Success at Church, Failure at Home...way to go early church leaders!

How funny is it that John Wesley actually instructed his lay pastors that they should remain single? :-)

It's probably no secret to many of you that some very great and important people in the early church (and the current church) were awesome preachers, teachers, and evangelists but lousy and dishonorable fathers and husbands. What a comforting thought!!

I have always known this, but decided to do a little research into the subject. I was kind of disgusted by what I found--disgusted, but not too surprised.

Here's what one website had to say about John Wesley and his family life:

Anyway, the intriguing answer of one candidate was "John Wesley's family life." Then, with a straight face, he went on to discuss Wesley's family, that he and Susanna raised 19 children...and on and on. Only one problem: Susanna was John Wesley's Mother, not his wife. Unfortunately, John Wesley's own family life was not so wonderful. While he was an Anglican missionary in Georgia, he fell in love with Sophie Hopkey. She married someone else. He practically excommunicated her and was run out of the colony in despair. Then there was Grace Murray, a traveling preacher who worked with Wesley in Ireland. He thought she was ready to marry him, but Brother Charles knew better and broke it off. Then, even as he was instructing his lay preachers to remain single, he married a wealthy widow, Mrs. Mary Vazielle with one stipulation: "...if I thought I should preach one sermon or travel one mile the less on your account, my dear, as well as I love you, I would never see your face anymore." He was hardly ever at home, he continued letter-writing with other women and finally she left him. The day came when in his journal he simply recorded, "They tell me my wife died."

Does anyone else see a problem here??

How about we look at what another site says about A.W. Tozer and his work Pursuit of God:


He had few real friends... ‘friends and knowing God were incompatible in Tozer’s thinking’.
He was not perfect. Sometimes he could be caustic. He never took vacations and rarely a day off. As a father he followed uncritically his own parents’ practice: his father ran the farm and mother raised the children. Often the only way Mrs. Tozer could enjoy his company and his help was to read to him while he did the ironing! ‘Tozer saw his family as a distraction from his supreme goal of knowing God’ (p. 174). (But when after six boys their only daughter appeared, he changed those priorities a little!
Nor was he a good ‘pastor’: indeed he was something of a recluse. Hardly anyone ever came to him for counselling. The deal with his churches was that he preached and wrote for his denominational journal, and someone else did the pastoral work. There’s a charming story about his arrival back in town from conference-speaking, and his chauffeur – he didn’t own a car – told him one of the elders was in hospital. Tozer said ‘That’s not far out of our way, let’s visit him!’ When he came to the man’s bedside the poor fellow was startled. Turning to his wife he asked ‘Are you and the doctors hiding something from me? The pastor’s here: am I really that ill?’

In my immature 25-year-old housewife musings, I think it comes down to this: Wesley and Tozer were trying to figure out if their marriage and their ministry was the chicken or the egg. In other words, which came first? Personally, I think they both got it wrong because marriage IS ministry. Doesn't marriage happen because you are better together, anyways? So why not apply that to your ministry as a couple?

I'm not a marriage in ministry genius by any means, but I do think that boundaries in marriage are essential for everyone, and especially for those who are vocationally in ministry. (Some of the following thoughts come from an "encouraging leaders in ministry worksheet" that I got at LIFE and I am just expounding upon them and applying them to myself because I think we really need to take these to heart:

#1: Michael and I need to realize that really, he is working for 2 separate paychecks (and so am I). One of them is here on earth...that's the one that requires me to complete special ed. reevaluations on time and requires Michael to attend meetings, compose sermons, build teams and a youth group, and also requires real spiritual formation to take place as the result of these things. The second paycheck is our "treasures in heaven" that we are building up. That's the paycheck that comes from a life lived devoted to others and embracing the fact that sometimes healthy family boundaries must be overridden for clear Kingdom purposes.

#2: We need to realize that marriage does come first in God's economy. Check out Genesis 1 and Ephesians 5. I wish Wesley and Tozer could have grasped this concept, but I don't pretend to know everything about their lives. I just don't think, personally, that being a ministry "success" is much a of a success if your family resents you. Like I said though, I don't know everything. I'm just verbally processing here, so it is completely fine if you disagree with me.

#3: Overextention in ministry is a fact of life. And Michael and I are completely fine with that. It will beat up our marriage at times, but when that happens, we must take time to COMPENSATE for that. Sometimes, we need to ask ourselves if this particular season of ministry stress is like Elijah and the prophets of Baal. God called him there, nothing super great happened, and he was emotionally beaten down and bruised at the end...but God had called him to that mission, and so I think it was good. I am prepared for that in our lives. And I know that sometimes God does call us to overextend ourselves and override boundaries for his clear Purpose. But we have to compensate for this or Satan will destroy. My personal problem does not come with the overextending or overriding boundaries, it comes when people don't understand the times when we are compensating. When we make time for our marriage, our family, and our own individual spiritual rest and renewal.
**To be very honest and vulnerable about this particular subject, I struggle so much with guilt when it comes to my "compensation time" in ministry. After I know I have been overextended, God is usually very clear that he wants me to rest in him and his Word or spend time with my family and love my husband, because that is a calling on my life too. I try to be obedient to this, but then someone will say "you should really do this" or they have a need that just cries out to be filled and I feel SO GUILTY that I am prioritizing me and my family over someone else's needs. Guilt is a terrible motivator, and it never comes from God. I know that to be effective in ministry we must have spiritual exercise, nutrition, and rest. And when God calls me or Michael to rest and renew our strength, it is so hard because the needs and demands never go away and Satan uses guilt and criticism to draw us into something that looks good. However, when we give in to the pressure to ignore our times of compensation and rest, we are disobeying God. If you want to pray about that, for me, Amy.....I can tell you that that is probably my biggest struggle to date: giving in to guilt and my desire to please people and ignoring God. WHIIICH brings me to my last point:

#4: Probably the most obvious. DUH! Am I easily imposed upon by the unreasonable expectations of people (especially of influence)? Do I have a drive to please everyone around me....sometimes more than I strive to please God?
I shudder at my answer to this question. Because I know I strive to please people more than I strive to please God. Forgive me, Lord. And there is no excuse, but there is a reason: I often feel like God's wrath is pretty slow compared to the wrath of a congregation member on a mission. :-) It's a lot easier (for me) to deal with the emotions tied to God's impeding wrath than the emotions tied to someone telling me or my husband what to do, how to do it, and why we are completely inept in their eyes. :-)

Dear Jesus, answer my prayer. My heart and soul cry out to you. Make me a woman after YOUR own heart---not after the approval of man. Help me not to grow weary of doing good. Help Michael and I to even now begin to set boundaries that will ensure safety, happiness, and love of you for our children in the future. Help us to be sensitive to the leading of your Spirit when you call us to act and when you call us to rest. And finally, Wonderful Counselor, may your voice ring out above the crowd as the one we obey. May the people in our lives see our hearts and may we be allowed to be REAL with them about our failures without paying the price of judgement. I love our church SOOO much, God. You know that. Cornerstone Alliance has been warm and caring toward us, and I cherish the people you have placed in our lives to challenge and encourage us. Help us to always be faithful and thankful.
Your faltering daughter,
Amy

Amen.