.

ALLOW OTHERS THE FREEDOM TO FAIL Delegation of priorities and work always carries with it an amount of danger. What happens when failure results? I’m sure Moses had to struggle with the question of how his subordinate leaders would respond to the multitude of issues that would inevitably come up as they assumed their new roles of judges and advocates. Then he also would have to contend with the accusations that would no doubt come his way when his appointed judges ruled against a favored litigant. It is never a pleasant situation when a leader must deal with the results of a failure in the work of an underling. 50

Likewise, as a husband and parent, it is often hard to step back and allow others including children to face the unknown realm of failure. Watching a child try to learn to ride a bicycle is as much a learning experience for a parent as it is a challenging experience for the child. Bruised egos, scraped knees and a temptation to quit are often the expected outcomes. Raising two daredevil boys, I learned to just grit my teeth, look away and accept the outcome. The only things that gave me comfort was the knowledge that God was in control and the fact that they were after all, hopefully small enough that they didn’t do too much damage to themselves! Still, as a leader what are the steps that one can take to minimize the negative consequences of failure? First, nothing can replace adequate preparation and planning. When you take the initial step of delegating a task or allowing another person to tackle a situation, the best thing you can do as a leader is to make sure they know what to expect. This kind of preparation can be done any number of ways but definitely should be done in anticipation of both success or failure. Sometimes this preparation is best given as information such as what can happen, what may happen or even what will happen. Informational preparation works well with reasoned attitudes of individuals who are seeking to accomplish a task and desire to understand what they need to do. Other times, it’s not as important to convey the “how-to’s” as much as it is to convey the consequences of potential outcomes. Making sure that everyone on the team understands the definitions of success or failure and their respective consequences will lessen the impact of pain in case failure were to occur. As the G.I.Joe cartoon character would recite, “Now you know and knowing is half the battle!” Another leader initiative is support for those attempting to accomplish a new challenge. If you find yourself in the position of having a partner accomplish and overcome a challenge be sure to bring adequate praise and support for that individual. Nothing motivates someone better than having their accomplishments recognized, validated and honored. If the individual experiences failure do not focus on the failure but on the effort and try to assure that individual will continue their attempts for success. It is the “Get back on the

horse!” encouragement that may just help that person get up, shake the dust off and climb back on to see success in their next endeavor. Finally, be sure to equip the person with the authority as well as the responsibility. I have seen over and over again pastors who are willing to ask another minister or church member to attempt a new challenge only to not give them the necessary authority to accomplish the responsibility. There is nothing more demeaning than being given a job to do but not being given the tools necessary to get that same job done. It only compounds the pain when a motivated individual must repeatedly return to the leader for required support decisions that should have been given previously to the worker to accomplish his task. The congregational delegation of tasks will allow the leader to reclaim precious time that was previously spent on challenges that others can accomplish. When a leader selfishly retains control of different tasks that he can and should relinquish to others, he does a disservice to his ministry partners as well as robs the kingdom of a multiplication of ministry. I always loved noting that in Acts 2:47, “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” but shortly after the inauguration of the servant office of deacons, Acts 6:7 reported, “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.”

Administration: Meeting, Meetings and More Meetings!

I believe the bane of every Pastor is the incessant march of meetings that take place in a church setting. Add to that schedule all of the kid’s requirements and if that isn’t enough, what about quality time for you wife? Nothing can replace a face to face meeting that good relationships require.

Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt--to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. (Deuteronomy 34:10-11)

The phrase, “face to face” is a translation of the Hebrew words, “panim el panim.”xiii It denotes the special nature of God’s relationship with Moses in which they meet on a very personal level. Body language, eye contact and a connected attitude are human attempts to create closeness, understanding and a strengthened relationship between leaders and others. Meetings are important and for you to be an effective leader you must make the greatest effort to meet face to face with those you come into contact with. A problem arises when we begin to realize that the level of expectations placed upon us as leaders far exceeds our limited ability to meet. The healthy and stable leader must be able to differentiate between meetings that are a requirement and meetings that can succeed without his personal involvement. For the pastor of most churches with limited or no extra staff all meetings within the church involve the pastor to some extent. It is no wonder most pastors communicate a great distaste for superfluous meetings. Meetings are not just a business activity, either. Every husband should recognize and provide the necessary time to be “face to face” with his wife and children on a regular basis. I learned a long time ago that harmony in the home is best maintained by a regular and not unpleasant activity known as COMING HOME! No greater indictment has ever been uttered against a man of God than, “Why won’t Daddy come home?” Quality time spent “face to face” with your wife and children are at least as important, if not more so, than any meeting you will ever have at the church. How do we tell the difference between time spent in meetings and time spent with people? I think the answers to a few questions will enlighten us as to the specific necessity of which meetings we should take part in and others that we can allow to take place without us.

AM I NECESSARY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THIS MEETING? The first question we need to look at involves one of honesty and our own ego. I am often convinced that my presence is much more necessary than not. This is directly related to my ego which likes to be inflated. Mrs. Lois was a retired Army Nurse in one of the church’s that I have pastored. She would come to the back door when the morning service had ended and usually have a few pithy comments 53

about my presence, appearance or posture. I am a tall man and I am prone to bending over slightly to be better able to speak and hear someone below my height. It was Mrs. Lois’ pleasure to remind me to stand up straight each Sunday morning. It was on one of those Sunday mornings that Mrs. Lois came directly to me after service and though I was expecting some encouragement to stand up straight she caught me by surprise by asking me, “How did your week go, Preacher?” I answered with a litany of activities, meetings and obligations that I had fulfilled the previous week. My last words spoken in a rush were, “I was pretty busy last week.” With some sarcasm Mrs. Lois admonished me, “You’re one of the busiest men I’ve ever met, Preacher!” At this point she swished her long skirt and marched out the door. As I stood there allowing her words to soak in I realized that of all the things I had recited to her concerning my list of accomplishments there were only a couple of things that had been necessary for me to do. She had picked up on a problem and gently but firmly confronted me with it. Most of what I prided myself on doing was not absolutely necessary for me to do! How humbling! As you and I daily try to understand how to portion our precious time we must make decisions about the necessity of our presence or even maybe the blessing of our absence.

WILL MY ABSENCE HURT SOMEONE? Another question that is important to ask when deciding the best use of our time is whether we will actually hurt someone if we choose to do another task instead of the one they desire for us. Many tasks are just menial issues that need to be accomplished. They are not worth taking attention and time away from much more important people to accomplish. After many years in the ministry I can say that I have never heard another pastor say, “I wish I hadn’t spent so much time with my wife or my children.” Or, “I wish I had more faithfully gone to more church meetings.” Or, “I’m sorry I took the time to take my wife out regularly.” No, I’ve never heard anyone lament making the time to be with someone important. Yet over and over again I have heard older men and ministers admonish those following them to create time to spend

with the most important people and let others take care of the meetings that are just time stealers! When Pennie and I married my life was turned upside down! Where I had only known a household with boys and their problems, now I had acquired by marriage a beautiful and Godly woman and three wonderful, beautiful and Godly daughters and with them their respective families. Our middle daughter has singlehandedly provided Pennie and me with five of our twelve grandchildren. Her world is one of constant turmoil, noise and excitement. I love to go to her house and just get down on the floor and roll around with the babies. Remember, I’ve already raised two boys so wrestling on the floor is right down my alley! Our daughter has to remind PoppieJoe and the little ones that we are not to upset the furniture if possible. Sometimes it’s just not possible to not upset the furniture. Building tents, battlefields and hideouts with the cushions and covers from the sofa and chairs just seems so right to do! Fortunately, we try to put everything back in its approximate place before any parental edicts are broken but we push things close to the edge of allowability more often than not. In the kitchen of this home that houses these wonderful children is a sign that hangs on the wall next to the door. It sets the complete tone for this household. The sign states, “Never mind the mess, the children are making memories!” As you decide where best to invest your time, always remember to go with the ones who would be hurt by your absence.

WHAT WILL BE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MY PRESENCE OR ABSENCE IN 10 YEARS? The last question that I ask about the importance of meetings is to determine which one will have a lasting impact down the road of time. Obviously a pastor’s place in leadership determines a long-term direction for a church. I have noticed over many years that the relative health of a church is directly related to the relative health of the pastor. If a pastor is in a healthy place within his life physically, emotionally and most of all spiritually his church will more often than not reflect that health. But if a pastor is struggling with issues, the church will again more often than not reflect a less than healthy demeanor. 55

Why is this important? Sometimes it takes a while for a full understanding of our actions to become obvious. We tend to make decisions based on the here and now. We often do not take into account the long-term effect of our decisions and actions until it's too late. Asking ahead of time whether what we do today will have meaning over the long term will help us to understand the significance of our actions. There can be no doubt that spending more time with our wives and children will pay off ten years from now. Other activities are important as well. Discerning which ones most need our attention is really based solely on which is more ultimately positive in the long term. This same logic can be applied to all of our decisions. We should learn to delegate some of those meetings to others to allow ourselves the opportunity to focus more on what will be significant in the future. These are value judgements that must be prayerfully considered. Allowing God to lead us in decision making of where to invest our time helps us to make the best use of our time.

My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. (Psalm 31:15)

The Psalmist has it right. Our time is in God’s hands and it is ultimately His will that we must seek to make good decisions about our time. Don’t allow the momentary to take your vision away from the eternal. As we seek to be better equipped to handle our time, don’t forget that God is able to direct our paths and most important of all, help us make decisions to effectively follow Him and lovingly care for others.

Chapter 6: “Whose Job Is It Anyway?” Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. (Song of Solomon 1:2)

I grew up on a farm in the hills of East Tennessee as the son of a man who worked two different jobs while trying to pastor a church as well as being a loving husband and father. Dad was adept at wearing numerous hats, sometimes even wearing more than one at a time. Being a rambunctious sort of boy, I was known for getting into different kinds of trouble in the church and Dad was known for his handling of those kinds of trouble. Usually, if I acted out in such a way that he took notice I was reminded not only of the possibility but more often than not the probability of a whipping when I got home. I do not remember ever getting the promise of an imminent whipping when I did not receive my due reward of punishment. But there were also times when punishment needed to be swift and immediate. Dad had zero problem stopping in the middle of his preaching to administer swift and immediate justice to an errant son who had gone too far! It was amazing just how far reaching a single parental admonishment from the pulpit could go with other children. Everyone in the church, including all the children, knew that Dad would stop a worship service to correct his own son. If he would do so to his own son, a son that he loved greatly, all the children wondered secretly just what he would do to them if the need arose! Fortunately for them that need never arose but the threat was sufficient to rein in most exuberant childish behaviors. Dad was a master at being a pastor as well as being a father. I knew he served in both roles but he understood the difference and the value of knowing the differences between the two. Being able to differentiate between being a leader within the church and being a leader within your home is an important distinction to make. The lines sometimes get blurred and expectations and behaviors cross over from one arena to the other. It is paramount for the minister to recognize and understand his roles as regarding the Lord’s church and his own home.

Ministry Personnel

Whether you consider yourself a pastor, preacher, minister, elder or leader you must understand your role within the church to be able to achieve your best in that role. The Apostle Paul speaks of different roles of service within the church in Ephesians 4.

And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Ephesians 4:11-13 (HCSB)

In this text the first three listed are apostles, prophets and evangelists. The original Greek words for these offices within the church are essentially the same words as transliterated: “apostolous,” “prophetas” and “evangelistas.” These three titles revolve around the office they hold within the church with the activity of each being understood by the title bestowed on them. The next two, pastor and teacher, are different. Though they, much as the first three, serve as offices of the church, their descriptor is not a title but an action. Notice the term translated as pastor is the Greek word, “poimenas” better understood as shepherd and the second is “didaskolous” or translated instructor or teacher. As we take a look at the term “pastor” we must immediately grapple with Paul’s description of this church leader as being one who cares for sheep. He may be remembering Isaiah’s recognition that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah is recognized as prophetically telling of the coming Christ who would be the great Shepherd. Pastoring or shepherding the people of God is an excellent motif for Paul to illustrate this service to God’s people. The Psalmist, Asaph, illustrates the call of God upon a young man named David to lead God’s people. That leadership was based in a simple style of service which the text illumines.

He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: From following the ewes great with young he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands. Psalm 78:70-72

“Psalm 78 is the longest of the historical psalms. Its lesson is that history must not repeat itself. The people must never again be unbelieving.”xiv This Psalm concludes with the recognition that the greatest era of Israel’s history occurred during and even more so, because of the leadership of King David. Examining the standard set forth from King David’s leadership we see two primary attributes that must be present in the successful minister: integrity and skillfulness. There is no doubt that the successful minister operates in a dualistic giftedness. We must have a basic integrity within us out of which we operate publicly as ministers and privately as husbands and fathers. We also have to exhibit the personal skillfulness or ministry skills which produce relationships that result in fruit for God’s kingdom.

Integrity There are two sides to the word integrity. The first deals with a moral faithfulness to one’s self and one’s own personal beliefs. Words like honesty, sincerity and truthfulness all underwrite our definition of integrity. Integrity is when the outside of a man or woman accurately reflects the inside. On the other hand, words like dishonesty, impropriety and immorality all point to a base human nature that is reflected in a lifestyle rooted in sin. David’s lifestyle was often marred by serious failings and spiritual misgivings. Most Bible students quickly recall the story of when David should have gone to war; he chose to stay home and played “Peeping Tom” on his neighbor’s wife, Bathsheba. The outcome of that salacious interlude in David’s life was the chilling comparison of Uriah’s integrity versus David’s lack thereof. Uriah the Hittite comes home on leave from the war and refuses to sleep with his wife while

his men are suffering out on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the Biblical narrative tells us that David has already slept with Uriah’s wife. When we talk about a lack of integrity David’s failure stands out. I bring this up at this point to recognize that failure does not rob God of the ability to use a man. It does hinder God’s perfect will in our lives but God is still able to do great and wonderful things with a broken and willing servant. The present-day minister is not a perfect individual. We all make mistakes but if we allow God to take control of those mistakes He can bring success and victory out of distressing failure. David is a wonderful success story. He went from the remote sheep folds to the palace. He went from chasing off lions and bears to killing giants and conquering invading armies. He was a sunburned small boy who became without question the greatest king to grace the throne in Israel. Yet, his journeys often traveled through times of sinfulness and disobedience. Still, David always came back to God in repentance, contrition and obedience. That is why Asaph could write a Psalm extolling the integrity of King David. The second side of understanding integrity is the condition of being “integrity implies whole and undivided.xv Oftentimes trustworthiness and we speak of something’s integrity incorruptibility to a relating it’s wholeness, togetherness degree that one is and unity. Pennie makes wonderful incapable of being false biscuits which she creates without the to a trust, responsibility, use of measurements or recipes. It’s or pledge.” an ability learned from her mother and favorite aunt. After a lifetime of practice Pennie can pour flour into a bowl, cut in her shortening and then add buttermilk until it “gloms” (her word!) together. She then pats it out into a thick wafer of dough, cuts it into biscuit shapes with a Vienna© Sausage can and places the promising biscuits into a hot oven until they rise, brown and begin to smell like Heaven on Earth! Am I making you hungry yet? One of the things I have learned from being married to Pennie for this short wonderful time is what to expect when she says she is making biscuits. I know exactly what is about to happen!! I know what they will look like, feel like and most important of all, taste like. I have never, and I mean never, bitten into one of Pennie’s biscuits and found 60

something that did not belong there. I have never been disappointed and I have never been surprised. Do you begin to understand? Integrity is when we are what we are supposed to be and we are that every time if at all possible. Integrity gives you and me the ability to be successful leaders because we can be trusted that we are what we proclaim we are and we are that every time.

Skillfulness David was also recognized for “the skillfulness of his hands” in dealing with God’s nation of Israel. When Asaph mentions the skillfulness of David’s hands I don’t believe he was referring to David’s manual dexterity with a sword or his ability to play the harp. I believe the Psalmist was speaking of David’s character which allowed him to be a good leader. Our world is awash with gurus, programs and even secondary educational degrees promising to make you a better leader. There can be no doubt that much of the information available can help us to be better ministers and marriage partners. Still, let me point out three ingredients for successful leadership whether it is in a church body or within your own home. First, a skillful leader must have vision. I’m not talking about two eyes that see. A visionary leader must be able to discern the true nature of the people he is trying to lead and their ability to go where he envisions them going. We’ve all seen the pastor who is new to a church and sees a vision of the church that is radically different from the one that called him as pastor. To achieve such a vision not only the structure and organization of that church must often change but the very constituency of the congregation must change as well. Many times this type of leadership necessitates a significant portion of the congregation leaving their church. If this is the will of God, then it is a good thing and God will receive glory from it. Sadly, often it is not God’s will. A God-given vision will always include the welfare of God’s people in the very forefront of any future development. A personal investment in and caretaking of those who follow you must be important to you. Building relationships because you care and not just for manipulative purposes will give you true leadership strength. Your vision and understanding of what God’s people can truly become through God’s leadership through you is what your vision seeks to convey to the church. 61

Secondly, a skillful minister must demonstrate true love for those he hopes to lead and not just for the accomplishment of the task. Mr. Sollie was a giant of a man in the church I pastored in North Carolina. I stand six foot four inches and Mr. Sollie made me look up. He was also old! At the time I was in my late twenties and Mr. Sollie was approaching ninety with no intention of slowing down. I had just accepted a small country church as pastor and was coming to the conclusion of my first Sunday morning service in that position. I had preached what I thought was a good sermon, closed with a prayer and made my way to the back door to shake hands with the folks as they left. Mr. Sollie was the first person to the back door that morning. I expected him to take my proffered hand but instead he put a very large arm around my neck and proceeded to drag me out the front door, down the steps and out into the front yard of the church. Concluding that my short ministry had just abruptly come to an ignominious end, I prepared myself for whatever I thought was inevitably coming my way. Surprising me, Mr. Sollie leaned down to speak quietly but with much conviction into my ear. He said, “Son, these people will follow you to Hell and back if you will love them! If you don't love them they won’t cross the road for you!” At which point I realized two very important things simultaneously. One, maybe I wasn’t about to die and two, Mr. Sollie had just given me some of the greatest advice any leader could ever hear. Love your people and they will follow you! It is unfortunate that this is a lesson that cannot be learned in our world. Seminaries struggle to teach it while leadership programs ignore it and hope this simple truth will just go away. If you hear nothing else from me, please hear this. If you desire to be an effective leader, you must love your people. The third thing I want to point out about skillful leadership is David’s continuing search for God’s presence in his life. Even as the illegitimate child of his union with Bathsheba lies in her arms, David is confronted by the prophet Nathan who with a simple story brings David to his knees in repentance. Though the child of this union dies, another will ultimately be born and ascend to David’s throne to follow him with glory and wisdom. David exemplifies a broken man in search of an unbroken God. As long as such a man searches for God he will always be able to lead 62

others in the same search. These basic building blocks create a man who can lead God’s people and serve His kingdom here on Earth.

Marital Partnerships

The role of ministerial leadership is not unlike the role a man takes within his own home as a husband and father. One of the greatest mistakes any minister can make is to believe or act as if he believes he can treat his own family as he treats the church. I served as a minister and pastor for nineteen years before becoming an associational Director of Missions for eighteen years. As a DOM I had the opportunity to observe different pastoral and ministerial styles for many years. Most were successful leaders though a few gave evidence of personal struggles that stemmed from either organizational problems or questionable decision making. I learned through my own experience and even more through observing others that the role of minister/pastor is vastly different from the role of husband/father and yet, many of us try to use the same concepts and leadership styles in both roles. This often leaves our wives and children at the very least confused and often alienated. The first observation I would share after many years is that we need to recognize the church is NOT our wife, mistress or girlfriend. I have been tempted to characterize my relationship with the church as a personal, private and intimate type of leadership and have come to realize I was totally wrong in my understanding of that relationship. Not long after Pennie and I were married we were trying to figure out what each one of us liked to watch on television. I am a shoot-em- up, action kind of guy while Pennie likes relationship fare; the type of movie or t.v. that always struck me as girly. I’m a guy’s kind of guy who is most comfortable with the hero wielding a six-shooter or a light saber, winning the fight in a victorious and heroic way and ultimately, riding off into the sunset with the pretty girl. In other words, I like what most guys like. Pennie decided to tempt me with a different type of television diet. She talked me into watching at least a couple of seasons of Downton Abbey with her! Because I love her so much, I was able to make the commitment though I never expected to get much from it. But, I did! I learned an important lesson that pastors need to understand about the 63

differences between their church relationship and the relationship they have with their wife. In the English countryside manor known as Downton Abbey, the Lady of the house was named Lady Cora Crawley and her word was the law of the house. All of the servants were at her disposal as well as the authority she wielded over her children and the visitors to the manor. The only one who could countermand one of her dictates was the Lord of the manor himself. No one else could challenge her authority, not even the power of the house’s Butler who in and of himself wielded great power. Still, even the power of the Butler was always in subservience to the wishes of the Lady of the Manor. Think about that for just a moment. A pastor is not the Lord of the Church! The Lord is; not you and me. When we act as if we can control the church we have stepped out of the role of Butler and masqueraded as the Lord. Don’t do it my friend! You and I do not have the authority to do so neither have we paid the ultimate price Jesus Christ paid to procure His bride for Himself. To think we can lead the church, Christ’s bride, through authority, power, manipulation or dictate is a travesty of God’s will and a direct challenge to the Bride’s Groom Who will someday return for His beloved. Even as that settles into our thoughts, please allow me to remind you that though you are not the husband of the church you are the husband of a dear lady who looks to you even as the church looks to her Savior. Your role with your wife is vastly different from your role as a spiritual butler to the church. You are something intentionally different for your wife. The Bible states that your relationship with your wife is to mimic Christ’s relationship with the church.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Ephesians 5:25-28

Would you ever question that Jesus loved His church? No, most assuredly not! There is no doubt in any of our minds that Christ loved the church. He showed repeatedly and still shows us to this day that the church is His ultimate reason for coming back to this world. If you study the context of this scripture you find Paul giving instructions on how to develop and participate in Christian marital relations. The word he uses which is translated “love” is the Greek word “agape.” Three different words are regularly used in scripture to identify the varying aspects of caring for others. “Philos” is the word which Peter used repeatedly when Jesus asked him if he loved Him. Even though Christ wanted Peter to respond with a deep spiritual commitment, Peter continued to struggle with that commitment and retreated to a commitment of brotherly love. “Eros” is the kind of love that a worldly understanding will almost always revert to. This word relates to the sensual nature we recognize as an integral and desirable part of love. It is the intimate, physical expression of love that is best illustrated in a marital relationship. It is also the expression of love on which the world focuses to the exclusion of almost all other parts. Sensual intimacy is a wonderful God-given part of the marital relationship but must never replace the one expression of love that Paul brings into a tight focus. “Agape” is the kind of love that best shows us a glimpse of a God that is defined simply as love. The Bible says clearly in 1st John 4:8 that “God is love” and the word used by John is also “agape.” Paul uses the same word when he described how a husband should love his wife and how Christ loved His church. You and I struggle to love the church that way but we MUST love our own wives that way. Notice Paul’s first reference in this text is to the sacrificial nature of Christ’s love toward the church; how He “gave Himself up for her.” Agape love is sacrificial love. Just as Jesus was willing and ultimately sacrificed Himself for the welfare of the church, you and I must also commit ourselves to a sacrificial view of loving our mates. Though God has already paid the price for the eternal welfare of the church, you and I must be in the process of sacrificially doing whatever is necessary for the welfare of our families. I must admit when I first began pastoring I believed my family ought to be willing to sacrifice for the welfare of the church. Sometimes that is a necessity but oftentimes it is not. It is a 65

mistake to impose on your family a need to sacrifice when God has called them to be your family and not the church. There is a big difference between the church and your family. You are to serve the church but you are to sacrifice yourself for your family. I know that is not a popular concept in today’s modern thought but it is drawn directly from this text. My friend, do you want to be that Godly husband whom Paul speaks of? You must learn how to live a lifestyle as a husband whereby your wife experiences your sacrificial willingness to do whatever is necessary for the sake of your wife and family. Don’t sacrifice your family to prove your faithfulness, instead sacrifice your own self including your desires for the best of your family to prove your obedience to this scripture. The second observation from this proof text for the marital relationship is that as Jesus sets the church apart, in other words making her holy, so also is the husband to set his wife apart from all others. In that sense, the husband is making his wife holy unto himself. The word for holy is “hagiadzo” literally meaning holy or set apart for sanctification. I must be honest with you. I like the way many African-American churches look upon their pastor’s wives. They often refer to them as the church’s “First Lady.” Recognizing there is a lady within the church who does not really have a pastor but instead has a husband who exemplifies Christ’s relationship with the church through a publicly illustrated loving relationship with his wife. One of my friends refers to his wife as his “prime rib!” His insinuation is that God not only took a rib but that He took the best rib to make him a wife. I like that! My dear brother, one of the best lessons you can teach your church and especially the men within it is that the love we have for our wives is something more than just fulfillment of desires and sensual needs. It is really a scriptural mandate if we have a wife that we set her apart and care for her as Christ did for His church. I have always tried to make sure that Pennie knew I was placing her on a pedestal and I was waiting at the foot of it if she ever fell off. I want her to fall on me. The thing we must grasp is there are many women in the church but there is only one that belongs to each of us. That woman is to be set aside and cared for as if she were the last woman within the world for each of us, for she truly is and must be the only woman. Only then 66

will she ever learn to trust and ultimately be able to build us up as she submits to our caretaking. Another observation from this text is that of keeping our wives “clean” as the text tells us Christ does for His church. Strong’s tells us the base word for clean in this text is “katharidzo” which is rendered “cleanse, make clean, literally, ceremonially, or spiritually, according to context.”xvi Protecting the welfare of your wife must rank at the top of your marital duty. I don’t especially think Paul is alluding to God giving the church a bath but I do think He is very protective of how His church is perceived by the world and how she presents herself in public. There are many different ways in which this text can be applied to the marriage relationship but allow me to point out three. First, if you are to keep you wife clean you must be protective of her. You must keep her safe at all times whether that means literally, spiritually or socially. One of the things that the pastor’s wife needs is protection from the desires of the church. How often have you seen the pastor’s wife expected to play the piano, teach a Sunday School class, lead a women’s Bible study, perform social events, decorate the church, keep the nursery ...... ad infinitum? Dear pastor, don’t allow your wife to be placed in the position of having to turn the church down for these activities. Instead, stand up for your wife and proclaim that her greatest ministry is to you and to your family. Then, allow her to decide which part or role she would like to assume in the church. Protect her from the pressure of living up to the last pastor’s wife example or from what some misguided soul thinks the pastor’s wife should be doing. It’s your place to protect her. Also, provide for your wife. Do you remember when you were wooing your future wife and on your best behavior to impress her with your manly ways? Well, the time of that type of behavior is NOT just in the past. For all intents and purposes, every man should continue to woo his wife until God decides to call him home. Don’t just provide a house, food and transportation to your significant other. Provide that most necessary of marital commodities: a continuing reason for why they chose you in the first place! Don’t ever allow your relationship with your wife to grow stale and cool. There are too many books, conferences, retreats, date nights and even vacations that will allow you to focus on the spark that brought the two of you together to start with.

Another observation gleaned from the text in Ephesians is our Lord’s intent to present His church to Himself. In other words, not only does He watch closely over her, but she actually belongs to the Lord and He is very jealous for her. I have been a fortunate man. God blessed me in my youth with a beautiful and Godly woman and now He once again has blessed me with another beautiful Godly woman. Both of these women have made it clear that my devotion to being their husband is mine and mine alone to bring to our marriage. I never could get away with expecting my wife to love me in the absence of my love. I also learned a long time ago that a woman enjoys being made special in a man’s heart and it is his desire for her that fuels her desire for him. Once again, John gives us the perfect illustration of this truth. 1st John 4:19 states, “We love Him, because He first loved us.” If we are to see ourselves as the church and our love is reflective of His love, then shouldn’t we as men recognize the need of our wives to be made to feel special unto us so that they can likewise reflect that love back to us? Unfortunately, too many men, including ministers, grow complacent in this part of their marital relationship. Recognize that your wife belongs to no one but you and that your ultimate desire is to present her to yourself as beautiful, holy and special as she was when God led you to pursue her as your wife. I guarantee our wives will always respond when their husbands find ways to communicate a sincere love and caring affection. The last thing I want to point out is an observation that loving our wives is a way of expressing our love for ourselves. Have you ever realized that when God began the process of knitting you and your wife’s lives together it was His sole intent to take two disparate creations and merge them together so they no longer function as two but have become one creation not only in His eyes but in function and action as well? When I was a boy my parents struggled with having “the talk” with me. I grew up on a farm and so I was exposed to the realities of mating as a physical exercise as I watched our cows, horses, chickens, pigs, dogs and cats procreate and make little versions of themselves. It was a normal education for a country boy and as a youngster I was not embarrassed to notice that we would soon have small animals 68

appearing. I might not have known all of the biological intricacies involved but I knew there were certain activities that the animals had to engage in for the gift of new life. It was not this part of the chain of life that bothered my parents. What concerned them was how they could apply “farm knowledge” to a man and woman’s marriage in a Godly manner. My mom came to my dad’s rescue when she acquired a book that I still remember to this day. It was entitled, “Love Yourself; Love Your Wife!” I remember thinking when I got it that finally, I had gotten my first book on sex! What a surprise it was to discover that the book was not about that at all, but instead I found myself reading about how a man loves himself through expressing love for his wife. I can still see the smile on my mom’s face as I write this. I believe she is smiling in Heaven right now! One of the most often repeated accusations against men in general is that we have egos. An ego is often best understood as a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.xvii When taken to the extreme, ego is viewed as a negative personality trait.xviii

Did You Know?

Ego is the Latin word for "I." So if a person seems to begin every sentence with "I", it's sometimes a sign of a big ego. It was the psychologist Sigmund Freud (well, actually his original translator) who put ego into the popular vocabulary, but what he meant by the word is complex, so only other psychologists really use it in the Freudian sense. The rest of us generally use ego simply to mean one's sense of self-worth, whether exaggerated or not. When used in the "exaggerated" sense, ego is almost the same thing as conceit. Meeting a superstar athlete without a trace of this kind of ego would be a most refreshing experience. But having a reasonable sense of your own worth is no sin. Life's little everyday victories are good—in fact, necessary—for a healthy ego.

Paul said, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” What an interesting observation. It takes for granted that we all agree that an ego is a man’s natural personality trait. It is normal for men to be self-

aware, often to the point of appearing to love themselves more than others. This type of selfishness is termed narcissism after the fictional deity Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection. On the other hand, it is normal, natural and healthy for a man to care enough about himself that he protects, provides for and supports himself. One of the best outcomes of a healthy view of oneself is the understanding of how to treat another person the same way as how you seek to treat yourself. Paul understood that a healthy man with a healthy attitude toward himself is best equipped to care for another person, in this case his wife. The healthy man loves himself best by being able to love his wife in the ways in which God commands. Pennie and I laugh that between us, we have over 75 years marriage experience, though just a few of those years were spent together between the two of us. What we both have learned and agree upon is that love cannot be depended on to arise by accident. True love is a daily commitment of emotion, desire and attention to doing what is necessary to maintain a healthy relationship. Dear friends, this is how I best take care of myself: by taking care of Pennie and showing my need and love for her. I am a much happier and healthier man when I am faithfully working at communicating my love to my wife.

Chapter 7: “How Do I Love Thee?” Young women of Jerusalem, I charge you: if you find my love, tell him that I am lovesick. (Song of Solomon 5:8)

The year was 1996 and the movie was entitled, “Phenomenon.” John Travolta played George Malley, a gentle and quiet-spoken mechanic who was suddenly struck down as he left the town bar. He remembers seeing lights, hearing a loud sound and then he comes to himself. It only takes a few moments to discover that he has been changed in some powerful and interesting ways. He immediately becomes a chess master and is endowed with a memory that doesn’t forget the slightest minutia. He begins to notice patterns and is able to learn the Portuguese language in a matter of minutes so he can save a little boy from tragedy. He predicts an earthquake and then in a moment of stress he breaks a mirror telekinetically. I liked this movie as it explored relationships and discoveries about ourselves that may surprise and even challenge us. The most memorable part of the movie is when the humble George falls in love with Kyra Sedgwick’s character, Lace. Lace is a single mother of two children who must support her family by building chairs from second- hand lumber. She tries to sell them at one of the local stores. George discovers her chairs and though they are plain and ugly, he begins to secretly buy them. He ends up buying all of them until Lace discovers what is happening to her chairs! In one scene George’s best friend, Doc, is sitting in the bar talking with the character Baines, a young man who is questioning whether George is authentic or just lying about his newfound talents. In the conversation Doc asks the young man about his romantic relationship and is told that Baines and his girlfriend have broken up. At this point Doc shares the most important truth of the movie for me. He says, “Now George, he’s got a lovely sight. She’s sticking with him. You know why? Because he bought her chairs. That’s pretty smart to me! You ever buy Lisa’s chairs? Every woman’s got her chairs. Something she needs to put herself into, Baines. You ever figure out what Lisa’s chairs were and buy them? NOPE!!!”xix

After many years of watching my own parents, reading numerous books and how-to resources and ultimately, being married for almost forty years I have come to believe Doc’s advice to the young man is accurate. You need to find your wife’s chairs and buy them! What is the key to your wife’s happiness? What gives her great satisfaction? What brings her meaning in life and makes life WITH YOU worth living? I have had the unfortunate opportunity of counseling numerous couples who had “lost that lovin’ feelin’” as the Righteous Brothers so aptly sang it. Getting that “lovin’ feelin’” back when it’s gone always requires a miracle. There is no doubt that God is pleased when we live harmoniously with our spouses and He is honored when we are able to share the love He so carefully crafts into our relationships. To allow that love to spoil due to inattention is one of the greatest tragedies to befall a minister’s marriage. There are so many resources for marriage enrichment available in our modern culture that I am hesitant to add my thoughts to the mix. Yet, there are a few places that I think merit continued attention and need to be brought repeatedly to our minds as ministerial couples. We have looked at the pervasive challenges of balancing our ministries with our marriages. Time and energy are often at a minimum. Still, we need to make the decision that our marriages warrant at least as much if not more attention than our ministries require of us. Over the years I have learned to try to keep things as simple as possible, especially when speaking to couples who are already in a struggle with one another and oftentimes with themselves simultaneously. Please allow me to point out a few areas of attention that will lay a foundation upon which you can rekindle the fulfillment that may have become absent from your marriage.

Affection

I wonder why God made us “male and female” as outlined in Genesis. Why are there two genders involved in the natural procreation of creation? I have no doubt that the first institution God created was the “mini church” that develops when a man and woman are joined together to become one in God’s eyes and their love for one another 72

reflects the same type of love that God has for each of us. Affection can be seen in humans from an early age. We seek the solace of our mother’s arms as infants and grow into more mature expressions of loving. My mother loved to have my sisters and me sit in her lap while she played with our hair. I don’t think the fact that she was a hair-dresser played a great part in her pleasure. She would invite whoever was available to climb up and sit quietly with her while she ran her fingers through our scalp and spoke soft words of love and encouragement to our often-troubled little lives. Her motherly affection was obvious even to the most recalcitrant and wayward little boy. I never had a moment’s doubt about my mother’s love, even when she was reproving my wayward mischievousness with the administration of a switch applied to my backside. Affection is the ability to communicate love in the midst of all obstacles that seek to hinder and obscure our true feelings. Whether it is the simple act of touching one another or the much more mature and biblical nature of sensuality as outlined in scripture or any number of intermediate actions whereby we show that we care for another person, affection allows us to say “I love you” without using words. Relationships begin with the development of affection and often end in the absence of it. Do you remember the notes we used to pass between us as children during school? You know the ones. They said something to the effect of, “Do you like me? Check ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” What we often pass off as childish playacting is an attempt at growing into the styles of affection we will exhibit during our later lives. At a very young age we begin grasping for ways to express our feelings and commitments toward one another. We not only have a need to display affection but we also have an even greater need to receive affection. This is more recognizable in a marriage than in any other type of relationship and this is the primary place most marriage partners relate their marriages reveal a lessening of closeness and fulfillment.

PHYSICAL AFFECTION Physical affection is the first place our thoughts go to when we hear the word “affection” and we immediately think in terms of 73

sensuality and intimacy. This is often the place where we begin to stammer and become embarrassed as we try to reconcile the world’s views on sexuality with the Bible’s portrayal of healthy expressions of our “eros” based love. The love as shown in a healthy marriage relationship between a man and a woman can be vibrant, exciting and sparkly (Pennie’s word!). This happens because two people under the leadership of a loving God discover new ways to express that love in exciting ways. In this day and age of overexposure to public displays of sensuality, a simple expression of love either goes unnoticed or attracts attention because of it’s naivete. Pennie and I were both married over 30 years apiece to our first loves and then spent time alone after both of those much-loved individuals went home to Heaven. We know what it is like to be alone and without physical affection from a soul-mate. After our time of courtship passed and Pennie and I began to go out into public as a couple, we loved to hold hands or walk with my arm around her waist. I didn’t do so to publicize our relationship but because I very much enjoyed once again the feeling of holding a beautiful woman’s hand or waist. We are continually amazed at the responses we receive from people who notice such a simple gesture of affection. More times than I can count Pennie and I have been stopped by strangers who ask how we have been able to continue to remain in such a young-style of love at our age! We don’t feel old, but apparently many people are surprised to find people of our age group who feel comfortable expressing our physical affection for one another. Dear brother, what have you done to show your wife your physical affection, lately? I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about those daily gestures, activities and little things that communicate to your loved one that you are still experiencing the same emotions and feelings that you experienced when you first began your relationship. When was the last time you spontaneously rubbed her feet, held her hand or just stroked her hair? Those little gestures may not seem like big things to you but to your wife they mean the world. What about your children? Do they see Daddy slipping Mama a kiss when he thinks no one is looking? Our children learn healthy and Godly ways of expressing physical affection from their parents and when we grow too tired to express those actions, our children develop a distorted view of marital affection. 74

EMOTIONAL AFFECTION This chapter started with an example from a movie in the 90’s and now I bring us to a television show from the late 60’s. You’ll recognize the intro: “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five years mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.” To say I was overwhelmed with this genre of science fiction as I had never experienced it before would be a vast understatement. I absolutely loved Star Trek. I remember my Dad getting a small television cart so we could do the unthinkable! He would place our little black and white tv on that cart and roll it into the kitchen just so I could watch tv from the supper table. Talk about a thoughtful and loving father! To this day, that simple gesture still brings a smile to my face. There were two important and central characters to the Star Trek television world: Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. I remember learning basic leadership principles from Captain Kirk and admiring the intellect and knowledge of Mr. Spock. They both had their failings as well. Captain Kirk was the perfect foil to Mr. Spock. While Kirk was an emotional individual, often shown gritting his teeth and glaring at his enemies, Mr. Spock was emotionless! He would stand in one place still as a statue without a smile or other outward show of emotion and continually make everyone around him uncomfortable with his apparent lack of personal feelings. Yet, Mr. Spock DID have feelings. That was the point the show made over and over. Even though he did not show them in the same way as the other characters he experienced deep emotions that he carefully kept hidden from those around him. Like finding unexpected Easter eggs, the few times we were allowed to see Mr. Spock’s emotions gave the tv watcher a sense of fulfillment and wonder at their depth and complexity. I admired Captain Kirk and wanted to be like him, but I loved Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock taught me that not everyone shows their emotions the same way and probably even more important, not everyone is affected by emotion in the same way. Emotional affection is the ability to 75

understand and respond to other’s emotional needs in a healthy and supportive manner. One of the greatest foundations to a great marriage is learning to recognize and respond appropriately to your mate’s emotional state which may change through a wide range.

INTELLECTUAL AFFECTION Many years ago, another pastor and I were going to lunch and as we were seated at the table awaiting our food, he turned to me and said, “Look around. What do you see?” I looked around at the many diners in the restaurant and began noticing all kinds of characteristics but none that were universally held by all. I looked intently but could not decide exactly what it was that my friend wanted me to see. Finally, with a defeated attitude, I turned back and asked, “What should I be seeing?” He responded with a grin, “Of the couples, there are two different kinds of people here, married and dating. How do you tell the difference? The ones who are talking are the daters and the ones who are eating are married!” I mentioned this at the beginning of this book. Pennie and I have already spoken about the necessity of communication within our marital relationships but I feel it is very important to remind us of one interesting fact. When we are dating/courting/seeking a marital partner, our greatest gifts are the thoughts, dreams and wishes we all harbor within us. We share these ideas with the hope that our future mate will appreciate and even participate within them alongside us. This type of communication is extremely important during the courtship time of our relationships but we all too often make the mistake of slowly limiting this activity once the nuptials are finalized. I have observed too many couples who have moved beyond their desire to speak with one another about minor or inconsequential things and progress to increasingly more important subjects. As we cease sharing and speaking our hearts and wishes with one another we limit our ability to be open and vulnerable, which leads to emotional distance. This distance is compounded as we further limit our conversations until we are only speaking to one another about the most necessary things. Take a moment and remember what it was like when you and your mate were courting one another. Remember how you used to talk about the most insignificant things. Pennie and I spent hours on the phone 76

during that first year of our courtship. If you will remember, Pennie and I were introduced by email, after which we escalated our interaction to speaking with one another by phone until about six months later, I got up enough courage to ask her out on our first real date! Six months after that, I finally kissed her the first time on the one-year anniversary of our first email contact. My pastor friends, who upon hearing our story for the first time, only commented, “Joe you’re slow!” My point is, Pennie and I spent six months doing nothing but speaking on the phone, listening to one another talk and trying to understand one another. Now we are married. The temptation is to not work so hard at listening to what the other is actually saying and just live and do as we selfishly desire. This is a dangerous road! It takes work to train yourself to make the time and expend the energy to be totally focused on another person and to interact with them through the wonderful medium of verbal communication. If you are willing to invest yourself into having meaningful and sometimes, not so meaningful conversations with your mate you will find a depth of your relationship that you never knew actually existed. Another facet of this issue is that most women are better at this than men. One wildly successful book from a few years ago suggests that women speak approximately 20,000 words daily while men only speak 7,000 on average.xx This factoid may or may not be grounded in good scientific discovery but the stereotype of women being more “wordy” than men may have some scientific merit. I know for many couples under stress the natural tendency for the man is to become quiet while the woman seeks communication. This is not always the case but I have found enough anecdotal evidence to support at least its recognition. Let’s make this personal. Do you and your wife speak to one another in the same ways you did while you were courting? Do you talk and laugh over the most insignificant little things and do you share heartfelt secrets regularly? Do you stop and look her in the eyes when she is speaking or do you try to listen to her while you continue doing whatever it might be that seems important at the time? Maybe your relationship could use some intellectual stimulation. As Pennie and I speak publicly on marriage enrichment I love to tell the story of one late night conversation we had over the 77

phone. Remember, we had not met face to face at this point. It was our practice to talk for an hour or two at least every other night during this period of our relationship. One night, almost without warning, Pennie popped me with a question she still denies to this day. Personally I think she had a Freudian moment and an unrealized fear just leaped out of her over the phone before she could stop it. She asked me, “Do you still have all your teeth?!?!” Fortunately, I did! It’s a good thing she didn’t ask me about my hair!

THOUGHTFUL AFFECTION Pennie and I have a tremendous number of anniversaries. Not only do we have the anniversaries that we share in common but those that we carry like baggage from our previous relationships. The birthday, wedding and death anniversaries of our previous mates are always with us along with those we hold in common. To deny the special days that have been a part of our lives for so long would be like denying the importance of what God was doing in our lives before we met one another. Hear me carefully. The anniversary of Bob’s death, Pennie’s first husband, is just as important to me as the anniversary of Teresa’s death, my first wife. Why? It was God’s will that Pennie be married to Bob first! I refuse to believe otherwise. On the anniversary of that date I am very careful to value the emotional content of the day and pay special attention to the emotional needs of my wife. I’ve learned that Pennie is not a maudlin type of person given to crying and moping around. Still, she will have a “blue” day sometimes when the memories of the past weigh heavily upon her soul. As her husband it is not my place to say, “Suck it up, Buttercup!” but to comfort her spirit with thoughtful and loving actions, words and gestures of love. I confess, when the anniversary of Teresa’s death comes around, I collapse into Pennie’s arms and sometimes cry like a baby. It’s not because I wish I could replace Pennie with Teresa but because I can still feel clearly and painfully the loneliness, grief and burden of losing the woman who I thought to be my life-long mate. Those memories can be a heavy weight upon my emotions and Pennie is quick to help me carry those emotions. How could I not strive to be the same for her when the same type of anniversary happens within her life?

Every couple should seek to discover those situations that affect their mates deeply and strive to be a source of comfort when the challenges of life steal our joy away. Emotional affection is the ability to sense the emotions of your mate and to bring strength, meaning and health by encouraging emotional well-being. How we do that for one another is always dependent on the personal and individual character of our mate and essentially, what works best for them. Like George Malley, we need to discover what makes our mates happy, healthy and whole and we need to use that discovery to strengthen the life of our loved one.

Chapter 8: “Is that all?” Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices. (Song of Solomon 8:14)

How do you find balance between an authentic call to the ministry and a personal commitment to being a good husband and father? There can be no denial of these two supreme expectations that are levied upon your life. There can also be no denial that if a balance is not achieved between the two, then one or both will be affected negatively and maybe even disastrously. So, where to begin? As I’ve mentioned before, Pennie and I sometimes struggle to find something we both want to watch on television. We have grown distrustful in reviews of shows that tell us how good the content is without mentioning the non-Christian language and scenarios that often accompany the storyline. One recent night, as we were going through the offerings of what was available to watch, we ran across a movie that piqued our interest. It was a modern retelling of the Winnie-The- Pooh story entitled “Christopher Robin” in a live-action/cgi format. As I am normally a full-on action kind of guy, I was surprised to find myself caught up in a movie about a fictionalized relationship between a little boy/grown man and an often overly-simplified view of reality as espoused by a stuffed talking bear. As we begin the conclusion of this book, Pennie and I agree that the best place to begin is with a Winnie-The-Pooh quote: “I always get to where I’m According to Winnie- going by walking away from The-Pooh, there is only one where I have been.” way to get somewhere and that is to leave wherever you might be. The greatest hindrance for those caught in the precarious balancing act between their ministry and their marriage is the simple willful decision to make something better than they have ever sought to experience before. The hardest part of any journey is starting. Oftentimes, we plan and plan and plan and actually never get started. Procrastination is your enemy in this moment, my friend.

So, where should we start? To make it as easy as possible to effect real change and begin bringing balance to your ministry and marriage, Pennie and I have decided to share our personal Ten Commandments for Balance. You may apply these in any fashion you desire, but please DO make the effort. Even if you only choose one activity, please make it a priority and share it with your family so they may help hold you accountable.

TEN COMMANDMENTS (Recommendations) FOR BALANCING YOUR MARRIAGE WITH YOUR MINISTRY

I. Quitting is not an option! Many times I have seen ministers and husbands reach that exasperating point where they begin to fantasize about a drastic change in their lives. Sometimes this is brought on by the pressures, stresses and challenges of the ministry, while at other times it is brought on by a perceived lack of partnership and/or support at home. Either scenario does not lend itself to a situation where you can just walk away. If God has truly called you not only into the ministry but also to the place where you are serving, it is not up to you to begin looking for another place to serve. There is a reason that the median tenure of pastors ran between 3.5 and 6 years during a period of research that spanned over 20 years.xxi Too many times when the going gets rough is also the same time when the greatest victories can be won. If the ministry is cut short too soon those victories will not be seen. Another sad statistic: one sociologist at the University of Connecticut explains from his analysis of people who identify as Christians but rarely attend church that 60 percent of these have been divorced. Of those who attend church regularly, 38 percent have been divorced.xxii Divorce is rampant within our culture but evidence shows that a faithful, focused and family-based walk with the Lord truly makes a difference. Divorce is not an alternative to deciding to not work on your marriage! Use this opportunity to make a decision that you will begin balancing your marriage with your ministry.

II. Love God first but love one another second! The priority of love within the Christian leader’s life is unquestionable. We must be men and women who are characterized by the love of Christ within us. Yet, we often get confused about the recipients of our love. There can be no doubt that God expects the first- fruits of our love to be offered up to Him and Him alone. The Bible is replete with all manner of teachings, warnings and commandments that

concern this central truth. The expression of love is divinely anticipated as we walk the often-challenging roads of our lives. This commandment calls us to focus our love first upon God and then learn to focus God’s divine outpouring of His love upon us onto our mate. Learning to love your mate is like riding a bicycle. You never lose the ability though you may have to practice it some to get it back up to the level that you once knew. I have one hint. Take some time, sit down and try to remember what it was like before you were saved and how life was like without Christ. Once you’ve done this, take some more time and remember how you expressed your love in the beginning to that person who is now your mate. These memories should give you some starting points for re-learning the depth of love both your God and your mate require of you.

III. Learn to say and show “I love you!” The word “love” is one of the most over-used and least-understood words in the English dictionary. We use it in the wrong ways more times than we use it rightly! How many times have you said, “I love dark chocolate cake with chocolate chips with dark chocolate icing” when what you really meant was, “That chocolate cake tempts me greatly with cravings that I can’t ignore!”? Obviously by now, you know how I feel about chocolate cake! Yet, to say that I love chocolate cake either raises chocolate cake to a level in my life that it does not deserve or dilutes the meaning of “I love . . .” when I say it to someone that I truly do love. I once had the opportunity to hear Adrian Rogers, the Pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee say to a group of pastors, “Gentlemen, never call your waitress ‘Sweetheart.’ You have a sweetheart that was given to you by God and don’t ever demean the title by sharing it with someone who is not in reality your true sweetheart!” That one comment by a great church statesman has meant a lot to me and my marriage ever since. I truly believe that I have one sweetheart! It is a sad commentary if we only know what love is and yet we do not find ways to express it. My friends, seek ways to communicate your love to your wife and family. Find new ways! Don’t rely on what you believe to be the “old and reliable” ways of showing love. Surprise

and spontaneity are at the heart of vibrant love. Who would have ever imagined a God who loved us so much that He found a way to leave His throne room in Heaven, clothe Himself with human skin, walk the dusty roads of Galilee and ultimately carry a cross up the side of a hill nicknamed, “Golgotha”? When He arrived there, it was as if He were asked, “How much do You really love us?” and He answered, “This much!” and He spread his divine hands wide and they drove the nails into them! That is surprising love. My friend, strive to show your mate the depth of your love in a whole new way.

IV. Listening is an art! Develop that! When is the last time you actually took the time to practice the fine art of listening? There are lots of studies and ‘how-to’ articles available to teach you how to be a better listener but please allow me to give you three helpful hints. First, make eye contact. You will have a much better chance of truly understanding someone whether it be wife or parishioner if your eyes are looking into their eyes rather than watching the screen of your phone! There’s a reason the world says the “eyes are the windows of the soul.” Second, don’t speak or interrupt. Take the time to really allow another person the ability to totally say everything they want to say on a subject. Don’t use this time to formulate your adversarial opinion but to make every effort to understand the point of view of the speaker. You may find serendipitous discoveries that you had not beforehand anticipated. Finally, allow others to actually have their way even if you know it might not be the best way. As long as it is not dangerous or sinful, sometimes it is truly liberating to allow someone else to make a decision that you can just go along with. Pastors are by nature strong leaders who are accustomed to communicating their beliefs so well that others are swayed by their arguments and accept the decisions of the leader. This can tempt a pastor to become overly authoritarian and even dictatorial. Learning to allow others to not only speak their mind but to make differing decisions gives you the freedom to just go along even though you might have done something differently. Allowing others to make a decision (though you might not totally agree) also shows your value of their respective opinions. When this is your wife or children, it works a double blessing as they perceive your

allowance as an act of love. Dear brother, learn to truly listen and hear these important people within your life. Practice this trait until it becomes second nature to your personality and leadership skills.

V. Understand the church has Jesus, but you have one another! The Bible characterizes the church as a bride who already has a betrothed husband. As I study the Christmas scriptures and repeatedly come across the text defining Joseph as Mary’s espoused husband, I am reminded of their faithful and enduring relationship. Joseph, after a dream of instruction, decided to remain faithful to his betrothed even though she was carrying a child that was not his! Likewise, we must understand that the church is espoused to Jesus Christ and He will be returning someday to receive unto Himself His church. When a minister treats the church as his wife, he is both deceiving himself and deluding the church into a spiritually promiscuous relationship that is not Christ honoring. Let us be faithful to the calling that we have received. We are nothing more than caretakers tasked with the responsibility of presenting the church to our Lord all prepared for her wedding to the Bridegroom. On that day we want our Lord to look over at us as He surveys His bride and to whisper to us, “Thank you!” Yet, there is one who is within the church and yet, somehow more! It is the pastor’s own wife. This lady doesn’t have a pastor; she has a husband who is a pastor to others. Even though he might wield spiritual leadership and influence with others, with his own wife he has the strength of his love coupled with the giftedness of his desire that makes him a fit husband. Gentlemen, learn to treat the church as the special bride of an otherworldly Lord and your own wife as the second most precious gift you have ever received aside from your salvation. Make sure your wife truly understands your devotion.

VI. Illustrate affection both publicly as well as privately! In Proverbs 18:24, scripture points out that for a man to have friends, he must first be friendly. “People skills” is something that is very hard to teach. You either have them naturally or you don’t! Yet, it is possible to develop them if you recognize that they are a weakness 86

in your gift-set. The problem is that so many of us think we have them when in reality we have very poor people skills and desperately need to improve them to work effectively with God’s people and even more our own families. The first step to improving your people skills is admitting this is an important area of your life that could use some attention. The best place to begin working on your people skills is your ability to display affection. The display of affection illustrates not only your love for others but also your openness to being approached and making yourself available and even vulnerable to people. There is no doubt that good leaders practice the ability of showing affection for their people. The abilities of looking someone in the eye, making a firm handshake or other agreeable form of touch and giving your undivided attention will form bonds of affection and trust with even the most challenging church member. Children respond even quicker and more decisively to affection. A child will often begin with a simple stare to see if you are willing to “see” them and not overlook them as insignificant or unworthy of your attention. Oftentimes a simple smile and a nod of your head is all it takes to communicate to a child that you are one of the good guys. From there it is a short distance to building a true and trusting relationship with your smallest church members. Yet, the greatest place you can show affection in a public manner is the way in which you treat your family in front of the church family. You are allowed to give your wife a chaste kiss and much closer hug in public than you ever would be allowed to give a church member. Showing affection to your wife in public accomplishes much. It communicates to your congregation that you are affectionate and approachable and it communicates to your wife that you are not ashamed of showing your love for her, even in public. The way you treat your wife in public is a living example for the other men in your church to emulate and follow. Believe me the wives in your congregation would love for their husbands to be exposed to a positive influence when it comes to teaching them how to treat their wives. Your own children can give evidence to the affectionate nature of the pastor and you can expect the other children to take notice of how you treat your own children. As an experiment if you have little children, take a moment to get down and hug them really tight and be 87

prepared for the other small ones to line up for their own hug! I have been amazed in the past that as I stood at the back door of the church after service, when I knelt down to hug my own sons that the other children would hold up the line just to get their hugs as well. The amazing thing was the smiles and approval of the church members as they watched their pastor spend more time with their children than he might even spend with them. Dear brother, begin the process of becoming more open and affectionate with those around you. I guarantee your church members and even more, your family will appreciate your efforts!

VII. Practice the Spiritual Disciplines of prayer and Bible reading with your wife and family! This is a hard request to make of you! The challenge of balancing time, energies and attention mean there is little left over to begin something new. Yet, how many of us would take the time to try some new and enticing dinner entre if given the chance? I know I would, especially if it involves chocolate! We do not give a second thought to what we are doing without to give something that offers a wonderful experience a chance. Would you understand that I believe the time you spend in prayer and Bible reading with your wife and children can be more rewarding than any other activity you might feel inclined to attempt. As I mentioned earlier, this is precious time to Pennie and me. We do not read the Bible in preparation for sermons, Bible studies or any other obligation of our ministries. Rather, we do so for fun and we look forward to it on a regular basis. Like knowing you have a big piece of cake that is waiting on you, you will come to anticipate a few moments with God’s Word on a regular basis. If you miss it, it is not a self- punishing moment of failure but a regretful opportunity that was lost in the hectic pace of life. Reading your Bible should not be an exercise in obedience as much as it should be something you desire to do just from a pleasurable perspective. Make time today to just sit down with your wife and children to read a couple of verses for fun!

VIII. MAKE time for one another without interruption! Stop right now and think about your calendar. When I do that it gives me an overwhelming sense of impending doom and failure as I am sure I will not be able to accomplish all that I have planned to get done. Yet, when I limit myself to only seeing one day, today, on the calendar I am able to say that by the Grace of God today’s obligations will be accomplished. We all learn how best to interact with our schedules and since we are all very busy individuals, we tend to learn these strategies quickly. Please allow me to add just a little to your burden. Yet, if you learn this lesson well you will find that the other burdens of responsibilities may diminish in their weight and concern for you. Begin placing time on your calendar to be used specifically for the benefit of your family. Don’t fall into the trap that these important moments will take care of themselves. If you do not plan for them, they will fall victim to the over-abundance of other obligations that will intrude themselves upon your time and you will develop the habit of attending to others before you attend to your own needs and those of your family. My Mother used to apply 1st Timothy 5:8 (But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.) whenever she felt it was time for my Father to spend some special time with her! She knew the primary focus of this verse was for a man to remember that he was required to provide for his family but she applied it to her emotional needs as well as her living needs. Mom knew that the most basic need of her family was for the parents to have a strong and vibrant relationship that brought stability and strength to the family unit. My Mother was a strong believer in the importance of her family and she would do anything for its welfare. You should too!

IX. Be quick to Edify and slow to Criticize! Have you ever had a bad day? I mean one of those days that everything you touch seems to break? Inevitably, when I have one of those days it puts me in a really bad mood and if I am not careful, I tend to take it out on anyone who gets within range of my temper. I have to be careful for I have a really good grasp on verbal acuity and can argue with a fencepost if I develop a desire to do so. On those days I can be 89

much more negative than positive and those who live with me bear the brunt of my negativity. I have noticed that every man has a median point within his personality where his positive to negative demeanor naturally rests. On a scale of one to ten with ten representing the positive side of the balance, I tend to naturally be a seven or eight in positivity. For the most part I look with a somewhat positive outlook on most things. Yet, I recognize that I can easily cross over into negativity with just the right combination of experiences. These are dangerous times for me. My ministry can easily suffer and my marriage be put to the test if I allow myself to slip into this negative outlook on life. I have begun to make an intentional effort to be more positive in my interactions with others. Whether it is with my wife, extended family, my church relationships or the store clerk who just doesn’t seem to have the time to answer my questions, I am trying to be more positive. A few years ago, a youth leader decided that they wanted their youth to be more aware of the attitudes and activities of Jesus and thus, the “What Would Jesus Do?” movement was born. Cultural fads and gimmicks come and go with the passing of time but the attitudes and activities of our Lord never change. Jesus was always quick to edify and slow to criticize. Lest it sounds like I’m saying He never criticized please understand He did do so but it was always to edify the hearer and ultimately the Father! My brother, I hope others perceive you as a positive influence on those around you because you are naturally positive and attempt to build up while the world around you seeks only to tear down!

X. Celebrate regularly! Pennie and I discussed this last commandment (recommendation) at length. It seems so trite when compared to the other seemingly more important things we have discussed. Yet, the ability to live with joy and love is the greatest characteristic of the Christian lifestyle. “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” Acts 2:46 illustrates the attitudes of those who were a part of the early Christian community of Jerusalem. Gladness

and unity were an integral part of their existence and it showed to the world at large! What have you done lately with your church or your family to celebrate the unique existence known as the “Christian life?” Pennie and I love to do things together and we make it a point to celebrate our lives with the little things. Recently, there was supposed to be a meteor shower here and we decided to join the folks down at the National Park to watch for them. Unfortunately, it seemed like someone cancelled the shower and neglected to tell those of us who were gathered in the darkness with excited anticipation. Pennie and I watched quietly as couple after couple left in disgust after only minutes of fruitless sky watching. The National Park Ranger did her best to align telescopes on recognizable celestial objects to make up for the recalcitrant shooting stars. Well, the shooting stars never made an appearance and at least half the crowd left in some state of disappointment. But not Pennie and me! I got to sit out on a park bench in the dark, with my arm around my wife and quietly share our thoughts and pleasure in such a simple activity together. What a simple blessing to just celebrate our love. We recommend it!

Endnotes

i “STATISTICS ON PASTORS: 2016 UPDATE - RESEARCH ON THE HAPPENINGS IN PASTORS PERSONAL AND CHURCH LIVES,” Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development, https://files.stablerack.com/webfiles/71795/pastorsstatWP2016.pdf ii “How Many Churches Does America Have? More Than Expected,” Christianity Today, Rebecca Randall, September 14, 2017, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/september/how-many-churches-in-america-us- nones-nondenominational.html iii “Nurses Keep Healthy Lead as Most Honest, Ethical Profession”, Megan Brenan, December 26, 2017, https://news.gallup.com/poll/224639/nurses-keep-healthy-lead-honest- ethical-profession.aspx iv “THE CALL: IS MINISTRY A CAREER?” Ben Patterson, Christianity Today, https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/1990/summer/90l3052.html v Lectures To My Students Vol. 1., C.H.Spurgeon. Page 33. https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/sciandf/spurgeon/spurgeon1.pdf vi “6 Distinguishing Marks of a Call to Gospel Ministry”., Steven Lawson. March 18, 2016, https://www.ligonier.org/blog/6-distinguishing-marks-call-gospel-ministry/ vii Eusebius Book II, Ch. XXIII, page 100. http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/0265- 0339,_Eusebius_Caesariensis,_Church_History,_EN.pdf viii https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/important ix ibid. x https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/significance xi https://biblehub.com/text/1_corinthians/9-27.htm xii Kostenberger, Andreas J., “Paul the Mentor”, Biblical Illustrator, Spring 2018. https://s3.amazonaws.com/5mt.bf.org/2018/02/0318_paul_the_mentor.pdf xiii Lectures on the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of BarIlan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/behaalot/spe.htm xiv James Montgomery Boice, https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-78/ , http://www.alliancenet.org/tab/monday-a-sermon-from-israels-history xv https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/integrity xvi https://biblehub.com/greek/2511.htm xvii https://www.google.com/search?q=ego+definition&rlz=1CAHDPY_ enUS831&oq=ego+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4278j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF -8 xviii https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ego xix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8U_I6Dap4o xx Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain (New York: Harmony Books, 2006). xxi https://thomrainer.com/2017/03/six-reasons-pastoral-tenure-may-be-increasing/ xxii Bradley R.E. Wright, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites …and Other Lies You’ve Been Told, (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2010), p. 133.