What’s in this Episode?

Do you remember where you were at when you first saw that guy or girl and you said yourself, “hmm, I could live the rest of my life with that one.” Well what happens after years of ministry and marriage? Well in this episode, we’re going to talk about how a pastor can keep a strong marriage relationship after years of ministry. Here is how a pastor can grow the relationship with their spouse.

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Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:21
Back when I was in college, I had the privilege of being part of a small church that was located in our community, Cedar Falls, Iowa. And I’d go over to see the pastor and his wife after… well, we go to church on Sunday night. They’d always have me over for dessert or something because it didn’t serve any food and the caf. So I’m over there one night, and I’m looked through their wedding album. Now I’m a freshman in college. And I’m looking at the gal standing up with the pastor’s wife and I said, “hey, who’s this tall redhead on the end of the line?” “Well, that’s my sister, Pat.” “Really?” “So how old is she?” “Well, she’s 18.” “Well, I’m 18! She’s tall, I’m tall, let’s make something happen here!” So fast forward, they took me down to meet Pat Majeske on a blind date. And the rest is history. Four and a half years later, we got married. And then about four years after that, along comes this guy, boom. So the reality is, it’s been 43 years since I said, “I do,” to Pat Majeske. And I jokingly said, to tell people 43 of the best years of my life 38 and a half of the best of her life, but the reality is the union of a man and a woman together as they start into ministry, can in large part determine where that ministry is going to go. Because if it is solid, based in Scripture and doing the things the Lord says to do, that husband and wife are gonna be able to go forward and do some amazing things that wouldn’t happen otherwise if there were conflict in the home. Now, Jonathan did… coming up on what? 11 years? Coming up here at the point we’re doing this and gave me the number one daughter-in-law on the planet. So you are the wise sage. So why don’t you give me, dad, and all these people watching great tips, huh? Come on. But really, there are some fundamental things that we think will help you. As you strengthen the marriage The Lord has given you that, in turn, sets you up for success.

Jonathan Hardy 2:28
And this is so important because the enemy, the moment you got married, and the moment you entered ministry, the bullseye on your back just got bigger and bigger and bigger and it’s continuing to be that way and the enemy wants to do whatever he can to stop us and we hear all the time of ministry failures, things that go wrong, pastors that slip up, and it’s their marriages. And it’s all in the home. And that’s why we want to take today just to share, hey, this is what’s going to help you make sure you can continue to reach more people, and if we don’t do these things, then it’s going to stifle the growth of the church and the ability for the ministry to have the impact that God wants it to have. So with that being said, let’s jump in, we’re going to jump in, and we’re going to actually give Six Best Practices for Pastors to Grow the Relationship with their spouse.

Best Practice #1: Be Grateful and Humble

Jonathan Hardy 3:15
The first thing is simply this: to be grateful and to be humble. We have to make sure we never lose that gratitude. We don’t want to ever take for granted what we have at home, every day, every night when when we come home from work or whatever it looks like for you. We want to make sure that we’re thankful and that we’re, you know, just as we teach our kids to be thankful, you know, I’m constantly pounding my kids, you know, say thank you, be thankful, you know, when someone gives them something, or whatever. Well, the same thing is true for us. We got to make sure in our hearts and our minds, we don’t take for granted the spouse that God has given us. And because it’s, you know what it’s like. Well, we all probably know what it’s like. You just get in the motions and life happens and if we don’t stop and say, “okay, hey, I’m gonna be grateful to be humble about this marriage,” we don’t want to be arrogant. We don’t want to go home into this marriage every night after you’re doing ministry stuff. And you know where we’ve got this arrogance about us. We’ve got to make sure that we keep our heart and our life in the right place.

Best Practice #2: Regularly Acknowledge the Spouse of your Youth

Dick Hardy 4:17
Exactly, exactly. The second one actually dovetails right off of that, is regularly acknowledge the spouse of your youth. There’s a verse, Proverbs 5:18, that talks about the importance for you to rejoice in the wife of your youth was the term there, but the spouse of your youth. Bumps are going to come in marriage. I’m going to bet you’ve had one or two in 11 years, I’ve had well more than that in 43 years, but our spouses have been wanting to roll with the punch with us and we are very, very grateful for this. Let me tell you as an older… I’m not sure like that term, the older of the two of us! Let me tell you, over time, you know, physical characteristics change. I didn’t have gray hair when I started. And, you know, my wife still doesn’t have gray hair. I don’t know how that happens. But the reality is physical traits change. And the enemy again, Jonathan referenced this, the enemy would love nothing more than to communicate to you as a pastor and a leader, that that spouse is really kind of worn out. So what is the world say? The world says, get rid of them. And get a new one.

Jonathan Hardy 5:28
Yeah, you’ll get the new version.

Dick Hardy 5:29
Go get the new version. And we all know. We all know this cognitively. But to get this in our spirit to rejoice in the wife or the spouse of your youth, all the time, when bumps happen, I’m grateful for what the Lord gave me in 1977. Jonathan’s grateful for the wife, the Lord gave him in 2009. Be grateful all the time, and when you’ll do that, you’re going to see, you’re going to be positioned to be able to work in ministry with a clean slate on the home front.

Best Practice #3: Defer to one Another

Jonathan Hardy 6:00
Yep. Okay, number three is to defer to one another. You know, hey, life isn’t about just us. And obviously we know once we enter that marriage relationship that we’re to serve, and we’re, you know, we’re to look to our spouse, you know, just as much if not more than above ourselves. And so we need to make sure that in our life and in our marriage, we are deferring to one another. And so if you might have a conflict or if there’s some tension in the home, we have to go to that spouse and say, “hey, okay, well what do you want?” “What’s gonna be best for them?” “How can I help you?” And make sure that we defer to your spouse and really make sure that you set aside any pride that you would have or arrogance or you know, your own agenda or your own, you know, goals that you’re trying to make happen and instead say, “hey, let me empathize with this situation.” Let’s make sure that I put my spouse first in everything.

Best Practice #4: Play to your Spouse’s Love Language

Dick Hardy 6:56
Exactly, exactly. And number four, is to play to your spouse’s love language. And Gary Chapman was the one who made these love languages so prominent in the church world, Christian world and world in general. The five love languages are the words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. Now, you’ve got to pay attention to your spouse’s love language, not your love language. And my wife and I have different love languages. And I want her to focus on my love language. My problem is, when I focus on her, I’m too often focusing on my love language that doesn’t work with her. So it’s all about the difference that we just talked about. Focus in on your spouse’s love language, and you’re going to see good things happen going forward.

Best Practice #5: Speak Well of your Spouse in Public

Dick Hardy 7:54
Number five, is to speak well of your spouse in public. I’ve seen this, not a lot of times, but I’ve seen it, where I’ve listened to, in this case, a husband, say something negative about their wife. And I just cringe, particularly if she hears it, because it is so demeaning. What you want to do is you want to be saying positive things about your spouse all the time in public. Granted, you have bumps, granted they’re not perfect, you’re not perfect, but the power of the tongue. What you say is going to have a profound impact on how strong that marriage is. You speak life, you’ll get life, speak death, you’ll get death. Always speak life in public.

Jonathan Hardy 8:48
Yeah, and this is one of those great examples where the enemy, that’s what he wants, you know, he wants to create some division. And not only would that be creating division with you and the spouse, but it’s also creating division in the church, if it’s public, and they say, “well, there’s you know, some things are going on there.

Dick Hardy 9:01
And you’re modeling wrong. If you speak well, you’ll model correctly.

Best Practice #6: Pray for your Spouse Everyday

Jonathan Hardy 9:07
Okay. Sixth, and finally is to pray for your spouse everyday. Man, you have to be praying every day. And we know this to be true. But you know, life happens. And so we just encourage you, be praying for your spouse, the thing the enemy wants is for you not to pray for your spouse, because the enemy wants to cause division among your home. Because then once there’s division in the home, then that’s going to infiltrate into the church as a whole. And so we got to make sure that we’re unified and that happens through prayer for one another. So be praying for your spouse every single day.

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 9:35
Let me give a quick recap. The six things that we suggest today is to be grateful and humble, to regularly acknowledge the spouse of your youth, to defer to one another, to play to your spouse’s love language. Then fifth is to speak well of your spouse in public. And sixth, and finally, pray for your spouse every day. When you put these best practices into place, it’s going to help you and your spouse continue to grow and it’s going to minimize the ability for there to be division and for the enemy to work, even though we know that the enemy has something he’s trying to do in hindering the work of the ministry. And this all is so important, because God wants to grow the church. He wants more and more people to come to know him, but if our marriage is not where it needs to be, that could be a potential hindrance for us being effective in ministry.

Dick Hardy 10:23
Exactly.

Jonathan Hardy 10:24
Well, one of the best ways to keep growing is to grow as a personal leader, and that’s going to help you then, not only with your marriage life, but your leadership life, your influence in all your relationships. And so that’s why we always encourage you to keep growing as leader because we know growing churches are led by growing leaders and so that means you have to keep growing. And one of the ways you can do that is through the Four Secrets that Pastors Can use to Lead the Church. This is a masterclass I put together. That is less than an hour long you can sign up at leaders.church/secrets. Again, that’s leaders.church/secrets. Go there, you can sign up. And it’s less than an hour to get access to this masterclass that will really help you go to the next level, not only just with, you know leading in your home, but leading in life. And so we want to encourage you to do that. As well, please rate and review this podcast. We would love to hear your feedback. In fact, we have a review we wanted to read today from Pastor Jack H, “great ideas and workable plans. Fantastic, easy to follow directions to help us stay sharp and refreshed.” Well, hey, that’s great to hear. Thank you pastor Jack H for that review. And we would love to share your review! Please write the review and we’ll be sure to get it added into the queue and share that when we can. And also please subscribe. We want to have you subscribe on podcast platforms or on YouTube, wherever it is that you’re listening or watching to this. We would be honored to have you subscribe. And with that being the case, thank you so much for being with us today. We will look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.

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