Loving Your Family While Leading God’s Church

I’ve been a pastor for nineteen years. Looking back on my first five years makes me want to buy a time-traveling DeLorean (remember Back to the Future?) or phone booth (remember Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?), so that I could go back and advise my younger self. Too many Saturday nights were spent in the study upstairs while my wife sat alone downstairs watching television. Too many opportunities to be a godly example to the church family that I loved were missed precisely because I didn’t love my family first.

As a 25-year-old starting out, 1 Timothy 4:12 was my favorite verse to rehearse. I wanted to be an example so that no one despised me for my youth. Yet the example I set in those first five years threatened something worse than church members despising my youth; it threatened to hinder their own godliness. The two, after all, are linked.

If I could go back in time, I’d tell 25-year-old me to re-read his favorite “verse to rehearse” and say, set a good example for the church by being a godly man in the home first. How does one set such an example?

1. Through Exemplary Speaking

Youthful fervor in ministry can hinder good communication in the home. Is that your experience? Too often I had to be finger-snapped out of ministry daydreams. Some exegetical question or pastoral predicament clogged up my brain. I was there, but I wasn’t there. Worse, when the pitter-patter of tiny wee feet brought with it a tiny wee knock at the study door, the sense of inconvenience led to intemperate speech that neither built up nor tasted of grace. So sad.

Yet exemplary speaking means actually speaking with your wife and kids. It means being interested and undistracted as you discover all that’s going on in their lives. In a word, engage! And watch your tongue. It’s a fire, and irritation-sparked house fires can render useless your ministerial fervor. So take care to practice exemplary speaking where it matters most.

2. Through Exemplary Conduct

I remember those early days of ministry when I was desperate for a church whose life and conduct marked it off from its community. But too often in my first five years, home life looked different than the Christian life I exhorted others to live. When conduct in the home lags behind the conduct we commend, we’re falling into hypocrisy.

Our homes ought to be showrooms for gospel living in a natural environment. We should be more concerned to live rightly in front of our family than our flock. If we can’t care for our house, then how can we care for God’s?

3. Through Exemplary Love

A pastor’s first foray into service is fueled by books that compel us toward a love-driven ministry. These are the blood-bought people of God. Our love for them should reflect Christ’s love for them, and his love led to laying down his life. But I remember many occasions in those opening phases of ministry when I sacrificed more to serve the ministry than I did to serve my family. What a terrible example to set. The church was going through a hard time, a healing time. But that was no excuse.

If Bill and Ted’s phone booth landed in front of 25-year-old me, I’d jump out and say, “Reorder those priorities, ya dafty!” Better to preach a nearly finished sermon or postpone a meeting than to sacrifice time with your wife and family. What a difference it will make to your church family for them to see you love your wife deeply from the heart (1 Pet. 1:22), the kind of love that commends Christ to all (John 13:35).

4. Through Exemplary Faith

Pastors who want their church to live by faith in all that God has said should scan their home life for proof that they themselves do. That trust will certainly be tested in the first five years! Some of my most difficult experiences of church leadership came in that period. There were factions, accusations, ultimatums. Ugly stuff, really. Personal challenges came thick and fast in those times (I’ll spare you the details). Immaturity and impatience led too quickly to doubt and despair, not in front of members, but in front of my wife and kids.

Time-traveling me would tell the younger version, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov. 3:5). God’s grace is sufficient for every trial (2 Cor. 12:9), and his sovereignty a soft pillow on which to lay your head. Take God at his infallible Word, and always live like it’s true. Let your family learn that first through the example of your faith, a faith that steadies theirs.

5. Through Exemplary Purity

In many cases, when being in your first five years means being young, then the passions of youth that Paul warns of have likely been fled only recently or, indeed, remain a present threat (2 Tim. 2:22). The most prevalent threat to the purity of young men, it seems, is pornography. Sins like these practiced in secret create a barrier in one’s affections and a fog of shame at home. But it’s far from being the only threat. Purity is holiness, and holiness is hindered if we fail to pull up weeds of sin and plant flowers of virtue.

So, if gray-haired me turned up at the door of brown-haired me, I’d appeal for him not to underestimate how important holiness at home is for the church. I’d warn him against allowing the home to be the place where his guard is let down.

A Good Example in the Church

Listen, being a godly man in the home is vital to being a good example in the church. And being a good example in the church is crucial to the church’s health. That’s true whether you are in your first five years or your last. Indeed, writing this article is a timely refresher for me.

But in that initial phase, while you’re finding your ministry legs, pay special attention to setting an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity (1 Tim. 4:12).