I want to address a very important topic today and that is, “The Importance of Family Time in Ministry.” Too many times pastors are married to the church and don’t balance family and ministry well.
Several months ago I attended a pastors and wives conference and I was talking with a wife on this subject and she shared the following story with me about their priority of a “Family Day.” She said her husband has always been very good at taking Mondays off as their “Family Day.” They have 3 beautiful daughters all under the age of 5. One Sunday evening she and her husband were talking to the 2 and 4 year old about Jesus coming back, when the 4 year-old spoke up and said, “I don’t want Jesus to come back.” As the parents were explaining to the daughter that it wouldn’t be scary and that Jesus is loving, etc. The daughter spoke up and said, “But if Jesus would come back tonight, we wouldn’t get to have our family day tomorrow.” Wow, that proves how important family time is to children!
I want to encourage you and your husband to make sure you are setting those boundaries and having a day off every week and spending time with your family. When this 4 year-old spoke up and said this to her parents, it made them realize how young children see this as being important and how thankful they were that they have made it a priority in their family. Your children are only young once, so cherish those moments.
Maybe your children are grown and you can’t go back and change those “family times,” but you can make your marriage a priority from here on out and cherish those days with one another. Or maybe you don’t have children; it is still very important to have a designated day for each other and make that a priority that nothing else gets in the way of it happening. If our marriages aren’t strong, Satan will get a foot hold and try to destroy the marriage. What better place for him to try than in the pastor’s home?
Don’t let your priorities get out of balance. Remember the proper order in ministry is: God, spouse, family then the church. If you or your husband are letting this get out of order you are heading for disaster.
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Thank you for sharing this message. It is so important to keep a balance in our lives. Our family struggled with this soo much in the beginning when my husband became a pastor. It’s been almost 6 years, and we still struggle from time to time. We would plan family days like you stated in the message, but something would always come up. A member would pass, someone struggling with an issue and needed to talk with my husband, and the list goes on. We would plan trips, and just at the beginning of a trip, he would get called away. It has really frustrated me as the wife, our boys are teenagers now, and will be going off to venture on their own soon. My husband tries to help everyone, even people from the community outside his pastoral care call on my husband. I never want to get in between his line of work with the Lord.