{"id":32063,"date":"2022-09-10T15:54:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/10-top-questions-from-ministry-couples-part-one\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:54:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:54:50","slug":"10-top-questions-from-ministry-couples-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/10-top-questions-from-ministry-couples-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Top Questions From Ministry Couples (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><\/div>\n<p><em>By Mark and Janet Dance<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What do ministry couples want to know? Janet and I have been fielding questions at more than 50 marriage events in the last four years, so we have a pretty good idea.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll tackle five of the toughest questions we\u2019ve ever received in this post and five more in next week\u2019s post.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>1. How do you balance life with your husband when it feels like you\u2019re competing with everything going on in the life of a pastor?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Janet:<\/strong> You don\u2019t merely feel like it\u2013you really are competing with the church. You&#8217;re helping your husband prioritize your family over your ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Early in our ministry marriage, a seasoned pastor\u2019s wife encouraged a group of wives of young ministers to <em>fight for our families<\/em>. That sometimes means having to fight against the schedules of our churches, schools, and teams.<\/p>\n<p>Lifeway Research surveyed 720 Protestant pastors\u2019 spouses, who gave us a peek into their hearts:<\/p>\n<div class='code-block code-block-1' style='margin: 8px 0;clear: both'> <\/div>\n<ul style=\"font-size:21px\">\n<li>37% don\u2019t get the attention they need from their spouse because the church needs so much.<\/li>\n<li>44% believe the church expects the needs of their family to be secondary to the church.<\/li>\n<li>1:3 feel caught in a tug of war between church and family.<\/li>\n<li>55% agree it\u2019s difficult to balance church and family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mark:<\/strong> Church members have no intention of competing with your family, but sometimes their demands are unreasonable. Although some emergencies are worthy of a family interruption, these should be exceptions, not the rule.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>2. As a pastor\u2019s wife, how do you convince your spouse it\u2019s not jealousy but a voice of reason when it comes to his interaction with other women?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Janet:<\/strong> Women know how to read other women. Even if we end up being wrong about a particular person, it\u2019s important to us that you\u2019re listening.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>3. How do you handle marital disagreements in a healthy way on Sundays?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Janet:<\/strong> Simply put, on Sunday morning, you need to do all you can to leave him to his thoughts and preparation for the upcoming services. You need to have the mindset you\u2019re on your own, even if that means you have to be a single mom on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;margin-top:0em;margin-bottom:1em\">\n<div class=\"centered-text-area\">\n<div class=\"centered-text\" style=\"float: left\">\n<div class=\"uc7b01fe57c41e500547c14ecd25c01ad-content\">See also&nbsp; 3 Practical Steps for Reaching the Mission Field in Your Neighborhood<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctaButton\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>If Sunday mornings are too chaotic to handle alone, you may have to give up certain ministries for a season of parenting. Remember he\u2019s your primary ministry. Prioritize the ministries only you can do. Somebody else can teach that class or sing on the praise team.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>4. How do you handle marital disagreements throughout the week?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Janet:<\/strong> We don\u2019t always handle disagreements healthily. We don\u2019t argue very often, and we hate it every time we do. However, we also believe working through conflict is better than avoiding it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark:<\/strong> I love the advice Janet gave to our married daughter, \u201cEvery marriage has challenges. Do you know why your dad and I have such a great marriage? Because we literally fought our way here.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>5. How can we (ministry couples) strengthen marriages in our congregation?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Pastors like to start, strengthen, and save marriages but they can sometimes get overwhelmed by the never-ending weight of the task. That\u2019s why Janet and I helped Lifeway create a new video coaching tool for churches called Woo Marriage, which launched May 15.<\/p>\n<p>This brand new digital marriage coaching resource is designed to help you prepare couples for marriage, strengthen existing marriages, and restore broken marriages.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-genesis-blocks-gb-profile-box square gb-has-avatar gb-font-size-18 gb-block-profile gb-profile-columns\">\n<div class=\"gb-profile-column gb-profile-avatar-wrap\">\n<div class=\"gb-profile-image-wrap\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gb-profile-column gb-profile-content-wrap\">\n<h2 class=\"gb-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Mark Dance<\/h2>\n<p class=\"gb-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\"><strong>@markdance<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"gb-profile-text\">\n<p>After serving as a pastor for 28 years, Mark is now the director of pastoral wellness for Guidestone Financial Resources. He frequently speaks at churches, conferences, and retreats\u2014often with his wife Janet. Read more from him at\u00a0MarkDance.net.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul class=\"gb-social-links\"><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"su-box su-box-style-default\" id=\"\" style=\"border-color:#000000;border-radius:0px\">\n<div class=\"su-box-title\" style=\"background-color:#333333;color:#FFFFFF;border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px\">Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n<div class=\"su-box-content su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"border-bottom-left-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px\">\n<div class=\"one-third first\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"two-thirds\">\n<h3>Woo Marriage<\/h3>\n<p>Christ-centered marriage coaching for your church<\/p>\n<p>  FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class='yarpp yarpp-related yarpp-related-website yarpp-template-thumbnails'>\n<h3>Related posts:<\/h3>\n<div class=\"yarpp-thumbnails-horizontal\">  What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times?  What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation?  3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mark and Janet Dance What do ministry couples want to know? Janet and I have been fielding questions at more than 50 marriage events in the last four years, so we have a pretty good idea. We\u2019ll tackle five of the toughest questions we\u2019ve ever received in this post and five more in next &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/10-top-questions-from-ministry-couples-part-one\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;10 Top Questions From Ministry Couples (Part One)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}