Balancing Family and Ministry

Every youth pastor we’ve ever met has had to figure out a faithful approach to balancing family and ministry. You and I both know it’s not a simple question, and you’re often aiming at a moving target. But, our calling as husbands, dads, and youth pastors is more than worth the effort.

Jonge Tate, long-time youth pastor, church planter, dad, and husband, joined us at a previous youth ministry conference to share some of his experiences, failures, and wisdom. Let’s dig in.

How can I foster healthy balance and boundaries for my family, while still serving how God has called me to?

My wife and I have been married for 20 years and we have four kids, and in that time I’ve learned it is better to use the word blend instead of balance. I say that because I’ve tried balancing before, and for my family, it never works.

At the end of the day, I’m very passionate about ministry, and you are too. I think constantly, “You’re going to pay me to do this?!” And that is truly crazy to think about.

But as much as I love ministry, there are priorities in my life.

When I proposed to my wife 21 years ago, I said to her, “You will always be number two in my life, Jesus will always be number one. I need you to know that right out of the gate, but I promise you that my number two will be better than everybody else’s number one.”

Oh, baby! That was good, wasn’t it?

And I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to live up to that. 20 years, trying to follow those guard rails.

Establish Your Top Priorities

The qualifications for those who are in an overseas situation in ministry are a husband and one wife, some personal characteristics and leading your family well.

Leading your family is first and foremost, because if you can’t lead your family well, then you’ve got no business to be involved in leadership in any fashion whatsoever within the church. I was very bold about that in every situation I was in, you all need to understand that if I come to be the student pastor here, or if you desire me to come on staff anywhere, you are going to be a very distant fourth priority in my life.

Jesus will always be my number one, my wife is number two, my kids are three, and you will be four. If there’s ever an issue with the first three, I’m out on number four, and in every situation that I have been in, the churches have found that very refreshing, like, many have said “Thank you for taking that stand, because we’ve certainly seen the other side of that, we know what that looks like.” Now, have I always gotten it right? No.

The church planting world for us was very difficult, because now she’s at home with four babies, and I’m passionate about cultivating something new in a new community, and then we’re birthing new churches.

Our goal was to plant more and more churches, we’re gonna celebrate 10 years this September and nine autonomous church plants from Bozeman, Montana to Florida to Somoto in Nicaragua, and they’re all autonomous, it’s not my face on a screen somewhere.

Love Christ, Love your Bride

I’m not opposed to preaching through a screen, God just hasn’t called me to that. In fact, in the midst of launching church number three, my wife came to me during what we call “lid time” on Sunday nights, when both our calendars come open and we ask, “What does this week look like?”. She said to me then, “I need to talk to you about Psalms 46:10.” Which says,

‘Be still and know that God is God. Be still and know that He is exalted among the nations.’

She said, “I want to put our family in that. I feel distant, and I’m disconnected.”

Now, truth be told, I wish I could say that I was just filled with warmth for her at that moment, but truthfully the hairs on the back of my head began to stand up, and I was thinking, “I’m fine, what’s wrong with you?”

But I had just enough brains to not say that and realize that my feelings about what she just said were irrelevant, what mattered was that my bride, whom God had called me to first, had just opened up to me, and we needed to set some things in place.

One of my mentors said to me, “Date weekly, retreat quarterly, vacation yearly.” We don’t always get that right, but it’s something that we really try to put in place.

A.W. Tozer’s Failure to Love His Wife

If I could give you something that has really been a bombshell for my wife and I, that we’ve really tried to listen to, I’d tell you about a guy by the name of Lyle Dorsett who wrote a book called A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of AW Tozer. (AW Tozer is where we get Pursuit of God, The Knowledge of the Holy, all of that deep stuff.)

The most damning statement in the book came from Ada, who was Tozer’s wife. After Tozer died, she remarried and she said,

“I have never been happier in my life. Aiden Tozer loved Jesus Christ, but Leonard Odam loves me.”

You can go a long way with that.

I want my wife to know that I love Jesus most, but I love her more than anything.

Blend Family and Ministry to Enrich Them Both

And so we choose to blend ministry versus trying to balance it. Incorporating what we do out of those first three in my life, the number four is an overflow of what’s happening in my life and in my family.

This session was originally published in 2018 as part of a Q&A session at the Iron on Iron Youth Ministry Conference. Click here to listen to the entire discussion.