Dad was committed to Mom; the folks were committed to the kids; our home was committed to the Lord; and our energies were committed to the church.
Paul D. Robbins
I asked a pastor’s wife from Washington in what ways she contributed to her husband’s ministry. “I’m the only person who can get him to church both happy and on time,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. She’s used that line to limit the number of church responsibilities she assumes. “I tell people that’s such a big job that I have to let other people use their gifts in many of the other areas of ministry.”
Family members contribute to the effectiveness of a ministry in a variety of ways. Even if they aren’t directly involved in church programs, they still have a tremendous indirect impact. From the Leadership research, here are some ways family members help ministry.
A source of support. Many pastors testify to the sense of stability and support they gain from their families. “They encourage me; they believe in what I’m doing for God,” says one pastor. “I think that’s important. I want to be behind them in the same way in whatever they’re doing.”
A minister from Ohio says, “Spending time with the most important people in my life not only builds self-esteem, it also restores my energy and renews my vision. A healthy family life prevents my tendency to be consumed by the ministry and supplies love and encouragement from people who see me in terms of who I am, not what I do.”
A measuring stick for ministry. Family members play a unique role in keeping ministry skills sharp. “Not only is my wife my best critic, but she has also, in a sense, become the goal of my ministry,” says a pastor from Michigan. “As I evaluate my preaching, I ask, Did I feed Martie this morning? If so, I feel I’ve done my job. She’s heard almost all my sermons. She also knows me, so she would know if my preaching did not match my practice. It’s a great treat to hear her say, ‘God really worked in my life today.’ That’s the ultimate compliment.”
Ivory tower busters. Families help give a realistic view of life. One pastor said, “Since I’ve tried to limit my counseling, some people are unnecessarily alarmed: ‘You don’t counsel anymore; you’re going to get out of touch with your people.’ But as long as you have a real family in a real world, you’re in touch with where your people are. You have job problems. You have to put gas in the car. Your kids get in trouble at school. It’s the same stuff.”
Family members can also be an excellent hedge against pomposity or self-pity. A Southern California pastor tells this story on himself: “One Sunday after the service, I came in and stood in the kitchen next to Chris and said, ‘Can I help you with something?’ She got me busy with some vegetables, and I said, ‘Boy, I just don’t know about today.’
“‘What are you talking about?’ she asked.
“‘Oh, the message.’
“‘Honey, it was great!’ she said. ‘It spoke to my needs. It was really powerful.’
“‘Thanks, Dear.’
“Then, with a wry smile, she said, ‘Is that what you were fishing for?'”
Sermon inspiration. Most pastors today also point to their families as a great source of sermon illustrations.
At one time, preachers were discouraged from being too familiar or personal in their sermons. The feeling was that too much self-disclosure focused attention on the preacher and not on the Word being preached.
Peter Marshall, the renowned preacher and chaplain of the United States Senate, was greatly influenced by this attitude, but over time found his approach changing. One of Marshall’s practices was to read his Sunday morning sermons to his wife, Catherine, on Saturday night. For him it was a warm-up; for her it was an enjoyable preview and a chance to offer input.
William J. Petersen, in Catherine Marshall Had a Husband, writes: “One Saturday night, as Peter reached the middle of his practice sermon, Catherine interrupted him. She hated to do it. But she had to tell him something important. She was having labor pains.
“Shortly before nine the next morning Peter John Marshall was born. Peter was at the hospital for his son’s birth; then he returned to church in time to teach the young people’s Sunday school class at ten and preach his half-rehearsed sermon at eleven. To his congregation he never said a word about the excitement that had occurred in his household a few hours earlier. Some people mentioned to him that he seemed tired that morning, almost as if he had been up all night. He still admitted nothing. Then as he was shaking hands with his parishioners at the close of the service, one woman asked him about Catherine, whom she had observed was absent that morning. Peter finally had to divulge the reason for Catherine’s absence.
“It had always been a policy for Peter not to mention his wife or his home life in his sermons. After Peter John was born, however, that policy was quickly forgotten. Peter John provided too many colorful sermon anecdotes to be neglected.”
Many preachers follow Marshall’s lead and turn to the fertile ground of their family life for sermon material. This is, indeed, one of the benefits of having a family. But family illustrations are to be used with caution. Congregations can tire of them, and family members can be sensitive about the exposure.
One pastor’s son wrote: “Being a preacher’s kid can be embarrassing, especially if your father regularly uses you in sermon illustrations. The worst was when my brother and I starred in several hypothetical stories as well as true episodes told from the pulpit. To illustrate one point, my father created a story about the two of us shooting out the front window of a 7-Eleven with a BB gun. It never happened. I’ve never shot a BB gun. But to this day, most of the church people believe it really did happen. I dare say they forgot the point, but they didn’t forget the illustration. I know I won’t.”
So most pastors take two precautions: (1) they get permission of their family members before mentioning them in a sermon, and (2) they don’t use family members as negative examples. If an illustration makes a family member look good, it’s a candidate, but if an example is needed of failure or shortcomings, pastors find it’s better to use themselves — not family members.
“I don’t reveal anything that hurts my relationship with my wife or my kids,” said a Minneapolis pastor. “I use them most of the time to show how I was wrong and needed to learn something. For instance, I’ve told about the time when the kids were small and we were all in the car. They were restless, and I got so angry while driving that I turned around and swatted them hard. I used that as an example that, while discipline might have been needed, I was wrong in the way I did it, and I later needed to apologize to them even though they were small.”
With these guidelines in mind, however, the family can be a source of enriched sermon material.
Enhanced outreach. Many pastors have found that family life provides opportunities for outreach. Simply being a parent provides an immediate point of common interest with other parents.
Mary Manz Simon, wife of Lutheran pastor Hank Simon, points out: “A number of people have met Hank because he’s active in the public school where our children go — accompanying them on field trips, assisting as a tug-of-war captain on field day, talking to the class about his trip to Guatemala.
“For example, not long ago, we got a call from a lawyer we’d met through our children’s school. I don’t know if he’s a Christian, but he was preparing for a trial against another lawyer who’s known to quote lots of Bible verses. He asked Hank to help him find some biblical quotations on justice. So Hank prepared two pages for him. Later, the lawyer said he’d never thought of the issue of justice as a biblical concept and he’d begun spending time reading the Bible himself.
“And a mother met Hank because he often picks up the kids after school. She wasn’t going to any church, but after meeting Hank, she came to church, was baptized, and now serves on the congregation’s evangelism board. And each of our children has brought at least one family to the church.” The family can provide natural avenues to tell other people about God.
Hank Simon also has taken one of his children along when he’s making evangelism calls, initial contacts with church visitors, or passing out brochures about the church. “People who would never open a door for a man in a clerical collar will welcome somebody who’s pushing a stroller or who has a 6-year-old kid with baseball cards,” he says.
The Simons reflect the motto for their church: “A family sharing Christ.” As Mary Simon says, “And what better way to illustrate that than to have a pastor going out on calls with his kids?”
An integrity check. Many pastors admit that family life helps keep them honest. An Indiana pastor confesses: “Once when I ‘spouted off’ at home, our son quietly asked, ‘Dad, do you behave that way with the church board?’ He had me. I knew I had to readjust my patterns.”
A second way that families help maintain Christian integrity is described by Helmut Thielicke in a series of sermons, How the World Began, preached to a West German congregation in the middle 1950s. He said, “The Scriptures present the word of the Creator: ‘It is not good that man should be alone.’ It is not good, therefore, that he should be a self-contained organism which proceeds to develop itself; he must rather have a vis-á-vis, a partner, a companion, a thou. And here the Scripture touches on one of the fundamental mysteries of our life. It is remarkable — and this has become my personal conviction, confirmed at every step of the way by life itself — that I do not attain the greatest possible development of my personality when I consciously try to develop myself, when I am constantly considering, ‘Where will I have the best chance to live life to the fullest? How can I reach the maximum accomplishment, and where can I experience the greatest pleasure?’ On the contrary, I arrive at this fulfillment of my personality and my life as a whole when I do not think about it at all; but rather, when I forget myself and devote myself to someone else or something else.”
As Thielicke knew, and countless other pastors have discovered, life lived to the full is life invested in others. Both family life and church life provide plenty of opportunities for such fullness. But while the temptation of church life is to see service as a profession, a role to assume, family life provides the antidote.
As another pastor on the survey said: “My family forces me to apply truth to life, and they provide a test tube for faith. That’s where I find out if my own faith is affecting the way I live.”
Copyright ©1988 Christianity Today
