Marriage & Mission

“We Need Help.”

I know that not everyone reading right now is married. You’ll be okay this time. I also know that if you are married and if you are a ministry leader and if your marriage is humming along right now, you are in a distinct minority. Healthy marriage and fruitful ministry can seem an elusive combination!

Compartmentalization. Escape. Defeat. Too often, they win the day over…

• Honoring partner/spouse.
• Anchoring marriage strength.
• Leveraging marriage… Leading from it.

Leaders too quickly settle. Marriages settle. Spouses shrink back. For leaders, oftentimes their shadow side (and the Evil One?) sabotages marital vibrancy and, as a result, mission effectiveness.

I think you probably gotta get this book!

Tom and Sandi’s transparency and naked honesty in the early chapters of this book were like a mirror reflecting a couple of unsightly shadows in me that were wounding my own marriage with Gail. Tom and Sandi’s rhythms and relationships in the later chapters reminded me of just a few years ago as Gail and I discovered the God of mission aptly at work around us and not sequestered in the sanctuary. (Surprise for me!)

Wow…those early chapters made painful points. Phew…those later chapters were helpful and hopeful.

So let me simply ask! Are you settling for chronic pain punctuated by occasional crisis or captivation in your marriage? Are you going fast…but quietly fearing you won’t get far?

The future for mission and ministry is built around a new picture of new family! Mission and marriage…life and ministry integrated in ways most have not imagined.

Our friends Tom and Sandi give a glimpse. There’s…

• No secret the pressure of ministry on leaders is escalating.
• No secret the stressors on marriage and family and spouse are multiplying.
• No secret that a different path…different partner or career…different story might be the pick if given a chance to rewind the clock.

But that doesn’t need to be the last word!

So…several simple challenges:

• Don’t settle… If you’re settling, Marriage on Mission will help.
• Pick a leader or two… Share this post. Offer an encouragement to another.
• Listen for the whisper of hope…for marriage…your mission…or both.

I see a God throughout the Gospels taking people with only a little or with lives that are broken or with courage and hope capsized and renovating, restoring and reorganizing for feeding and harvesting and leading!

That’s the God who keeps coming to you, too.

Rev. Dr. Jock Ficken