A few months ago, a friend’s social media post re-surfaced for me the issue of tension between caring for family and carrying out the ministry. He wrote, “In the past, pastors sacrificed their families on the altar of ministry. Now, they sacrifice ministry on the altar of family. We need balance.” You probably have your own examples of this tension, but the following came to my mind:
A seminary professor telling me to make sure and take care of my family, because if my marriage failed, my church would not support me
The real life instance of an acquaintance in ministry whose wife cheated on him, and his church asked him to leave
Sharing with a minister from the previous generation how, while at seminary, I had been encouraged to take care of myself and find a healthy pace in ministry, to which he countered forcefully that this sort of measured approach certainly was not the case when he learned about ministry
A respected friend’s observation that ministry students seem to want ministry to be easy and do not understand the level of sacrifice and hard work it demands and deserves
The Issue of Primacy and Priority – At the most basic level, this is a question of primacy and priority. Obviously, from a chronological perspective, marriage and the family predates the church as an institution of God. The question becomes, “What, if anything, changed about the primacy of the family with the coming of the New Covenant and its inauguration of the family of God and the church?” Does the family of God, and specifically the local church and one’s ministry, preempt the biological family? Scripture clearly teaches the sanctity of the marriage relationship. Alternatively, Jesus speaks of believers as His true family, and He predicted faith in Him would bring division amid the closest ties of the natural family. Let me suggest looking at the issue through the lens of the Kingdom of God. At the heart of Jesus’ picture of the disciple’s life, we find Matthew 6:33, which establishes seeking the Kingdom as our defining priority. We need to consider the balance of family and ministry in light of the Kingdom priority.
The Issue of Call – On a secondary level, we are dealing with the issue of call. What is God’s call on your life relative to your family and your ministry? The book of James (albeit in a slightly different vein) warns that a believer who refuses to care for their family is worse than an unbeliever, and the Pastorals include the management of one’s home as a qualification for ministry. More fundamentally, you and I are called to further the Kingdom and make disciples of Jesus, and this work of making Kingdom disciples certainly cannot exclude our families. Shifting to focus on the Gospel ministry, the call is a call to sacrifice for the sake of the church and God’s Kingdom purpose for it and through it. Christ died for the church, and the Apostle Paul testified to making up that which was lacking in Christ’s suffering for the church. Your calling is a costly one. By extension, your family enters with you the struggle for the Kingdom in your church or other ministry context (either directly or indirectly). Finally, your family, more than likely, is part of the church you serve. Jesus wants to reign in your home and your church, and He wants your family and your ministry to be agents of the Kingdom. Your call is to further the Kingdom in and through your family and your ministry.
The Issue of Wants and Needs – Moving to yet another level, we must look at the issue of wants and needs, realizing the distinction is crucial if we are going to be good stewards of our call to our families and our ministries. At times, our families and we have to sacrifice wants because of the call to ministry. Churches, like families, have wants and needs. Some churches and church members confuse wants with needs and have unreasonable expectations of their pastors and ministerial staff.
Questions to Help With the Issue – Rather than giving specific suggestions, let me make an overarching suggestion and pose some questions for you to answer in your own context in order to be a good steward of your family and the Gospel ministry. I would suggest we live in this tension rather than ignoring it or eliminating it. Without the tension, we might slight our families or God’s flock knowingly or incidentally.
How would you prioritize family and church if seeking the reign of God guided your use of time and how you serve both your family and your ministry setting?
How can you relate to your family and your ministry in ways that further the Kingdom and involve your family in seeking the Kingdom?
At what points can your family serve with you in your ministry?
Are you careful to distinguish between wants and needs in your family and in your ministry setting? Are you communicating sufficiently with your family and your church to make sure you agree on the things that are wants and those that are needs?
What boundaries are in place or need to be in place to make sure you care for both your family and your church?
What indications can you see at this point that you may be slighting one or the other?
The tension between family care and ministerial call is not easy to resolve, nor do I believe it should be completely resolved. Both your family and your ministry setting are matters of stewardship, Allotting our time and effort to these correctly cannot be a matter simply of feelings, opinions, or what we might feel like doing at any given time. We must consider Kingdom, call, and the issues of wants and needs in an ongoing and intentional way.