Marriage Series - The Church Planter's Family

 

Hello everybody, my name is Dean Davis and this is “Multiply,” the podcast that provides a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters. The Apostle Paul serves as an example to all of us who work to plant churches.  Paul spread the Gospel to many, many new locations, multiplying churches over a vast territory.  But he did more than spread the Good News everywhere. Paul described his ministry this way, “[Christ] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”  Paul wanted each person who heard his message to become fully mature in Christ. I see that this same desire motivates you. Praise the Lord!

As a church planter, you want every person in your village to know Christ, to be born again, and to join the church.  You want church members to grow, to mature, and to develop in spiritual wisdom and devotion to Christ their Savior. And so you work hard.  You pray. You visit believers and unbelievers, you teach, you organize worship, you serve the people and the church in a hundred different ways.  This is all to be commended. You are to be thanked and appreciated for your loving service. I mean this sincerely, church planters are my heroes.  Your work is heroic and worthy of honor.

So let me encourage you today to take a step back for a moment.  Let me encourage you to reflect briefly. Church planter, there are some very important people you also need to serve in order to help them be complete in Christ.  Those very important people are the people of your own family: your spouse and your children.

Church planter Paul spoke to his disciple Timothy about the leaders of the churches being planted in his day.  He teaches us, in 1 Timothy 3:1-5, that a church leader should be faithful to his or her spouse. Paul taught that church leaders should use respectable means to manage their families.  The church planter’s family serves as an example to everyone in the church.  

But it takes time to be faithful.  Being faithful to a spouse means far more than simply keeping your promise in terms of sexual purity. Faithfulness also means keeping one’s wedding vows to love, serve, and care for one’s mate in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. Church planters must be faithful to their families.  This means each church planter must make time to be with their husband or wife. Every church planter must take time to care for their children. Time is a scarce commodity.

So, sometimes this means saying “no” to an important ministry opportunity in order to spend time with the family. For many Christian leaders, this is hard to do.  Their identity and sense of self-worth is wrapped up in their role as church planter. But if you are to present your wife and your children complete in Christ, you will have to spend time with them, talking and listening, working together, and playing together.

You can do it! You can live a balanced life. You can fully love your spouse and your children and also fully serve your churches.  God will give you grace. He will help you manage your time well. 

This has been “Multiply.” And I’m Dean Davis asking, “Who will you share this encouraging word with today?

#EncouragementForVillageChurchPlanters #