I receive dozens of emails from pastors each week. This one caught my attention and I asked permission to use it here.  Hopefully others will benefit from my response and weigh in with their own thoughts. I have changed his name.

Ron,

I hope all is well with you. I frequent your blogs ever so often via twitter, which I do enjoy. the reason for this email is for some direction. It is my belief that the Lord has called me to be a pastor, however I am presently single. I wanted to find out what are some of the qualities one should look for and how should I go about finding a wife as a future pastor. I have been keeping the issue in prayer.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Mike

Dear Mike,

Most likely you will not be able to pick every expectation or qualification you have for a spouse.  I think is is wise, however, to have a goal. You are more likely to reach a target for which you aim.  With that in mind,

Here are 7 qualities I believe make up the ideal pastor’s wife:

Your biggest supporter. You should be hers too, but as a man in your position it is critical.  People will be less likely to support you if your wife doesn’t. Is she able to respect you in public enough not to criticize you in front of others?  Nothing would be more damaging to your ministry.  Ministry is hard on a marriage. Some days are harder than others. You’ll need to know there is one person always in your corner.

Obedient to the call of God regardless of the costs. Is she willing to walk by faith?  It will be required many times.

Visible and active in the ministry and/or church and looking to partner with you in ministry. I don’t believe the pastor’s wife should be everywhere, especially at the expense of her family, but the church should know she is a real person facing life’s struggles like the rest of the church.  Serving together because of a common love for Christ and a combined vision for ministry will help protect your marriage during difficult days.

Friendly and welcoming personality. Do people like her?  Does she have a genuine love for people, even those who at the time are harder to love?  This will be tested.

Completes you by filling in your weaknesses. Your ministry will be strengthened as “the two become one” and God uses each of your strengths to  blend a stronger team. Do your strengths compliment each other?

Less concerned about the material things of the world and more concerned about things eternal. This is a critical test for the life of a pastor’s wife. It is many times a life of sacrifice. This does not mean you can’t have or even enjoy nice things, but the source of real joy should come from the things money can never buy. There may be seasons of ministry where God calls you to real faith-testing and strengthening experiences with your finances. Will she remain faithful and committed during these times?

Loves Jesus more than you. If you need this one explained you may be in the wrong profession.

The easiest way for me to put this is that you should pick one like mine.  Cheryl is the perfect pastor’s wife. Of course, she is not available, but at least you have my standard for which you can set your ambitions. Praying for you as you have spiritual eyes and discernment.

As to where, that’s a tough one.  I don’t think location is as important as the heart with which you approach the search. When that is right it seems God will be much more willing to be in tune with the process and give you eyes to see. Perhaps my readers will have some suggestions.

Where’s the best place for singles (especially single pastors) to meet people today?

And, do you have any qualities you would add to my list for “Mike”?

Winners announced:

@alyssaglick

@bradshim

@heartcures

@kennyinnes

Send me your address and I’ll get you a book. Thanks for reading!

Last week I wrote about living with introversion in the ministry.  You can read

7 Pitfalls of Being an Introverted Pastor

and

7 Ways I Work with Introversion to Protect My Ministry

Each of these posts, and every post I ever do about introversion, creates interest from those who share this part of my personality.  I had several people at church this week comment on the posts.  Apparently, this is an issue worth talking about more!

In an effort to help people, my online friend Adam McHugh, who writes a blog called Introverted Church, is offering his book Introverts in the Church to my readers.

Introverts in the Church is a well-written, helpful and practical book that addresses this issue, which has long been avoided.  Introverts will find themselves encouraged and that they do have a role in the church.  Extroverts will discover some keys to ministering among the introverts.  You do not want to miss this book.

If you would like to win a copy of Introverts in the Church, I am giving away three (3) copies today.

For a chance to win:

1. Comment on this post with your name and/or Twitter name
2. Just for fun, but not mandatory, do you think you are introverted or extraverted?
3. RT this post with something such as “Introverts in the Church giveaway today from @RonEdmondson http://bit.ly/cJlfdx”

I will choose three (3) winners after 9 PM CST today.

Thanks and best wishes!

Just discovered this Ted video with Billy Graham talking about technology and faith. He’s humorous, engaging, and shares an interesting perspective about how to deal with technology in the future. He’s talking to a secular audience in 1998, but his words are still practical and helpful. The most encouraging part to me was to see the boldness of his talk in the midst of such a crowd.

Enjoy some time listening to this honored man:

Do you have a story or favorite memory of Billy Graham?

Pastor burnout is a common problem in the church today.  I hear from pastors everyday facing the stress of ministry.

Here’s a common scenario that can cause that to happen…or pieces of this scenario…these may be the most common one I hear…perhaps this is your story:

• The church gets to a certain level
• Things start to slow down
• The church stops growing
• Maybe even slides backwards for a while…
• Money becomes tighter…
• People are complaining more it seems…
• Everyone is asking the pastor “What’s next?”  ”What do we do now?”
• You’ve done everything you know how to do…
• You feel stuck…trapped…afraid…paralyzed…confused…overwhelmed…

If not careful, the stress will quickly cause the pastor to:

• Stop reading and learning techniques and strategies
• Stop trying anything new
• Quit taking risks
• Quit expecting God to move
• Become protective…maybe even isolated..
• Become more sensitive to criticism and stress…

If this is your story, I have a few words of encouragement:

• Get help now…That may be professional or not, but ask for help today!  You wouldn’t encourage the people you lead to do life alone…so why is it a good idea for you?
• Surround yourself with people...not the opposite, which is the usual response to times like this…especially it seems by pastors.  Find people who love you…they are there if you look.
• Find your center of gravity again…(Most likely that is Christ…right?)
• Get back to the truth you already know...  You may start by reading 1 Kings 19 for another time one of God’s servants fell on difficult times.
• Renew the passion for your vision… God called you to something.  He never said it would be easy.  God-given dreams rarely are.
• Start doing something towards a goal...  Inactivity never solved anything. Waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing (Read another post with that thought HERE.)
• Look for some small wins…  It will help rebuild your confidence.  (Read another post with that thought HERE.)
• Stay faithful in the small things… and God will once again bring the bigger victories.  (Read Matthew 25:21)

I’d love to hear from you if this is your story.  You can comment here (which will encourage others also) or you can send me an email to ron.edmondson@gmail.com

Thanks for serving…even when the serving gets difficult.

For more encouragement, read THIS POST, and THIS POST and perhaps the suggested posts below this one.

I am often confronted with issues where one person has wronged another person.  At times people expect me, as the pastor, to enforce morals on people in order to change them.  Some how they believe if I talk to them, I can “force” them to change their ways.

I have learned one principle well.  Rules never change people.

It doesn’t matter how many you have, how strictly you enforce them, or even how loyal people are to obey them.  Rules alone never change a person.  Rules are often necessary to protect and bring order to chaos, but for people to change a heart has to change.

Heart changes change people, not rules.  Jesus working in a person’s life changes people, not more rules.

You may even be able to force someone to obey the rules…for a time, but compliance alone never indicates a true change of heart.

If you want me to speak to someone’s heart, I will.  If you want me to introduce them to Jesus, I would love to, but please don’t expect me to place rules on them that they will most likely not obey and that certainly will never truly change them.

Have you tried to change people with rules?  Did it work?

School is back in session. Summer is drawing to a close. The excitement of fall, though not evident in the weather yet, is in the air at Grace Community Church. We launch a new series this week and it’s one I’m very excited about, because I sense the need so strongly.

5ive is a series about five hidden killers of our walk with Christ. These are things we may try to pretend don’t exist in our life, but if we are honest, we know they can destroy our joy, peace, and quality of life with God and others.

Do you struggle most with guilt, anger, jealousy, greed or pride?

Don’t worry…we won’t make you tell us, but take your pick and each week we will address another issue.

This is the series you will not want to miss…and one to which you’ll want to invite your friends.

Join us as we learn some principles to guide our hearts and lives to better places.

Elijah had been used of God to hold back rain from the people for over 3 years, because of their sins. Obviously, he was not well liked as a preacher. I can only imagine the stress he experienced during those years. Something struck me recently, however, that seemed to further complicate Elijah’s situation.

Consider 1 Kings 18:1 “After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.”

According to a couple NT passages, this “After a long time” was actually 3 ½ years. The famine was 3 ½ years long. For 3 ½ years, the people apparently continued to sin, Elijah continued to hold on by faith, but God said nothing. God was apparently inactive, not speaking, even to His great servant Elijah.

Have you ever been there? Has the silence of God in your life ever been eerily strong?

Imagine you had been faithfully serving…God is using you…you are in constant communication with Him…and then suddenly…everything is quiet.

The separation must have seemed unbearable. Elijah is un-liked and unpopular; he’s an outcast from the people and the One he trusted most was seemingly absent. God would soon do a miracle through Elijah, but during this period, all Elijah could do was wait.

If you have been believer for very long at all, you have had periods where it seems God is nowhere to be found. We often call them periods of spiritual dryness. Sometimes I refer to it as being in a spiritual funk.

What should we do during the times of silence, before the miracles of God come through for us?

If you are like me, you can figure out how to celebrate a miracle. You don’t need much help doing that. The tough part of life is figuring out what to do during the years of silence; during the years when miracles are nowhere to be found.

What do we do during the spiritual dry periods of life when we don’t hear clearly the voice of God?

Here are 7 actions I encourage you to consider:

Don’t ignore the silence…
Some of the biggest moves God has made in my life have come after a period of spiritual dryness; when it seemed like God was doing nothing in my life. Stay very close to God and watch for His power to be displayed.

Confront known sin in your life
This wasn’t the problem of silence for Elijah, but the problem for the Israelites was that they were chasing after other gods and living lives in total disobedience to God. Sin may not be the reason you don’t sense closeness to God right now, but if you have known sin in your life it will affect your intimacy with God.

Go back to what you know
Get back to the basics of the faith that saved you. You’ll do it 100’s of times in your life, but you must remind yourselves of the basis of faith. God is in control. He really is…even when it doesn’t seem that He is anywhere to be found.

Make a decision…Choose sides
You can’t adequately serve God and the world. Something happens in life, often sin, or busyness, or boredom, or a tragedy…but if we are normal, we have periods where we grow away from our close relationship with God. God hasn’t moved, but if you’ve shifted in your obedience, get back securely on the right side.

Trust More…Not less
Times of silence may be filled with fear, but these times will definitely require more faith. Times come in our spiritual life when our enthusiasm isn’t as real as when we began our walk with God. That’s not an indication to quit…it may be that God is using that time for something bigger than you could have imagined, but it will require a deeper level of trust.

Listen and Watch Closely
Some day God is going to make His plans known to you. Don’t miss them. He may come to your personally, through His Word, circumstances or another person. You’ll need to be in a position to know that God is moving. (Read THIS POST if you need help discerning God’s will.)

Get ready to receive
God will break the silence some day…and when He does….it WILL be good. If you mope around in your sorrows, you’ll be less prepared to receive the good things to come. Not because of your circumstances, but because of your faith, clothe yourself in joy as you wait for God to bless you after the period of silence.

Are you in one of those periods of silence today? How do you handle these periods of time?

I have the opportunity to sit with many people who are experiencing disappointment in life. Many times, even when we are doing the best we know how, we find ourselves disappointed with where we find ourselves in life at the time…

• We don’t get the job…
• The ministry doesn’t appear to be working…
• The marriage unravels…
• The children go astray…
• The business fails…
• The spouse cheats…

Having faced disappointment many times in life, I’ve learned a few things about handling these times.

Here are 7 pieces of wisdom for the disappointments of life:

Keep your heart close to God during times of disappointment. God is most likely at work in ways you cannot presently see or understand. Often disappointment ushers in some of the greatest seasons of God for your life.  Don’t miss it by not listening to Him.

Wait for your emotions to heal before you make major decisions. We tend to make irrational decisions immediately following times of disappointment.  Let some time pass and make sure you are thinking rational again before you implement major changes in your life.

Don’t quit until the next thing comes.  While you shouldn’t make major changes, an equally dangerous tendency to give up or stall until the next opportunity arrives or lives gets “easier”.  You may need a resting period, but keep your mind and hands busy doing what there is to do today.  It will help protect your heart and mind from the attack of fears and doubts.

Don’t allow a disappointment to determine your sense of self-worth. Let God and the people who know you best help determine that.   You don’t have to be defined by your disappointment.

You are not alone, even though it may feel that way. Disappointments are a part of everyone’s experience.  There is likely someone who has experienced the same type disappointment.  Don’t be afraid to find them and let them walk through this period with you.

Learn everything you can from this period. We learn some of life’s best lessons during times of failure and disappointment.  Don’t miss the value of experience.  (For more on this thought, read THIS POST.)

Move forward when the next opportunity presents itself. Too many people become paralyzed after a period of disappointment, refusing to ever move forward again.  Living an abundant life requires risk-taking.  You will have to walk by faith again if you ever hope to escape the moment of disappointment.

Learning how to handle disappointments will make your life better and help you grow during these times.

What wisdom have you gleaned from times of disappointment?

Someone recently pointed out to me a principle they had always believed, until it didn’t come true for them. They were disappointed in the principle. I had to remind myself of yet another principle. Principles are great, but they aren’t promises; they are principles.

I love principles. I believe in them. I write about them. I even attempt to live my life by some of them.

But principles of men aren’t guaranteed to come true.

You can count on the promises of God, but don’t expect the principles of men to work every time. The truth is that life happens…and sometimes life is more powerful than a principle.

Take one famous John Maxwell principle (I know…how dare I pick on one of his principles…and he’s one of my heroes of leadership…but just for example…please don’t tell him)

Principle: No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

That is true…unless you are a detective on a murder crime investigation. If you find a witness, you don’t care how much they care…you just want to know how much they know.

Principles are excellent. I love them. I write about them. I practice them. As I observe life, I even write some of them.

But real life can overpower principles. Principles can’t always overcome reality. The environment, other people, and circumstances will play a part in writing your end story, in spite of the principle you live by.

Don’t base your life on principles of man. Base your life on the promises of God. In them, you’ll never be disappointed.

Can you think of other principles of men that may not always be true?

Ben Reed is our community groups pastor at Grace Community Church.  He’s responsible for overseeing the spiritual formation and discipleship process that happens through groups at our church.  (He’s doing an amazing job and is a great leader too!)  We are both frequently asked to review small group materials.  He does more of that than me, but this is a case where we are both friends with the author.  With that in mind, Ben is guest posting here today to review Holy Vocabulary, by Michael Kelley.

Here’s Ben’s review:

When I picked up a copy of Michael Kelley’s new Threads study, Holy Vocabulary, my first thought was about Batman.  All I could think when I saw the front cover was, ” Holy Toledo, Batman!”  I’m sure I was the only one on the planet who read the cover as, “Holy Vocabulary, Michael Kelley!”  But I did.  And now you do, too.  You’re welcome.

I read a lot of small group curriculums.  And this one really caught my eye.

“Why Holy Vocabulary?  Because I have the tendency to use a lot of words when I dialogue about my faith without considering what they mean.  I assume that everyone speaks the language of the Christian subculture, so I don’t have to think about what ‘sin’ is or what it means to ‘repent.’   Except I do have to think about it, and you do, too.” – p. 7

I grew up going to church every week.  The doctrines of the faith and the accompanying slew of “insider” language were engrained in me through Sunday School, Bible drill, vacation Bible school, youth camps, Royal Ambassadors (which, for the record, I never really enjoyed), small groups, large groups, and the various plethora of cassette tapes that hung in the hallway on the way into the sanctuary.  After college, I went to seminary…which was good, but which filled me with an even deeper level of “insider” language.  And I found that when I preached, I used this “holy vocabulary” so much that I would quickly alienate those I was seeking to minister to.

Kelley addresses 7 categories of the Christian faith  in this curriculum…because that’s a good Christian’s favorite number, right?  He talks about:  God, Humanity, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Church, End Times, and Scripture.  Within each of the categories, he addresses 5 words that are commonly thrown around in Christian circles.  This helps the reader to view these “insider” words within the context of a broader category of faith.

I really like the layout of this curriculum.  Each week’s category ends with a “Read. Think. Discuss.” section that helps you to process through that day’s study on an individual level.  Then, when you gather together with your small group, you can discuss what you’ve been working through throughout the week.  So it’s the idea that you’re working on your own spiritual growth…collectively.

I see this study being helpful for long-time followers of Christ.  I’d count myself in that category.  If you’ve been around a while, you’ve picked up on the language.  And the scary part is that you probably don’t even realize that you’re saying words that make your message inaccessible to the outside world.  Kelley helps you come back to reality.

I also see this study being helpful for new followers of Christ.  From an outsider’s perspective looking in, I’m sure that lots of what is said and done in local churches seems odd.  But don’t let that keep you on the outside looking in!  Much of what goes on in churches is rich with history and meaning.  You’d do yourself a great favor by reading and working through Holy Vocabulary.

I hope that church leaders read this curriculum, and are reminded that our language can keep those outside the faith…outside the faith.  And that we need to strive to use words that are accessible AND communicate the Truth. (I know that God’s the one who saves…don’t roast me there…but I also know that He uses language in that process; thus, we need to choose our words wisely)

This study really can help your small group quickly get on the same page about the foundational truths (and their meanings) of our Christian faith.  You can pick up a copy HERE.

To win a copy of this study for yourself, click over to Ben’s blog HERE for details.