Marriage & Ministry - Guest Speaking at Northwest Christian University

Heather and I were asked to speak to Dr Terry O'Casey's class at NCU today.  What an honor it was.   

Terry asked us to talk about 3 topics:

1.  Doing ministry as a married couple. 

2.  A family in Ministry

3.  Social Media & Ministry

Here are our notes from the first class:   Married in Ministry. 

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Mike & Heather Miller           www.corvallischurch.org            Doing Ministry as a Married Couple

1.

What is Your Calling?

Both called to ministry?

• We were both called to church plant.  Not all couples are wired that way.  
• It is OK to work in ministry, or work in home, or homeschool your children, or work in other profession.  
• Wrestle with it, pray and talk it over, be honest with how God wired you and with your current life stage.  
• (It changes before you know it!  Personal examples:  homeschool to public school to caring for elderly mother.)
• God won’t call just one of you to a ministry calling.  He may call one of you to the mission of the work, but the “go” part must be a joint call.
• Live with priorities.  If you don’t make sacrifices, you don’t have priorities.  

What are your gifts?  

• Take gifts, leadership and personality tests, learn, get educated and grow in strengths & gifts.  
• Ie: learned gifted at apostleship – given confidence.  
• Healing- invited others to healing group
• When you are both operating in your gifting, you start to see the genius of God in putting you together and aligning your missions.  

Wife: regardless of gifts and ministry calling, recognize you have God-given INFLUENCE.  Do something, whether at home, in community or church.  Accept that some will model after you andinstead of hiding or saying “I’m not called to ministry, just my husband is”, ask God for wisdom to influence well within your sphere.  Don’t waste your opportunity.  – discipleship, eternal impact.

Husband:  empower your wife.  Honor her.  Esteem her.  Give her position #1 of influence in your ministry.  Organizationally, give her a role equal to her calling and gifting.  Don’t hold back out of a sense of strange boundaries, and don’t overwhelm her by abdicating your responsibilities.

• Teach the men how to lead their wife through servant leadership.  Model for them.  Model for your kids.  
• Your example is the key to disciplemaking.  

Matt 28: 18-20 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

2.  Togetherness, Connectedness

• Your marital health is critical to the health of your ministry.  Other couples around you will copy you.  Your kids too.  
• Work together as much as is possible and realistic.  Be flexible with your schedules until you get into a good RHYTHM.  
• This keeps you emotionally connected.  
• Time together provides more opportunity to discuss family and ministry decisions,unexpected “dates”, results in being more physically / intimately connected as well.  
• If not working together much, schedule more dates.  / Get out of town whenever you can.
• We get out @ 1x month / 2 months overnight.  
• Combine ministry & personal when able  
• Leverage the unique rhythms of ministry to enhance your marriage.  
• Turn a conference in to a 20th wedding anniversary trip to Florida
• Mid Day dates – work out together - the people we love and serve typically are only available in the evenings, therefore we often find a few hours per week Mid Day.  We try to capture those times together when we can. 

3. Humility

• Pray for one another- great act of love, helps our hearts be connected and we end up building each other up.
• Prayer changes our minds, not God's, not the other person's.  
• Prayer softens your heart towards the other.  
• Realigns you to esteeming your spouse as above yourself.   Phil 2:3
• Have grace toward one another.  Sometimes we have to work late, other days we get off early.  Don’t be rigid/ nit-picky
• Hold your boundaries with grace.  

Read “The Meaning of Marriage” by Tim Keller for biblical perspective on submission and roles in marriage.

• Ephesians chapter 5 –
• Chapter 6 of TMoM was written by Kathy Kellerand it is titled Embracing the other.
• “Two people of different sexes make the commitment and sacrifice that is involved in embracing the Other.  It is often painful, and always complicated, but it helps us grow and mature in ways no other experience can produce, and it brings about deep unity because of the profound complementarity between the sexes.”

Words of affirmation, expressing affection quality time and conversation together, are all very important- know each other’s “love languages”  

• (Read “The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman) and humbly act upon them.  Difficult to remember but very important!
• Fight for & Save your marriage.  
• Don’t lose what is most precious and most God-honoring in your life.  
• Your spouse is more important than pleasing others or having a big thriving ministry.
• Others who WILL take the time to meet your spouse’s needs may take your place in his/her heart.  It happens.  Don’t leave that opportunity open.  
• Men: If you have an unhealthy desire for female affirmation, attention and acceptance, get counseling.  It will ruin everything if gone unchecked.  

Pastor’s Wife:   Tame your tongue. Proverbs 29:20 (feminine tense) Do you see a woman who is hasty in her words?
There is more hope for a fool than for her.

• Choose when to speak and when to refrain from speaking.
• Don’t dump problems on him right before a sermon.  It can be seriously distracting and affect his sermon / the church / the effectiveness of his ministry.
• Don’t give “constructive criticism” right after a sermon, just cheer him on and point out the great!
• The night before he preaches is not time to bear your soul.  Pray.  Help him focus.  Be his helper.  
• God will provide time for you to share your heart’s depths.  Just wait for it.  Then it’s beautiful.  Otherwise, it’s just unfair, and you’ll probably get your feelings hurt when he can’t really hear you.  

HUSBAND:  Your first calling is to your wife.  Your first mission field is your family.  If you are not building her up, pastoring, shepherding, empowering, building HER up (Eph 4:11-12), you are failing in your primary calling.  Your first sheep of your first flock.

• Shut the lid of your computer when she talks
• Put the stinking phone down.
• Be honest and ask for her to repeat herself when you miss the first half of the sentence.
• Sometimes it’s midway through the sentence that I realize: “I really should be listening right now”
• Don’t always try to fix the problem.  Just listen, affirm, go there emotionally with her.