Pray with her for her out loud.

Read [and reflect on] the passage preached last Sunday.

Read [and reflect on] the passage being preached this Sunday.

Pray with her for others.

From Brian Croft at Practical Shepherding

This very simple and straightforward list from James Grant is very helpful and encouraging to me, because sometimes family worship can seen very daunting and involved.

Plan to have family worship after an evening meal

Read through a good book (like the Jesus Storybook Bible)

Say the Lord’s prayer after reading the book

I’m planning to start doing family worship after Malachi’s 2nd birthday, which is next week. Can’t wait!

From Winfield Bevins

Lesson 1: The Family is a Church

The Puritans believed and taught that your family is your church. Every man has a responsibility to pastor his wife and his children.  Jonathan Edwards said, “Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace.” George Whitefield said, “A man ought to look upon himself as obliged to act in three capacities:

As a prophet, to instruct:
As a priest, to pray for and with;
As a king, to govern, direct, and provide for them.”

Lesson 2: Love Your Wife as Christ Loved the Church

Pastoring your family begins with loving your wife as Christ loved the church. Through our marriage, we are examples of the gospel to our children and to our church.

Lesson 3: Family is the Seminary of the Church

Puritan Thomas Manton said, “A family is the seminary of the church.” The Puritans believed that the home was the primary place of learning the Bible and moral instruction. They also believed that it was a parent’s spiritual responsibility to disciple and teach their children about the faith.  The Bible instructs us, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  It is important for children to begin learning about God and the Bible at home.

Thomas Doolittle said, “Masters of families ought to read the Scripture to their families and instruct their children and servants in the matters and doctrines of salvation. Therefore, they are to pray in and with their families. No man that will not deny the Scripture can deny the unquestionable duty of reading the Scripture in our houses, governors of families teaching and instructing them out of the Word of God.”

Lesson 4: Regularly Practice a Family Day Off (this has personally saved my marriage and my ministry)

For the Puritans that day off was synonymous with family. Many church planters fail to take a day off by justifying their great ministry need. We are not leading our family well unless we take time to be together without work lingering in the background. This is a common sin that ministers need to repent for not keeping.

Ministers are burning out at an unbelievable rate. Nearly 90% of pastors feel overworked and 50% of those who go into fulltime service drop out in 5 years. Spiritual burnout occurs when we don’t give ourselves time to rest from our daily routine. Puritans were a great example for spiritual rest because they had a rhythm of work and rest and service and worship.

Lesson 5: We are Responsible to God for the Proper Stewardship of our Families

Puritans taught the gravity of the responsibility of shepherding your family. We are stewards of our families. Let us not sin in this area, let us repent for not leading well. Thomas Doolittle said, “If God be the Founder, Owner, Governor, and Benefactor of families, then families are jointly to worship God and pray unto Him.”

From Dr. Bruce Ware, Re:Train instructor and professor at Southern Seminary, as blogged by Owen Strachan. You can listen online here.

1. Love.   1) Loving God increasingly w/ all my heart, soul, mind and strength; loving Christ and the cross; loving the gospel — these are the foundation for all else.  Drawing from God all I need to be the man and husband God has called me to be is my strength and hope.  2) Loving my wife as Christ loves the Church — this is the umbrella principle for marriage; everything else flows from this responsibility and privilege (Eph 5:25ff).
2. Leadership.   Biblical manhood involves cultivating, embracing, and exercising leadership initiative, especially spiritual leadership initiative.  This is a principle that applies to young men and adult single men just as well as to married men.  Cultivate, embrace, and exercise spiritual leadership initiative.   In marriage, my love for my wife involves and requires that I exert leadership in our relationship.  My headship of my wife means I’m responsible for her spiritual growth and well-being.  And as a father, I’m responsible in ways that my wife is not for the spiritual development of our children (Eph 6:1-4).  And again, to do this, I must be seeking God and growing personally.  Only out of the storehouse of my own soul’s growth in God can I assist my wife to grow spiritually.
3. Example.  Lead by example as much as by admonition and instruction.  Set the example in:  consistent times in the Word and prayer;  in sacrificial service for your wife, children, church family members, and community needs;  in giving faithfully, generously, and regularly of your finances;  in humble admission of wrong-doing along with confession, asking forgiveness, and repentance.  Fight pride, fight defensiveness, fight carnality before others.
4. Authority.  All three points above imply and invoke the concept of male-headship.  Yes, God has given special authority to husbands and fathers.  Learn, though, the correct expression of healthy, constructive, upbuilding, God-honoring, Christ-following authority.  Resist and reject the sinful extremes of 1) harshness, bossiness, mean-spirited authoritarianism, and of 2) laziness, apathy, lethargy, negligence, and abdication of authority to the women in our lives.  Learn to blend firmness with gentleness, truth with grace, a firm hand with a warm smile.
5. Acceptance.   Each of us is unique as God has made us.  We should accept others’ differences w/o thinking ourselves to be either superior or inferior to others.  In marriage, my wife is unique, and so in many ways, she is not like me.  I need to accept who she is, prayerfully and sensitively seeking to assist her in changing what is sinful and needs to be changed, and accepting what is “just different.”
6. Listening.   One of my wife’s biggest and most real needs is my attentive and respectful listening ear.  She loves to share her experiences, thoughts, ideas, feelings, concerns, hurts, joys, etc.   I can minister to my wife more than one might think by offering her caring, responsive, and respectful listening and interaction.  Learn to listen sympathetically w/o rushing to “fix it” solutions.  Connect first heart to heart, then later heart to head.  Establish regular times of mutual sharing (yes, mutual), keep short accounts, and act on what you hear and learn.
7. Understanding.   I need to live with my wife in an understanding way (1 Pet 3:7), to learn her needs, her sensitivities.  I should seek to know the desires and felt needs of my wife and, when appropriate and possible, fulfill these.  I need to discover her “language of love” and make every effort to love her in ways she feels loved.
8. Work.   A man’s main sense of identity, responsibility, and purpose is found in his work.  Wives want to take pride in their husbands, and taking pride in their work is an important part of this.  Women are not meant to bear the financial weight of a marriage or family, so husbands must work hard and responsibly.  As important as work is to a man’s identity and fulfillment, we must not allow work to overshadow our commitment to and time with our wives first, and also to our children.  Work hard, work well, work to the honor of Christ, and then put work to rest.
9. Sexuality.   My wife is my only legitimate sexual experience, and I am hers.  So, learning to love sexually with increasing skill and pleasure is vitally important to the satisfaction and intimacy of our marriage.  See human sexuality for what it is — the good gift of God to be experienced in marriage, as God has designed.
10. Home.   She cares much about our home.   The “honey-do” list is far more important to her than she is likely to let on.  In love for her, I must pay attention to her requests and treat them as important.  But more important even than this is cultivating the “culture” and “ethos” of our home.  Develop an atmosphere of appreciation, respect, kindness, service, holiness, happiness, gratefulness, contentment, forgiveness — all as expressions of our love for God and one another.

I realize this is old news, but it’s a great note from Grace Driscoll, wife of Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church) and daughter of a pastor, on why it’s a good thing that John Piper is taking a sabbatical.

I am thankful for the precedent and example that Dr. Piper and Noël are setting because:

1. It frees up wives and children to be priorities (1 Tim. 3:4; Eph. 5:28).
2. It allows the church and ministry to not be idols (1 Tim. 3:5).
3. It can give wives a new freedom to have this honest discussion with their husbands (I have seen many wives silenced or unsure of how to have this conversation when they have genuine concern) (Prov. 19:14).
4. It can give children a new freedom to have this honest discussion with their dads (I have seen so many kids of pastors feeling last on the list with the church at the top) (Prov. 17:6).
5. It urges us all to examine our priorities and make sure our Jesus, our marriage, and our children are the top three, in that order (1 Tim. 3:1–5).
6. It challenges the church to give their pastor the freedom to examine his own life and take a break if needed (Mark 2:27–28).
7. It challenges us to not idolize pastors or think of them as sinless, but rather see them as gifted, called men (under immense pressure) who need to be free to repent and be redeemed like the rest of the church members (Heb. 13:18).
8. It challenges wives to examine if they have enabled their pastors-husbands to become islands unto themselves (Gen. 2:18; Prov. 31:12).

Excellent wisdom from Scott Thomas in light of John Piper’s recently announced sabbatical on how to know your wife better.

• What are some ways that I can demonstrate my love to you in a meaningful way?
• When do you feel most appreciated?
• How do I make you feel emotionally distant?
• How can I pray for you?
• How can I help you to know God better?
• In what ways have I sinned against you?
• What would help you to be more satisfied sexually?
• How could I help us to reconcile our misunderstandings better?
• In what ways could I help relieve physical stress?
• What is one way I could tangibly serve you?

Parakaleo is a gospel-centered ministry that exists to strengthen the gospel spreading impact of church planting
by coming alongside church planting movements and church planting couples.
Through coaching, connecting, caring, and celebrating they facilitate training,
encouragement and care of church planters and their spouses. They recently conducted research about the greatest sources of satisfaction or stress for church planting wives. Here’s the list

Six Primary Sources

1. The Husband
2. Support System (often lack of other contact with church planting wives)
3. Sabbath Rest
4. Reliance on Christ
5. Boundary Ambiguity
   1. Role Ambiguity (what is church planting wife’s role)
   2. Emotional Ambiguity
   3. Physical Ambiguity
6. Physical health

Eight Secondary Sources

1. Changed lives
2. Commitment and sense of call to church planting
3. Family Time
4. Raising kids
5. Church growth
6. Expectations- from/of self and others
7. Finances

Use of gifts and abilities

Every marriage needs, and deserves, frequent reflection. Julie and I went through the Capital Hill Baptist Church’s Do-It-Yourself Marriage Retreat last Saturday night. My folks watched Malachi and we went out to eat and talked through our marriage so far, the highs and lows, and addressed specific areas like spirituality, family, and sexuality. It was a great time of thanking God for how He has brought together two sinful people in order to create a family that will glorify Him in all that we do. I was especially encouraged with Julie’s recognition and appreciation of the ways I’ve been working on myself to changed behaviors and attitudes that directly affect her.

If anyone reads this blog, which I highly doubt, I couldn’t more highly recommend doing this retreat with you and your spouse.