Article
4 Ways to Care for Your Family While Planting
Here are four principles to hopefully help safeguard your marriage in the midst of church planting.
One of the most moving aspects of the planting pitfalls study for me was hearing testimonies from church planters and pastors about how deeply painful their planting journey had been for their spouses and children.
Of course, this is not an issue unique to planters. Marriage is always complex because our sin and selfishness are most clearly seen by those who know us best. When we’re exhausted, burdened with anxiety, or simply having one of those days, it’s usually our nearest and dearest who bear the brunt. Ministry marriages may already carry additional complexities (pressure, visibility, expectations, etc.), but church-planting marriages perhaps face an extra layer of stress. The combination of uncertainty, financial pressures, high expectations (whether real or perceived), and spiritual warfare can bring out the worst in us, and too often, it’s our families who suffer as a result.
Tested and Trials
More than 25 percent of respondents in the study shared that their marriages had suffered due to their church plant, with some describing significant struggles. Even those who had lots of prior ministry experience noted that the challenges of planting had introduced strains on their marriages that they had not known before.
Listen to the pain in these two church planters’ reflections:
“This plant has been immensely hard on our marriage from the inside. I’d say my wife and I are weary of the difficulties that planting has brought out, which weren’t evident through all my other years of pastoring.”
“If you have small cracks in your marriage, those cracks will become large crevasses that will cause significant divides in your relationship. Work hard on your marriage before you plant, as you plant, and don’t stop! Don’t lose your wife or your family to your church plant.”
So, what might it look like to “work hard on your marriage before you plant, as you plant, and don’t stop”!? There are no doubt many more, but here are four principles to hopefully help safeguard your marriage in the midst of church planting. Take time to honestly reflect on these questions. I’d encourage you to ask your spouse for their perspective—if you hesitate to do so, that itself may be a warning sign.
1. Guard Your Heart
How is your heart? Overworking often stems from weak boundaries fueled by insecurity, perfectionism, or anxiety. These unchecked pressures can lead us to neglect our families in pursuit of “ministry success.”
If you find yourself perpetually overworking, pause and reflect:
- What is really driving you?
- What pressures or fears are shaping you and your heart?
- Are you seeking approval?
- Or are you caught in unhealthy competition or pursuing a self-focused ambition rather than a God-centered desire for His glory?
Painful as it might be, identifying these underlying motivations can help realign your priorities. Faithfulness in ministry necessarily includes faithfulness to your family. Trust that God, not your relentless effort, builds His church. Guard your heart.
2. Make the Most of Your Flexibility
One wise, older pastor once shared that when his children were young, wherever possible, he made it a priority to be home from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. How’d he accomplish this? He would simply block out his schedule! During that time, he would then connect with his kids as they returned from school, process their day with them, share meals together, help with homework, and then bedtime routines. These were precious moments that he never regretted shaping his day around.
Yes, ministry often requires early mornings and late nights, but as church planters, you have a degree of flexibility that many others do not. Where you can prioritize time with your family. It may mean adjusting your schedule—starting work earlier or heading out to meetings after bedtime—but making those intentional investments for your family will pay dividends. Make the most of your flexibility.
3. Take Your Family with You
Church planting is an adventure—an extraordinary, stretching, faith-filled adventure. Instead of shielding your family from the uncertainty, invite them to be a part of the process with you. Let them see firsthand what it means to step out in faith and to trust God to provide!
Encourage your spouse and children to pray for the church’s needs. Where appropriate, share your struggles with them so they can see God actively at work through the challenges. Let them experience the joy of answered prayers, of divine provision, and of lives transformed. The danger can come when we try to protect our families from difficulties rather than allowing them to witness God’s goodness in and through those very struggles. Take them with you.
4. Schedule Regular Time Together
We make time for the things that matter to us and so we must intentionally plan time together. Lovingly lead in loving one another. Just as you might attempt to be home for the early evening slot for your kids, can you do something similar each week for your spouse? Perhaps evenings aren’t easy, but could you book a weekly lunch or a breakfast together?
Again, block your calendar and work really hard to protect it. Sometimes, there will be a call from the hospital that will change everything—and that’s okay; that’s part of the job—but that doesn’t stop you from trying to make plans and prioritize one another. Schedule regular time together.
These four ideas (and there are no doubt many more) won’t solve all your problems, but they might begin to help. It might be painful, but how can you take a step forward and broach that conversation with your spouse? Let me give the final word to another pastor who wanted to pass on wisdom, having learned some of the lessons the hard way:
“Love Jesus, your wife, and your kids more than you love the idea/process of planting”
