Video Transcript: The Minister's Family

This is lecture 15 in the practical ministry skills course the minister's family. It is  chapter nine in the book pastoring the nuts and bolts, our key verse for this one  is Ephesians 6:4 do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat  them rather. Bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from  the Lord in every area of life, it's important to know what the priorities are, and  the general priorities that most of us understand Is that God comes first, our  family comes next, and our work comes after that. The work is a means of  providing for the family and the of course, all of it belongs to God. The problem  is, many ministers, at least subconsciously, equate their work with God. If I'm  doing this for work, because I work for God, because my work is a ministry for  God, then it is the same as doing it for God. And then doesn't that mean that the  work for God leap frogs over the family, and they wind up equating their work  with God. Now, when you equate anything with God, when you say anything is  God or is equal to God, or is owed the same devotion as God? There's a name  for that in the Bible. It's idolatry. Don't make your work, your ministry, an idol. So  what I'm saying is your family comes before your work, even your church work,  even your ministry work. Now there will be times, of course, when there are  emergencies and you need to leave your family to go take care of some kind of  an emergency ministry situation, but make sure those remain rare and true  emergencies don't get into one of those situations where you are always at the  beck and call of anybody from the ministry to the point where it seems like  they're more important to you. The people in your ministry are more important to you than the people in your family, because your family is your number one  ministry. So let's break that down a little bit. If you're not married, I pray that you  would go ahead and listen to this and learn from it, first, because maybe you will be married someday, and second, so you can pray for those who are and have  an idea about what they're going through. So if you're married, then the person  you're married to is your spouse. And if you are a man, then and you're a pastor, then your spouse is a pastor's wife. And in America a pastor's wife is a kind of a  stereotype, cliched person that people in the church often have at least as many ideas about how the pastor's wife ought to act as they do about how the pastor  ought to act. Poor lady in the middle that everybody is pointing at is the pastor's  wife. And in this cartoon, her name is Susan, and this one is called the day  Susan forgot and yawned during her husband's sermon. Oh my goodness, a  pastor's wife. Y'all look at that. Of course, if you are a woman pastor and you're  married, then the same thing applies to your husband. There is no one right way to be a minister spouse. Some have a real sense of their own of calling to the  ministry. Others don't. Some have their own job that they need to devote time to  others don't. Some have young children that take up a lot of their time and  energy, and so they can't do as many things in the church as some might want  them to others. Don't. Some knew they were marrying a pastor when they got  married. They knew that the person they were marrying was a pastor, was a 

minister, or was called into that or at least there was a possibility that others had no idea. My wife married an engineer. She was quite shocked and surprised  when all of a sudden she found out that she was the wife of a pastor. It was  something she wasn't counting on. Oh, she's been wonderful, and she  supported me. And it wasn't like a sudden shock and surprise. I talked with her  and we prayed together about all of this, and it was very much a joint decision,  but still, when we got married, she had no idea that she was going to spend  most of her life as a pastor's wife. No one should be made to feel that they have  to do something they're not comfortable with, or act in a way that seems  unnatural to them just because they happen to be married to a pastor. Let me  say that again, because often it's the pastors themselves who are guilty of  putting these expectations on their family and so let me say this again, no one  should be made to feel that they have to do something they're not comfortable  with or act in a way that seems unnatural to them just because they happen To  be married to a pastor or a minister. Now, that is not to say that they shouldn't  learn and grow in the things, things that might seem unnatural at the beginning  they can grow into, because they can be very helpful to a ministry, but the only  one who should set expectations for your spouse is God, not the church people,  not the Ministry folks, not even you. And it will be different for every person,  every pastor's spouse, every minister's spouse, is an individual, just like every  other person is an individual, and God has given different strengths and callings  to each one. So one of the best things that you as a minister can do for your  spouse is to let them know that you will support their priorities and you will  protect them from unrealistic expectations. There is in the book, in this chapter,  a nice, long letter of advice written by my wife to the wife of a young pastor who  asked her for some advice. And I'm not going to try and go over any of that here. I hope you read that. I hope that if you are married, you let your spouse read  that. Encourage them to read that, and I hope it blesses you. The next area of  your family, besides your spouse, of course, is your children. I had was blessed  with five children, and that's quite a handful. As a matter of fact, in the the Bible,  when it talks, it's, I think it's either Psalms or Proverbs. It talks about having a  blessed is the person that has a quiver full of children. And I realized why. I  looked it up and a quiver full was considered five and that's what I have. And I  think the reason that it's called a quiver full is because when you got five kids, it  makes a quiver. That's a joke. Anyway, I had great kids, but still, one of the lists  of qualifications for deacons and elders and so on in the pastoral epistles is that  they be able to manage their households well. And here's the pastor and his  family walking into church, and the pastor says, Will you kids, knock it off? How  is anyone supposed to know that I'm managing my household? Well, I always, I  mean, that's funny, and there's a lot of truth in that, but I always made a point of  never telling my kids you're the pastor's children. What are people going to think you have to act this way because you're the pastor's children. What are what will

people think? I always tried to protect them from being concerned about what  people might think. In America, at least pastor's children, minister's children  have a reputation for being kind of wild and crazy and rebellious and going off  the other direction. And I think that very often that may be because of the whole  living in a fishbowl kind of experience that being a minister's family is where  everybody's looking but compounded, if either of the parents use that kind of  language, you have to behave because of your parents job and what are people going to think? Take care of your kids, spend time with your kids, your children,  your spouse are your number one ministry. They are the most important ones  that God wants you to raise up, because who knows what they will do. I am so  blessed seeing my kids, all five of them, going beyond and doing wonderful  things, and I know that as they get older, they will even do greater things. And so that blesses me so much. God does not condone child sacrifice. That includes  sacrificing your children on the altar of your church work. Try to get to your kids  ball games, to their recitals, to their whatever their graduations, the important  things they're doing, try to spend time with them. I always made a point of taking each one of my four boys individually by themselves, on a camping trip with me,  usually just overnight, just one night, trying to make it around their birthday, but  every year and my daughter, we didn't do camping. We went and saw a  museum, went into the city, did something like that. But those their goodness  sakes. Some of them are 40s now, and they still remember that they have  children of their own, and they're doing that. I see my kids doing the same thing  with their kids, because it was important to them, and they knew that, yes, I was  a pastor, and yes, I was devoted to guiding. Yes, the church was very, very  important. But if I had to choose between the church and them, I chose them,  and that gave them tremendous confidence and strength. And I believe the  tremendous love for God, your example is one of the best ways that your church people will learn how to treat their families. One of the big issues around the  world, I think, today, is families. And issues with families. Your church people will benefit. The people in your ministry will benefit, I'm sure, from hearing sermons  about how to give, how to have a good marriage, and all of that kind of thing.  But what they will really learn from is your example. Love shows itself in  affection, in protection, in provision and in respect. Let your people see in you, in an appropriate way, of course, that you are affectionate for your spouse and  your children, let them see that you will protect them from harm and from  intrusion, including the intrusion of too much church work. Let them see that you recognize the importance of providing for your family's needs, and let them see  that you respect your spouse and your children, and a part of that Respect,  never use members of your family as sermon illustrations unless you get their  permission first. First, you don't ever want your family to be in a position or  anybody else in the church, for that matter, always get permission, but you  especially don't want your family to ever be in the position where they're afraid 

to go to church because they're afraid of what you might say about them. Last  thing I want to mention here is pray for your family. Pray protection and blessing  for them. I have a kind of a standard prayer that I pray, and it goes like this, and  it kind of covers everything, and I pray it every now and then, of course, I always specify and modify and make it appropriate to this specific situation and person.  But it goes like this, I pray the blood of Jesus, a guard of angels, a hedge of  protection and a wall of fire, and you can find biblical references for all of those  as illustrating means of setting a boundary around and a protective shield, a  guard, I pray, the blood of Jesus, a guard of angels, a hedge of protection and a  wall of fire over Paula. And that's my wife and me and our family and all that  pertains to us in our spirits, our souls, our bodies, our relationships, our plans,  our Property, our possessions, our finances and our inheritances, and that kind  of covers everything that you might to some may might not apply to you. So pray that protection. And then, in the name of Jesus, I pray favor and blessing in all  these areas, and I pray all of this so that you would be glorified through us, Lord  God. I realize that I am not quite sure. I think I was kind of rushed at the end,  when I was talking about spirit, soul and body, how we are created in God's  image. See, your body is obvious. You know what that is, and your spirit is the  part that relates to God. The body relates to the physical world. Your physical  body relates to the physical world. Your Spirit relates to the spiritual realm that  communicates with God and the soul is pretty much everything else, your  intellect, your memory, your emotions, your will, everything. The Greek word for  soul is psyche, which is the word that is used in psychology or psychiatrist, so  anything that a psychologist would deal with, imagination, memory, intellect,  emotions, all of that that is not directly related to communicating with God, but is non physical. I lump together under soul and the Bible's clear we have the three  parts that it doesn't make the real. It does say in Hebrews that the word of God  divides between soul and spirit, but it doesn't say exactly where it is. So some  people think the will is part of the Spirit. For instance, I'm not going to argue  about it, it's it's interesting to think about, but pray for all of those things. One  thing that I have found very important in my own life, and especially in praying  for not only myself, but for my family, and then going back up, my ancestors, is  generational curses. Now, some would say it's just bad genes passed down, or  bad attitudes, bad learning, whatever. Others would say it's a it's a curse that  people have brought on themselves or that have been applied by somebody  else. I don't want to go into all of that stuff, okay, but I have found that it is  important to trace back and recognize attitudes and ways of acting and ways of  reacting and so on that may be negative, that may be learned or passed down in some way, from father to son to grandson or mother to daughter to  granddaughter or whatever. And when they are harmful, when they are negative, pray against them. I often use the language of a curse, and I break that curse in  the name of Jesus. If you are more comfortable seeing it in some other way, 

then look at it that way. But recognize those things. Ask God to show you if there is anything that has been passed down to you that is negative, anything that  you're passing down to your kids that is negative, and if so, what to do about it?  I pray for my well I did. Now they're all married, but beforehand, I started when  they were kids, I prayed for my children's future spouses. Now I pray for my  grandchildren's future spouses, that whoever it is that they're going to wind up  with that God would be working in those lives and preparing them to know God  and to be a good spouse for my child or grandchild, something I think a lot of us  never think about praying. And the last thing I'm going to just throw this out, in  praying, probably most of you watching this are years away from ever having to  think about this. But I'm not, and we had a neighbor who passed away a few  years ago, had had a good, active life right up to the end, and then one morning, was putting his shoes on, and in the middle of tying his shoe, he had apparently  a massive heart attack and just keeled over and fell off the chair, dead. And a lot of people said, what a way to go. Isn't that a great way to go? I would love to go  that way. Or you read about somebody dying in their sleep, or an old couple  dying within a very short time of each other, and you say, wouldn't that be  wonderful? I hope I go that way. Well, I realized, if I'm going to want it. If I'm  going to wish for it, why not pray for it? And so now Paul and I pray pretty  regularly that we would live long, happy, healthy, alert, joyful, fruitful, abundant  lives in and here it says in the valley of blessing, which is what we call the place  where we live, because we love it. We don't want to ever move. We don't want  to go into some other kind of a place. So we ask God to let us stay there that we would live long, happy, healthy, alert, joyful, fruitful, abundant lives in the valley  of blessing, growing closer to God and each other, going on to perfection. And if  that sounds strange to you, that's out of my Wesleyan Methodist background. It  just means not becoming perfect, but becoming mature, reaching what God  intended me to be. That's the meaning of that word, completing our  assignments, because I believe God has certain things that he well. The Bible  says there are good works that God created beforehand for us to do, and so I  want to get them all done, completing our assignments and finishing well, and  then peacefully and painlessly, It may be a selfish prayer, but the Bible says, Tell God what you want. I don't want a lot of pain when I die. So we pray for that  peacefully and painlessly, go home to heaven together. That's what we pray. You may have a different kind of a prayer, but don't just say, Gee, I hope that  happens. If you hope something happens, pray for it. I will see you next time