I LOVE our church. 100%. Just one reason that LOVE it so much is that from my first day, TCC has NOT placed unrealistic, unfair expectations on me as a pastor or on Amber as one of the Pastor’s wives. I have seen WAY too many families in ministry positions BURNOUT and BLOWOUT because of how churches do this.
My priority list goes like this:
- GOD
- Family
- Church
- Work
- Community
I think that’s a solid Biblical priority list. But it gets kinda tricky to live by at times when you are a Pastor because sometimes, God (priority #1) and church (priority #3) get mixed together which leads many pastors to move their family to slot number three…and that is a BAD thing. I don’t think we do it intentionally, but we do it.
The bottom line is that the church can be replaced–but my family cannot. And I refuse to sacrifice my family for my ministry. I refuse to lose focus and burnout or blowout. The logic may sound weird, but in order to pour myself 100% into our church, I have to pour myself 100% into my personal relationship with Christ and my family FIRST. I am in this thing for the LONG HAUL and to make that happen, my family just has to come before my church.
That’s why I put 5 rules in place at the first of this year before Couper was born. I wanted to already be practicing these things in my life before he arrived.
Yes, there are seasons of life when the priority list has to be broken, but those seasons should be VERY short. Getting ready for Something So Big was one of those seasons for me and it lasted about 3 weeks.
I want to be PROACTIVE as a dad and a husband. I know that if I just sit on the sideline and let my kids grow up without any sort of strategy, I’ll regret it the rest of my life. I want to be a great dad to Couper, but I also want to be a spiritual leader and disciple him.
If you know much about me, you know that I am always up for a challenge and VERY goal oriented. And NOTHING is as challenging as this. Nothing is more important than this stuff.
And last, but not least, when I was a youth minister, I met a lot of parents who were living with serious guilt because they felt like they weren’t a good parent. Here is an encouraging word to you: it is NEVER too late to start being who you might have been.
