1Ti 3:2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
1Ti 3:3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
1Ti 3:4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive,
1Ti 3:5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
This morning I got up and played “Farm Animals” with my kids. It got me thinking that perhaps starting the day with them is the most important thing I can do as a Christian Minister. I say this as I notice that so many of our Christian young leaders are becoming husbands and Dads at the moment in our community. The one thing you must remember as a father, as a husband that you are a minister first in your own home, then in your community and Church.
I've heard men in ministry say “if I could just reach one person for Christ it would be worth it”. To them I say, “reach your kids first for Christ and you will always have reached at least one”. This text above tells us that to be a Christian leader you have to already have your role as a minister in your own home established. If you do not, as this text says, how can you properly manage the local Church?
It's easy to let your entire identity be wrapped up in your Church work. It's easy to schedule meetings every night, to go on every youth and children's excursion, etc. On top of this, we in Christian ministry are encouraged to get involved in community groups and to spend time with our neighbours. We can easily become so wrapped up in serving the Lord in Church, and building up our local Church, that we forget that first we must serve God in our own home.
We can easily find ourselves spending more time sharing the Gospel with other people's kids than our own, spending more time in social setting and fun activities with other people's families than our own. We can spend more time talking to people about their marriages than we talk to our wives about our own marriages. We may find that we serve in our community, making meals, planning events, doing volunteer work, more often than we do that stuff around our own homes.
The most common justification I hear for the above is either (among ministers) a desire to bring revival into the community or (among youth leaders) to raise up a new generation of Christian leaders. Both of those things, we can do in your own home.
Our desire should be to secure the salvation of our own kids before we share salvation with other people's kids. Better yet, to make a more lasting impact, would be to teach and model other parents how to be parents who pass on salvation to their kids, rather than us trying to parent other peoples kids, so that we, ministers, youth leaders, and elders, can have time to raise our own kids.
In the case of our marriage our desire should be to love our wives as Christ loved the Church (Christ came to serve the Church not to be served) before we try to teach other's how to build their own strong marriages.
Our families are not part of our ministry. Our kids are not sermon fodder. They are not hindrances, kids we have to drag along to meetings, or time stealers who take us away from doing what we often wrongly assume is our “real ministry”. They are not immediate successors, pastors in training, or impromptu youth ministers. Our wives are not ministry support personelle (unless they are paid to do so). They are not designated “heads of household” because we are too busy doing ministry to deal with home. They are not there for our service to make it possible that we can minister in the Church. No, they are our ministry, first and foremost. Men, we are heads of our household, there to serve and minister to our household, while Christ is the head of the Church. So we must minister first in in homes, serving our wives. Yes, that might mean doing the dishes from time to time, changing nappies, cooking meals, giving our wives a break. Not coming home and falling on the couch ready to be served, because we brought home the bacon and deserve it. Serving in our homes is our primary job, when we come home that should be when the real work begins.
We minister first in our homes by mentoring and discipling our Children. If we teach RE or Sunday School we should be spending equal or more time doing the same in our homes. If we lead worship and teach Bible Studies we should be leading worship in our homes and teaching the Bible to our kids around the dinner table or in the living room. If we hang out with kids in the local School during the day we should be hanging out with our own kids in school. If we organise games and play sports with kids from the community we better be doing the same with our own kids.
There is an order set forth in this text and that order is that you cannot begin to consider ministry in the Church until you first establish a Christian ministry in your home.
1Ti 3:3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
1Ti 3:4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive,
1Ti 3:5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
This morning I got up and played “Farm Animals” with my kids. It got me thinking that perhaps starting the day with them is the most important thing I can do as a Christian Minister. I say this as I notice that so many of our Christian young leaders are becoming husbands and Dads at the moment in our community. The one thing you must remember as a father, as a husband that you are a minister first in your own home, then in your community and Church.
I've heard men in ministry say “if I could just reach one person for Christ it would be worth it”. To them I say, “reach your kids first for Christ and you will always have reached at least one”. This text above tells us that to be a Christian leader you have to already have your role as a minister in your own home established. If you do not, as this text says, how can you properly manage the local Church?
It's easy to let your entire identity be wrapped up in your Church work. It's easy to schedule meetings every night, to go on every youth and children's excursion, etc. On top of this, we in Christian ministry are encouraged to get involved in community groups and to spend time with our neighbours. We can easily become so wrapped up in serving the Lord in Church, and building up our local Church, that we forget that first we must serve God in our own home.
We can easily find ourselves spending more time sharing the Gospel with other people's kids than our own, spending more time in social setting and fun activities with other people's families than our own. We can spend more time talking to people about their marriages than we talk to our wives about our own marriages. We may find that we serve in our community, making meals, planning events, doing volunteer work, more often than we do that stuff around our own homes.
The most common justification I hear for the above is either (among ministers) a desire to bring revival into the community or (among youth leaders) to raise up a new generation of Christian leaders. Both of those things, we can do in your own home.
Our desire should be to secure the salvation of our own kids before we share salvation with other people's kids. Better yet, to make a more lasting impact, would be to teach and model other parents how to be parents who pass on salvation to their kids, rather than us trying to parent other peoples kids, so that we, ministers, youth leaders, and elders, can have time to raise our own kids.
In the case of our marriage our desire should be to love our wives as Christ loved the Church (Christ came to serve the Church not to be served) before we try to teach other's how to build their own strong marriages.
Our families are not part of our ministry. Our kids are not sermon fodder. They are not hindrances, kids we have to drag along to meetings, or time stealers who take us away from doing what we often wrongly assume is our “real ministry”. They are not immediate successors, pastors in training, or impromptu youth ministers. Our wives are not ministry support personelle (unless they are paid to do so). They are not designated “heads of household” because we are too busy doing ministry to deal with home. They are not there for our service to make it possible that we can minister in the Church. No, they are our ministry, first and foremost. Men, we are heads of our household, there to serve and minister to our household, while Christ is the head of the Church. So we must minister first in in homes, serving our wives. Yes, that might mean doing the dishes from time to time, changing nappies, cooking meals, giving our wives a break. Not coming home and falling on the couch ready to be served, because we brought home the bacon and deserve it. Serving in our homes is our primary job, when we come home that should be when the real work begins.
We minister first in our homes by mentoring and discipling our Children. If we teach RE or Sunday School we should be spending equal or more time doing the same in our homes. If we lead worship and teach Bible Studies we should be leading worship in our homes and teaching the Bible to our kids around the dinner table or in the living room. If we hang out with kids in the local School during the day we should be hanging out with our own kids in school. If we organise games and play sports with kids from the community we better be doing the same with our own kids.
There is an order set forth in this text and that order is that you cannot begin to consider ministry in the Church until you first establish a Christian ministry in your home.