At DefCon, we holistically support men who support their families. Men who make discipleship and love a priority for the home. The home is one of the central building blocks for a society, and the marriage is the sun by which everything in the home orbits. Having said this, there are many priorities that pastors, open air preachers, and everyday christian men have that may sometimes burden us. We can become anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed with the multiple obligations that we are to tend to. And yes, wives are included in this list of feelings. And the one thing that is not helpful are Christian cliches like, “Your wife is your first ministry.” It has a nice ring to it, and for the most part it is well meaning, but it does not properly convey the responsibilities and obligations a Christian may face on a day to day basis. It has also been abused by certain preachers that wish to exclude certain men from ministry.
I have attached a blogtalk episode that I and a pastor friend of mine recorded about this topic. My hope is that we would all take into consideration the biblical model of men not just in ministry, but just being men in general. All the material discussed in this episode may or may not reflect all the views of contributing bloggers here at DefCon. Here is the narrative and link of the episode below.
“On this exciting episode of G220 radio, George will be joined by Pastor Tom Shuck from Pilgrim Bible Church. Pastor Shuck is a graduate of Master’s Seminary and Columbia Evangelical Seminary and was a missionary to India for 12 years. He holds both a Masters of Divinity (MDiv.) and a Doctorate of Ministry (DMin.). He has been a pastor of Pilgrim Bible Church for 4 years and helped start a seminary in India as well as planted a church there. He enjoys sports, music, family trips, and George’s personal favorite, linguistics. He has evangelized in cities like Oakland, Orlando, Mumbai, Pune training believers how to evangelize, preach the gospel, and make disciples. His wife is Lisa Shuck and two children.”
“This episode we’ll explore the cliche “Your wife is your first ministry.” Is it Scriptural? Are there other primary biblical responsibilities? Can you make ministry your idol or mistress? What should a man who is called to preach do with this kind of cliche? What about missionaries and evangelists of old that we look up to that sacrificed much, even their marriages, for the gospel? What about Matthew 22:35-40, 1 Corinthians 7:32-34, Ephesians 5:22-33, and 1 Timothy 3:5?”
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/g220radionetwork/2016/05/10/ep-157-is-your-wife-your-first-ministry
-Until we go home
Christ Alone Wyoming 
Why do so many churches seem to short change the ministry to men. Men are given the greatest responsibilities yet are ministered to and mentored to the least. Go into any church USA web page. You will find several women’s bible studies and ministries for women. You will see that the children are also well taken care of. If your lucky you will find perhaps one early or very early morning, so called Bible study. Typically that are not designed to adequately equip men to carry on the responsibilities we have been given.
What you will not find is a well organized mentoring matrix for men. Every man should be being mentored into a mature spiritual man. Every mentored man should in turn be mentoring someone less mature than themselves. Yet most churches simply leave men to drift around almost aimlessly with no clear direction. At best we are told to trying doing X and if that does not seem to fit you then try doing Z.
Titus 1:9 requires that ALL elders must be able to both explain and defend the gospel. Every man should strive to attain the qualities of an elder. To me that means elders are to be well versed in Christian apologetics. Not only are such elders few and far between but both they and most all pastors get flummoxed and irked concerning such things. Especially if you dare to appear as informed or perhaps even more informed than they are. Such things ought not bother a humble man.
Obviously neither the pastor nor the elders are even attempting to stay current on serious erroneous teachings. If they are willfully ill informed then how can they properly mentor others?
Not that they are even really seriously trying to mentor other men in the first place.
Concerning pastors, I do admire the Quakers approach to this matter. If a man believes he has been called he takes it to the entire congregation. They cannot proceed unless the congregation says that, “it seemeth to us and to the Holy Spirit that you are to proceed”. Far and away too many pastors were called into the pulpit by themselves and not by God.
LikeLike