Priority # 5 – Exploit the benefits of ministry for the joy of your family. “Planting a new church will tax your family in unexpected ways. Your wife and children will experience the ups and downs of church planting as much as you will. They will tire from unrealistic expectations,...
Priority # 4 – Don’t do for your church what you are unwilling to do for your family. “The sad truth is that many pastors view their home life as a place to decompress from the stress of ministry, a place where they don’t have to be the pastor. These...
Priority # 3 – Spend one-on-one time with family members. “It is common for ministry families to feel as if their dad/husband cares more about the members of his church than he does about the members of his family. One way to avoid this is to spend one-on-one time with...
Priority #2 – Give you family preference on your schedule One of the unique privileges you will have as a church planter is the ability to leverage your schedule for the benefit of your family. You can align your calendar with that of your family and still be able to...
This is a excerpt from the chapter I wrote in “PLANT”. PLANT is a new resource produced by “Innovative Faith Resources” designed to equip church planters. You can order “PLANT” or watch a promo video about it HERE “It’s easy to allow the stress of planting churches to distract us...
In 2005 Pillar Church was planted near USMC base Quantico in the Washington DC Suburbs. Since that time Pillar has been working to reach Marines and their families with the Gospel of Christ. Because Marines move around a lot, we have decided that we should to do all we can...
Jennifer, Tomorrow marks seventeen years since I stood before your perfect face, dimly lit by the golden glow of a nearby “Burger King” sign. That evening I invited you into my life and I have been inviting you ever since. I was nervous that day because you were, in my...
A few weeks ago I heard someone reference “The Four Stages of Competence” like it was something I was supposed to know all about. I did not know all about it. Maybe was supposed to learn it at some point in my 20+ years of education, but had no idea...
In my previous post I talked about how we decided that debt wasn’t an option for us in the adoption process. If you haven’t read that post yet, you should – it will help make since of this one. Once we decided not to borrow money for the adoptions, we...
Julie Gumm published a book chronicling almost the exact same experience I’m writing about here in her new book, Adopt Without Debt. I’ve hesitated to write on this subject until the process is complete but have decided to move ahead with a disclaimer, so here it is: Our children are not...
