 It's great to see all of you people sticking around. This is my wife Jane, for those of you who don't know Jane. But she was praying that nobody would come. I know, I'm like, did you ever really register for this kind of stuff? So I'm the guy that likes to talk in front of people and Jane is the reticent one to do this. But so you don't know the gold you are getting because this is rare. But because of the subject of talking about just marriage and ministry, I talked her into it. So she's got some great insights and hopefully what we'll share here in the next little bit as part of this workshop is gonna be encouraging and hopefully even educational for some of you who are trying to figure out your rhythm and kind of your groove in life and in ministry. And we've called this marriage and ministry together because I think that regardless of how your marriage looks or the different giftings and the different individuals in a marriage, when you do ministry, you do it together because everybody in your household really carries the weight of it. And let me quickly, I'll kind of set up the story, our story for those of you who don't know it. And Jane is just gonna chime in and probably fix all of my mistakes in the middle of it here. So Jane and I met in July of 1991. I was working at a Christian bookstore in between semesters at Bible school and Christian bookstore. I was the assistant manager, which meant nothing other than that I just worked all the time. And Jane had just graduated from high school and her mom would shop in the store that I was in, told her that we were hiring. She had a background of doing like hallmark cards. And so we had a hallmark section. So it was on a particular day, I was talking to my boss in the middle of the store and he was telling me all the reasons why if you're called into ministry, just meet a great young lady, lover, get married young, build your lives together and don't mess around, don't wait till you're 30, don't play the field, just get married. And I knew that he had somebody coming in for an interview. And so Jane, in the middle of that conversation, Jane comes walking in and I'm telling you, she was decked out. I mean, she walked in, she had, it was the early 90s. So she had long, spiraled, permed hair. And I remember looking at her, I was like, whoa, and I turned to my boss and I said, well hire her and then I'll marry her. And so he did hire her and she worked there for like, three weeks? Yeah, maybe three weeks. Well, maybe a month. And just long enough for me to ask her out. So our first date was July 9th, 1991 and we got married a year later, July 10th, 1992. And so that was July of 1991, married in July of 1992. And then in January of 1993, we moved to Kansas City, Missouri to our first ministry position. So KC. Somewhere in there we had Ashley. Yeah, oh yeah, we had October, October of 1993. Where's Ashley? Where year were you born? 93. Okay, October of 1993, yes. In 1994. Okay, yes, that's right. January of 1994. Yeah. And so, man, we were just clipping it. That's when you know you're old is when you don't know the years your kids are born in anymore. So we did a lot. I mean, our story was really compressed. And I knew from the time I was a young teenager that I was called into ministry. And so I was discipled, I was devout. I was, I had a strong sense of direction. Jane came from a great home where she had been in church all of her life, went to Christian schools. Mom and dad were very involved in a denominational church. But when I met her, which I did not know, she really wasn't serving the Lord. Saved, I wasn't. Yeah, you weren't even saved. So then I did what I tell people not to do. It took me like maybe a month to figure out, maybe a couple of weeks to figure out she really wasn't saved. Like our second day, first day I took her to Putt Putt, miniature golf and the McDonald's. I was a big spender, a college kid. Second day is I took her to Christian roller skating night. Anybody remember those? It's like Friday night roller skating at Woodland Arena. And so it quickly became apparent that she was not saved and had grown up in church. So I had an understanding of religion. And then I did what I tell people not to do. I went into missionary dating mode. I'm like, well, let me lead her to the Lord. So I did, I prayed with her. She had grown up in church all of her life, morning and evening church, Christian schools, and had no idea that she needed to be born again. Had no idea what salvation was. Like never had heard of salvation call or anything like that. And so I just figured while I was baptized as a baby, went to church, that I was fine. And then Lee just kept asking questions like, well, when did you give your heart to the Lord? And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, just all these different things. And then he took me to church on a Sunday night. So I think we had gone Christian roller skating, which was fun. And then I'll skip a whole story just for your embarrassment. And then you can come and talk to me afterwards if you want to know the story. Tell the story, you can tell the story. Well, so I'm trying to think if you had brought me, if we had gone to church yet. I don't think we had. I don't either. I think maybe we had. Because I feel like it all went pretty quick that you had brought me to church and it was during worship that I actually was like, God is real. And I was like, what is this? You know, I mean like, I just sensed him so strong. And he's like, that's the presence of God. And then then we prayed in my parents' driveway, the prayer salvation. You led me to the Lord right there. But then I think it was the next week or the week after, because there was on Cornerstone Church. Sunday night? Yeah, maybe it was that night. But there was a Christian dance club called. Oh gosh. I didn't know this was a story. You were going into it. You can tell. Oh my God. I cannot believe. All right, I won't do it. You can tell. I'll tell you afterwards. If anybody wants to know afterwards, you can come up and I'll tell you. So. What's that? Are you? You're not going to do it. I'm not mad. You can tell it. Just tell the story. Now everybody wants to know. So you're going to. So anyway, I didn't know what a stud I was dating because we go, he asked me to go with him into a Christian club and I'm going. My gosh. I've gone Christian. I'm skating. I'm not going to a Christian club. What in the world is this? It's a dance club. All this underground stuff that I had no idea was even around, you know. And so he takes me to this Christian dance club and he's like kind of has longer hair at the time and has his big jeans on and tennis shoes and a T-shirt. And we literally walk in that room and everyone's like, what else is in the house? And I was like, what is this? And they walked up to the stage on the stage and started to break dance. He was a really amazing. And people were like clearing off the floor and letting it over. I can never speak at this conference again. And it was so funny. I was like, oh my gosh, she's cool. So in a Christian world. No, I'm kidding. I had a lot of growing to do. In a weird kind of way. It was a church that had like an alternative nightclub for Christians. He couldn't roller skate by good dance. Yeah, I couldn't roller skate. Roller skating is good enough to get you to marry me. I couldn't roller skate either. No, we did it together. So there you go. Now you know part of the secret. So I used to break dance. So the story I thought you were going to tell us on Sunday night when I would never have authorized that story. No, when she came to church with me on a Sunday night, the first Sunday night, it was a Pentecostal church. So I'm like, please do not let anything weird happen. And sure enough, this Mexican lady stood up and spoke in tongues. And I'm like, oh my gosh, really, Lord, not tonight. And I kind of out of the corner of my eye to look to see how she was responding and she was fine. We got into the car and I was like, oh, maybe she won't say anything. And she goes, I love the service. And I go, really? And she goes, yeah. I mean, I felt the presence of God there. And I said, that's amazing. And she goes, and I love how they translate for the Spanish too. And so she had never even heard of what that was. And so I thought that's the story. But anyways, so I let her to the Lord in the driveway, baptized her in her mom and dad's cottage on Big Star Lake and up in Baldwin, Michigan. What's that? I was pregnant with that. Yeah, that's right. And then we went right into ministry. And we learned pretty quick as a couple that there were some things that they did not teach us in Bible college about marriage and ministry. And that's what we want to share with you over the next few minutes is just some of the things that they don't teach you in Bible college about marriage and ministry that we've learned over, well, this summer we'll be married 29 years. So 29 years been in marriage and ministry for 28 years. And throughout that period of time, some things we've learned by mentor, some things we've learned by the hard way. But each one of these things, I think are vital lessons that we have learned about doing marriage and ministry together. So James is going to kind of jump in and probably tell some more embarrassing stories about me along the way here. It'll be awesome. So five things that they don't teach you in Bible college about marriage and ministry. First one is that ministry will take as much of your life as you will allow it to. Ministry will take as much of your marriage. It'll take as much of your family, as much of your time as you are willing to surrender it. And it's so important that when you go into ministry, full-time vocational ministry, that you premeditate the boundaries of your time and of your relationship and your family ahead of time together. Because if you don't, it won't be very long and you're going to experience conflict, burnout, unmet expectations. And it might look different for everybody. For us, when we move down here from Grand Rapids and planted, those of you who are church planters, you know this is especially true because there's always something to do. Ministries, unlike any other calling or any other job, because it's 24-7. It's who you are and it's in relationship with God. It's not like you work at a factory and then you come home and you unplug until the next morning. It's 24-7. And early on, a couple of the things that we did, and I think Jane did some of this really well, was we set some clear boundaries for our family and for our marriage. And one of those was that Fridays was our Sabbath day and it was our date day. And so even when our kids were little, Fridays were sacred. I would occasionally do a wedding or something like that, you know, on a Friday. But if I was going to do something on a Friday, I would always check with Jane to make sure that it was good because, you know, you could go 24-7 and never take a day off and just, well, it's the Lord's work. It's got to get done. And, you know, there's these people need this and this person needs this. The needs of the people will always be there. And you have to make sure that you're keeping your family, your marriage, your body healthy so that you can take care of people. And having a Sabbath on a Friday was always important for us. And that was the day, I called it Jane's day because we did whatever Jane wanted to do on Fridays. And so what do we... I mean, we used to go out to lunch. Go to the mall. Go to lunch. Go to the Family Christian store. Right, exactly. Which was more his thing. But into it, I just want to quick-throw in that because I grew up in a denomination that women, like the pastor's wives, I never saw them preach or go on the stage or do anything like that. And then being thrown into the charismatic world where the pastor's wives, you know, weren't just the piano players, but they were, supposedly supposed to preach and all this. And that, for me, for years until I just kind of gave it to the Lord and I was like, God, you made me. You know who I am. I don't want to strive. I don't want to. I'll do anything that you ask me to do because I love you and I love your people. But I'm not going to hate ministry because I feel like I have these undue expectations that aren't coming from you. They're coming from me and maybe other people. And so for any woman out there that feels like I want to support my husband. I don't want to preach. I don't want to get on stage. I'll do it if God asked me to. But it's not like I want to do this weekly or this or that. You are fine. You know what I mean? As long as you're obedient to the Lord and you're doing what he's asked you to do and you do it even in fear. Like, I don't want to do this today but because I love my husband and I love God and I love all of you, I'll do it. You know what I mean? But I'm not clamoring to do this every week. So I just want to encourage the wives out there and husbands not to put pressure on your wives if it isn't their calling. Like you can encourage them and all those kind of things because Lee has always done that for me. But know your spouse, know their gifts, know their callings and then cultivate those things. Don't try to make them something that they aren't and that is what I truly appreciate Lee over almost 30 years of ministry is that he hasn't, he's pushed me when I needed to be pushed but he's also covered me when I needed to be covered. And so, thank you. That's amazing. So that's part of the boundaries and you know where in your church oftentimes it may be time that you have to protect but it also might be your family that you need to protect because people will have expectations of you, of your family, of your kids. And Jane was always brilliant at, she was the most amazing mom. I mean, I would come home. One of the things I did was I would always set a time and it was like Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday and then weekends as well. At five o'clock no later I went home and it was because there was always stuff when you're in a small church or in a developing church, really at any stage, if you're a workaholic you'll stay and you'll always find a reason to stay. So I made a predetermined decision I'm gonna come home at five unless it was Wednesday nights when we had church or something like that. But when I would come home, Jane was always taking care of the kids when they were little and creating an environment of worship and an environment of engagement with our kids and I love that. And then you would have people that come into the church who wanted to put pressure on me to be something that I'm not or Jane to be something that she's not or our kids. It's like, oh, you're a pastor's kids. You know, you have to act a certain way and we just made a decision. It's like, look, we're gonna be who we are and we're gonna, I don't want my kids to have to live under the pressure of being something better than everybody else because there are kids. We wanted our kids to love God not because we're pastors but because if I worked in a shop I wanted my kids to love Jesus. Because they're Christians. Right, it's because we're Christians and we want you to love Jesus and you're gonna go to church not because we worry if somebody doesn't see you but because this is what we do on vacation. We go to church. We don't go to church because we're pastors. We're pastors because we love the church. And the same is true with Jane. People would come often times and say, well, you know, is Jane gonna preach or does Jane lead worship? I'm just like, no, you don't understand. Jane has her hands full encouraging me. And she's a world class mother and if you are lucky enough to get in her inner circle where she mentors you I'll tell you what, she is an incredible encourager and mentor and that's how God has wired her. That's her interest. That's her calling and that's her gifting and it's a perfect match to me because the way that God wired me is I don't want somebody who is trying to push out front and take more platform time or those kinds of things. Some guys love that. That was not how I'm wired. God knew exactly what we needed when he put us together and so we protect that. We protect our kids. We protect our marriage and we recognize that we're going to give Jesus our lives. But we're not going to give the ministry our lives and those are two different things. We're going to love Jesus with all of our heart. We will go wherever he calls us to go. We will do whatever he calls us to do but I'm not going to sacrifice our family or our marriage on the altar of ministry and so things like going home at five o'clock not being gone more than three nights a week taking family vacations making sure that we would always do a vision retreat we would get away and do two or three days a year and pray together and have fun together go out to eat and then work through what are we believing for the kids this year and what are our goals for our marriage this year pray together and make sure that those are priorities. Second thing kind of bleeds into this which is out of the five things is there is no set pattern on what a pastor's wife role should look like and I think that this is important because the hardest job in the church is not the senior pastor's job the hardest job in the church is being the wife to the senior pastor. It is hard because it is an undefinable role if you're a pastor if you're a worship leader everybody knows what's expected of you when you are a youth pastor everybody knows what's expected of you when you're a senior pastor everybody knows what's expected of you when you are married to the senior pastor and there may be some of you the senior pastor is the wife and it could be the opposite where if it's the gentleman that role is not clearly defined and the reason why it's not clearly defined is because it takes on different specificity depending on who the person is there are some pastor's wives and we have friends they're like this where they're co-pastors and they lead together there are some where the pastor's wives love to teach and be out front or lead a women's ministry there are some pastor's wives who don't want anything to do with those things and they're raising the family and they love their husband but they don't have a ministry specific role and why I think that's important to understand is kind of caveat off of the first point is probably one of the biggest challenges we've faced and we've also seen other people walk through in ministry is not understanding what that particular calling is and living beyond people's expectations it's just been huge and so it can create tension in the marriage it can create pressure on spouse it can steal your joy out of ministry and out of life all of those things and none of those things are fair I've often times said, Jane you have the harsh job in our church and over the course of this year's 25 years that we've been at radiant but over the course of 25 years Jane has been courageous enough that whenever people have tried to put those expectations on her she knows who she is she's just like, no, this is who I am I'm not gonna be something other than I am and it's been my responsibility to affirm that and to protect that in her and so I would just say if you're married and you're in ministry together it's important that you communicate and you clearly define what the expectations are what the roles are for you and for your church and then you protect those and then affirm those really big time affirm those because it's in those dark areas where the enemy whispers and like gets in your imagination and oh, she wishes I was more of this or he wishes I was more of that or maybe the church would be bigger if I was doing this or maybe the church would be bigger if I wasn't doing this and nobody wants me all of those things are just the weapons of the enemy to divide and conquer from the top down and you have to protect that anything you wanna say, add it onto that? No, um, well, I guess See? I think literally for the first probably ten years of ministry I would just at different times just vaguely like can you just be a garbage man can you just be a break dancer a break dancer because I was just feeling like just this insecurity and I just had to grow and really dig deep into the Lord I think I already shared that but of going this is who I am and but you always were very supportive I mean, she never there was never a moment where you like give an ultimatum like, you know we have to go do something else you knew the call on my life you just felt like, man all of these people are expecting so much especially in the circle of churches we were kinda running in at that particular time it was kinda like, oh, if you're a senior pastor your wife has to be this and that's not fair to do to anybody it's not fair, listen God doesn't make carbon copies God makes unique individuals and there is nothing about you in ministry or you in life or you in marriage that God has not uniquely crafted to be exactly the way that it is in its redeemed form and you don't have to try and be anybody the worst trap we get into as pastors or as leaders or even spouses is that comparison game we've gotta be so careful about that because we can all, I mean probably all have at one time or another it's like, oh, you know, Jimmy Evans is one of my mentors and he's got this huge marriage ministry and I can't tell you how many times he has picked up the phone over the years when I've called him and I've just said, Jimmy what do I, you know, what's wrong with me or what do I need to do or how do we do this we're trying to navigate this whole thing and he's the one that has told us over and over again, he's like God created you to be perfect matches for one another there is absolutely nothing wrong that's nothing but the lie of the enemy as soon as you guys, as soon as you communicate the marriage and you pray and you protect that it's amazing the unity and the synergy that comes out of that I would not be the man that I am if it was not for this woman sitting right next to me I promise you she has been my greatest encourager my prayer partner my friend, when I am weak she has been incredibly strong she's believed in me and God knew that that's exactly what I needed and you have exactly who you need if you're married, you're in ministry together it's not by accident God has uniquely gifted and crafted you guys together and you need to love and appreciate that number three your words at home either empower or hinder your words on stage how many of you have ever either taught a small group or taught on a platform a marriage series or a family series raise your hand if you've ever done that how many know that you are going to get into a fight with your spouse about three hours before you have to teach that it's going to happen but the reality is is that communication Jimmy Evans says this, words are nuclear words can either be used to empower our marriage because that nuclear power they can be used to destroy our marriage like a nuclear bomb but words are nuclear and the words that we use and the language that we use the things that we talk about at home either empower or hinder the authority and the anointing that we have on stage whether you're a worship leader it applies to you and you're a leading worship you're a senior pastor, teaching pastor it applies to you, youth pastor it applies to you your words have such incredible power to either empower one another empower your kids or to hinder and it has a ripple effect on what you do in ministry and in the church I'll tell a a story on myself and Jane's like okay just don't tell any on her so living in Kansas City I was a youth pastor Jane had two small children at home Ashley and Jared one you were pregnant so we had Ashley and Jared was in the hopper and it was so hot and humid and we had no air conditioning in the house or in our car so it was like 100 degrees total humidity and we're miserable so it was after church on a Sunday and what I will say is learning to protect time and family was something that took me a few years to learn I didn't do that right away I was all about building something that people would respect and so this particular Sunday we're in the car we are pulling into Walmart for some reason I don't know what it was but and I told her do you remember what it was it's probably a date yeah it was our date at Walmart and I told her one of the kids in the youth group had a birthday or a going away party that Sunday afternoon and we needed to go there to say goodbye and Jane's like she's pregnant, she's not feeling good and she wants to go home and she goes I don't want to go to that and I'm like babe we have to go just stop in and say goodbye and she goes you didn't tell me about this and I don't want to do it and I'm like Jane we have to do it because in my mind I'm like I have to go you know because of all the connections and parents and everything like this and I don't know right where we were in the parking lot I mean I was just getting so mad and she's just like I don't want to go and how many of you have ever said something before you thought about it and then heard yourself say it and wish you could rewind the tape and edit it so I looked at her I'm like you know what living with you sometimes living with my worst enemy and as soon as here's how it came out of my mouth living with you it was like slow motion as I'm saying it and then I said it and I saw the hurt on her face and she just looked at me she got mad and she goes take me home and I apologized over and over and over again but you know what you lose trust with spoonfuls and you lose trust in buckets and you can you build love and affirmation little at a time but you can lose it quickly and in that moment I lost a lot of it and had to make up for it but you know throughout the years some of the things really practically that we've learned about words at home was to be really careful about even things that we say around our kids about church situations people in the church because we are maybe going through something with somebody who's you know in the church doing something gossiping or doing something we don't like or even a staff person and if you just talk about it casually and your kids pick up on it you will get over it but your kids will be marked by it and your kids are crazy and you all know this with your parents like you can tell them to go to bed and they don't hear you but then you whisper about somebody and they're like what now come running in tell me where and I'm like oh my gosh go to bed they all want the tea and kids remember they don't remember hey clean your room and take the garbage out and feed the dog and do this every day they don't remember that but they remember 20 years later oh I remember that situation and I remember what you said and they remember those things so we've always been very careful we wanted our kids to think everybody in our church was angels and so we would we weren't always perfect in that but we made a real effort to talk about that after they went to bed alone in the living room or alone in our bedroom and have those conversations and then also to really speak purpose and identity over our kids because words have power and over each other and we learned that that wasn't you're going to be in the ministry or you're going to be pastors or whatever it was you're going to love God you're going to fulfill what God has called you to do and your purpose and all those things and never put the pressure on to be in ministry and never come down hard on them because of church stuff it was like I don't want you sneaking out of the Sunday school classroom which Jared did which Jared did a lot again not just because you're a pastor's kid but because we want you to be a good kid and we want you to behave and we want you to have manners and all those kinds of things so we would work really hard at speaking life and knowing that our words were nuclear both in our marriage between one another and I would feel a direct connection when our marriage was healthy and our communication was good I felt the anointing in a stronger way as I preached and as I did ministry when there's tension here it's difficult to do that because if you can compartmentalize that that you can compartmentalize this and give into that but it would bother me if we would get in an argument one of the things that one of the things that made sure that we had constant communication is I always knew Friday was coming which was Friday is going to be a date day so if we don't talk for a couple days we're going to have to and if you don't schedule that then you can avoid it for weeks on end but a lot of times it's going to be quick to overlook quick to say you're sorry and if you'll do that and you can keep communication really healthy in your marriage and just the third out there because we're all adults but when we did the marriage retreat and our kids were little like scheduling date day scheduling sex scheduling all of that was just so important because your week would just fly by and that was one of the things that we learned from Jimmy Evans and so on marriage retreat we'd be like this day this day this day this week you know what I mean that these are the days and hallelujah so just the third out there because time can go so fast and that is a gift from the Lord and not to make it weird or whatever yep for sure amen amen we don't want it to get weird nope number four things they don't teach you in bible college about marriage and ministry is that people inside the church can be just as cruel as people outside the church you know I think you understand the dynamics of ministry in the church often times thinking that your greatest resistance or difficult people that you're going to encounter will be people that don't believe what you believe or don't come to church or kind of out there but as soon as you get into ministry you find out that people are people and even save people can be difficult people because we're all in progress God is working on all of us it's hard to keep in mind sometimes that God loves the very people that we despise sometimes or that we don't want to be around or we don't like or who are even giving us a hard time and I think sometimes that surprises us at least it surprised us that when we planted a church and started that some of our greatest challenges relationally or even just dealing with difficult people we're actually not people outside of the church there were people from within the church I guess you could put it like this they don't teach you that sheep bite and that can be very hurtful because I know we often times highlight people who've been hurt in church but what very few people talk about is pastors who've been hurt in church it's because you're not allowed to talk about that it's like you're the pastor you're the one in authority but you know what it hurts it hurts and some of our most difficult times and seasons in pasturing and even because again everything flows into ministry it affects your family it affects your marriage has been dealing with gossip or rumors or people that you love that you thought were going to be there for the duration who all of a sudden tell you that they're not coming back or they're going to a different church and then you find out that they're bad mouthing you or somebody who misunderstands something that you said and they take that and they get offended at that sheep bite sometimes and it can be very difficult now here's a statistic John Maxwell said years ago that I had a hard time believing when I heard it but I believe it now he said that the average pastor when the average pastor leaves a church he leaves because of less than five people it only takes a couple people who are really causing problems or really giving you a difficult especially in like a board run church or where a key leader or a staff person it can discourage a pastor and a pastor's family so badly and you can apply this across the board it can be youth ministry it could be leading worship it could be a missionary when you have difficult people that you're supposed to be doing life in ministry with you're supposed to be pulling in the same direction and then you see kind of the meanness or the unkindness or the breach of trust or betrayal or something like this if you're not expecting it and you don't know it it can knock the wind right out of you and get you to just be like you know what I don't need to do this anymore there's probably been three times in 25 years that we've experienced really difficult relational issues that were to the point where maybe two where I have personally thought you know what I'm done I don't want to do this anymore I don't want to do this we can go someplace else we can go do something else this is not worth it because it hurts so badly and the thing that has gotten us through that is us being able to communicate and talk about it and pray together and encourage one another sometimes I'm taking it harder than she's taking it and she always steps in and is my grace encourager and then there's times where she's worn out and I'm reminding her of what God's called us to what he has done the people that love us the faithfulness of God to get us through previous seasons and it's that Ecclesiastes that two are better than one and that a three-stranded cord is not easily broken we need that in those times and so to have just close friends that you're able to bounce things off we've had some great ministry friends yes and I love that because you're able to you're in the same boat and you are able to just be like I want to quit and then they're like no no no you don't want to and so John and Lisa Pruminsky is sitting down here they planted their church about a year after us dear friends and him and his wife Lisa are dear friends and man we have we have cried with each other we have prayed with each other we've met up on Fridays for and kept each other from quitting multiple multiple times and you have to have some great friends in ministry go ahead what were you going to say and then I was going to say then there's always those seasons of people just leaving and they leave well and you bless them and then it's always fun to see years later them come back and they've learned from their experience and being in a different church and they come back and bring different things and it's always when you leave well and you bless people that it's such an amazing thing because obviously you never want to control anyone and be like you can never leave you have to stay and that would be a cult and so it's just this beautiful thing when somebody leaves and then they come back and then you're like oh there you are I mean like I love that and so don't ever when somebody leaves be like ugh I just I can't stand them and you know they hurt me and I mean all those things might be true but then you just pray through it and then it's fun maybe 10 years later they come back and you're like oh my gosh we both grew because nobody's a perfect leader or person I mean we all have room to grow and just because we're sitting up here and he's the we all have room to grow keep your heart pure keep your heart right so when people leave we bless them we tell them we love you doors always open now there are a few people we've said now as soon as you leave the door locks behind you you can never come back but most 99% of the time it's like you're always welcome back and it's surprising when people do come back if you don't keep your heart right when that happens your bitterness won't impact them but it will impact you and having those close friends that you can confide in that are doing ministry like you're doing ministry maybe not within your church context you have to be careful about that but outside of that to reach out to them and just say hey I'm going through it that's vital you have to have that and you know there's times where we can over-spiritualize things and say well you know it's the devil or it's this or that no and it's just you have to just be honest it's like no in my humanity I'm just really hurt this isn't demonic this isn't that I'm just hurt I'll never forget I called one of my mentors Pastor Lauren Coverubius at Mount Zion and he's been a a sort I see the family down here but I was thinking about I was 26 years old we were a year into the church and we had this guy who claimed to be a prophet and he was in our church trying to blow it up and then he left and when he left he's like you know Mikalov is written over the door and I told him I said I think you mean Ichabod because he was like the glory has departed but I called Pastor Lauren and I told him I said what do I do I said this guy is this guy is like trying to decimate our church we're a hundred people he's like he's trying to decimate this church but I know that God's got a lot of control you know I know that God's in control Pastor Lauren said well he says it sounds to me like this isn't an issue of God's sovereignty this sounds like to me you just need to tell this guy to leave and I was like that was just really good practical wisdom and so I just told the guy I was like yeah I don't think you should probably come back here and you know what as soon as you get rid of the Gossiper or you get rid of that accusing voice it's amazing how much peace comes on your house the fifth thing is that we've learned is that spiritual warfare begins at home and I think that the greatest weapon that we have in spiritual warfare in ministry as couples is to pray together there is incredible power in unified prayer especially in couples that are in ministry for years prayer has always come very easy to me just because of my connection with the Lord I was young when the Lord spoke to me and called me and so I had this relationship with God as my father that I leaned on so deeply so prayer was a natural part of my life I've always been drawn to that I was surprised at how vulnerable I felt once I got married then praying with Jane because for me I had grown up my mom was kind of a Christian not deeply devout but my stepfather was not so my relationship with God starting as a child really but then at 12 called into ministry became my private relationship with God so it was me and I had to almost guard it in my house so now in our house with it being at the center of it and we're newly married and Jane is my wife and we're one flesh and we're doing this together I felt so awkward and so vulnerable is the only way to put it to pray together that we just wouldn't do it and she would communicate to me you know I just on our vision weekends we would get away and she goes I just want us to pray together and I was I'd always say yeah I want us to pray together but in my heart in my mind it was just it was like it was hard for me to let somebody else into that part of my life it's hard to explain but it was just hard to let somebody else get in there I felt like maybe she'll laugh at me or you know it's just I felt naked and it was years into our marriage that we actually began to do that and to see the powerful impact of that of what it did in our relationship what it did in our kids what it did in the church and just the way that it warded off the enemy from both of us and from our kids and in our marriage made me wish that I had been in it from the very beginning and I I credit her for driving us towards that so now you know we pray together and it doesn't have to be a deep you know 30 minutes of shun die Hyundai see me tie my bow tie it doesn't it doesn't have to be let's pray through the Lord's prayer you know could you not tarry one hour but it's it's holding hands it's thanking God for the day it's giving us protection over our family it's giving them thanks for our protection interceding for different things as they need come up and I'll tell you when you do that the enemy cannot divide you the enemy cannot divide you and I would I would just encourage any ministry couples if you if this has been difficult for you to pray together talk about it ask God to give you a grace to do it and just do it there are a lot of things in ministry that we just do a lot of things in life we just do not because we enjoy it at first or not because we're experts in it but we just do it and as you do it you'll begin to enjoy it you'll begin to see the grace of God that shows up in your life and I I firmly believe this the couple that prays together stays together I've never met a couple that prays together on a daily basis that ends up divorced I've never met that couple and that's in ministry and that's outside of ministry and the enemy wants to keep you from doing that because prayer is not just something we do in church prayer needs to be in our homes we need to teach our kids to pray they need to pray with us and we need to help them learn how to pray I used to pray over our kids every night when we put them to bed lands in our kids pray over if I did not pray over our kids they would like take my hand and like put it on their head they wanted me to like pray over them and we pray blessing and destiny and purpose and calling over them and prayer needs to be at the center of our homes when you do that the war half the battle is already won at that point and I'm that no two for praying for your kids is that if you are practicals just remind the Lord of those prayers that's good and he's faithful for that too our son is a bit of a practical right now and it's just always reminding the Lord you know just that he's tasted you he's seen you he knows that you're good and not giving up or not you know all those kind of things too we pray God sick them I mean and we pray over those moments that we know that they've encountered the Lord words that God has spoken over them and you pray in their adulthood but you pray over them when they're children and you know what parents we prophesy over all kinds of people in our church we need to prophesy over our kids they need to hear the word of the Lord spoken and declared by their parents over them same way that their father spoke over Jesus in the baptism Jesus didn't need it he's God but there was something about that power of prophetic affirmation that unlocked his ability to walk in obedience so pray over your kids pray in your marriage and I believe with all my heart you do those things and you're gonna have many many years of enjoyable ministry together can we just pray over you guys real quick so we finish up today Lord thank you for the gift of marriage and thank you for the privilege of ministry as we minister to you out of the overflow of our marriage and I pray right now over every marriage over every couple in this room right now I just pray Lord whatever challenges that they're going through whatever just feels insurmountable Lord you would give them a vision of health strength and longevity Lord we want to live long lives of strong marriage 50 60 70 years of marriage that we pass on as a legacy to the next generation that has seen fatherlessness and no fault divorce and self-centeredness just decimate the nuclear family God in this room is the nucleus for a revival of marriage and family Lord help us to do it well help our ministries to not just be based on our gift but based on the momentum and based on the synergy that we have as husbands and wives I pray over every worship leader I pray over every youth pastor every associate pastor over every senior pastor and his wife over every apostolic leader over every prophetic couple Lord whatever we're doing to serve you in ministry we don't want to do it to the detriment of our marriage and we don't want to do it to the exclusion of our marriage give us all ears to hear over us in Jesus name amen amen thanks everybody we love you you're free to move about the cabin