This is the seventh in a series of blog posts called, “My Top Ten Mistakes in Ministry (That I Can Share Publicly.)” After many years of ministry experience as a church planter, pastor and seminary professor, I think I’ve finally learned that one of the best kept secrets to surviving well in the ministry is to stop making the same old mistakes that others (like me) have been making for decades. Instead, let’s all start making some brand new, bold, innovative and creative mistakes!

We began this series with an introduction called, “Ladies First” in which veteran church planter wife, Shari Thomas, addressed the tough topic, What I Wish I Had Known About Church Planting from the perspective of the church planter’s/pastor’s spouse. We then took a look at:

Mistake #1 (these are in no intentional order), “Failing to Understand the Importance of How I Define Ministry Success.”

Mistake #2 Managing My Time and Not Managing My Life

Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Difference Between my Goals and Desires.

Mistake #4: Not Understanding the Difference Between Pursuing the Grace of God and the God of Grace.

Mistake #5: Not Understanding the Way Up is the Way Down

Mistake #6: Not Understanding the Priority of People Over Programs

Mistake #7: Not Understanding Product Living VS Process Living

I have to confess that I belong to what Pastor Mark Buchanan calls the Cult of the Next Thing. Buchanan writes, “It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it. It is dangerously easy to get enlisted. It happens by default–not by choosing the cult but by failing to resist it.”

For me the Cult of the Next Thing is sinful discontentment cast in religious terms.  It has its own sacred terms like: our ministry vision, our mission, our goals, our objectives. Please don’t misunderstand, these are good things, but we begin to believe that we can’t ever really be happy until we get them.

This Cult also has its own Mantras we church planter types often quote: I’ll be happy when we have a certain number of people in worship every Sunday. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-supporting financially as a church. Or I’ll be happy when we are self-governing with our own elders or deacons. I’ll be happy when I’ve been able to pass this baton (you name it) to another leader. I’ll be happy when I’m not sick anymore…when the kids are older…when the kids are gone….

And this Cult has its own shrines in other ministries that are doing better than ours.  And it has its own ecstatic experiences: those fleeting moments when you finally reach a goal you’ve been living for and looking to for so long. It feels great. But like sand through your fingers it ever so quickly slips away from you. So then you must look ahead to the next experience.

Author Isaac Rubin writes, “The joy and happiness from the process lasts much longer and can be much more satisfying over the duration of your life. But if you are totally goal-oriented in a success-oriented culture, and if the product is the only goal, you will destroy much of the possibility for true joy and happiness in life. That is because almost all of your life has to be the process and not the product. If you can’t learn to appreciate and enjoy the process of living itself, there goes your joy in life.

If you get nothing out of the doing, because you are always looking for the high that will come at the end, you’re in serious trouble. But if you learn to be nourished by the whole process, that result at the end of the road, positive or negative, is not terribly significant. You just go on to the next process. You must learn to understand and appreciate “Process Living” because the process is really what life is all about. We are in process 98 % of the time. If you are living for that final 2%, you’re in trouble. And the truth is most of us are in serious trouble.”

The story is told when Alexander the Great conquered the entire known world, he wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. The opiate of winning the next battle was now gone and he was left trembling in withdrawal, unable to live and love life in the present.

Elizabeth Elliot summed it up well, “ Don’t let your living for tomorrow slay your living for today.” If you’re not very careful you will always be living for tomorrow and find yourself being robbed of all of your todays. I wish someone had talked straight to me about that common and so costly mistake in life and ministry.

Steve Childers is the President & CEO of Global Church Advancement, an inter-denominational ministry that provides church planting training, consultations, and resources for church planters, pastors and missionaries throughout the world. Steve has trained Christian leaders from more than 50 countries (curriculum in five major global languages), representing over 200 denominations and mission agencies in 5 continents (& 5 languages). Steve is also an author, Professor of Practical Theology (since 1995) and the Director of the Doctoral program at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches church planting, missions, evangelism and spiritual formation. To learn more about GCA:

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The following factors provided the greatest sources of satisfaction or stress for church planting wives. These findings are taken from a research study conducted in North American among PCA church planting spouses of various ethnicities in both urban and suburban settings. This research was conducted by Parakaleo—a gospel-centered ministry that is highly recommended by GCA and represented at all North American GCA training events. Parakaleo 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. For more information contact Parakaleo staff Shari Thomas, shari@parakaleo.us or Tami Resch, tami@parakaleo.us

Six Primary Sources

1. The Husband

The greatest source of satisfaction or stress for the church planter spouse was the person and work of the husband as he is involved/uninvolved with his wife. The lack of a support system not only increases loneliness and isolation for the wife, it puts added pressure on the marriage. If a clergy couple is relying primarily on each other for support, the marriage may function well most of the time, yet a narrow support system will become a problem when either one is not able to fulfill that role (McMinn 2004).

“We have a strong marriage and I know my husband is committed to me. If I weren’t called to do this type of work, he would quit. We both have a profound respect that God has called us together as one flesh and He will not pull us in different directions. My husband practices the scripture of laying down his life for me as Christ laid down His life for the church. I can submit to that kind of husband.”

2. Support System

The major factor which restricts clergy spouses from experiencing the support they need is that their primary support system comes from their husbands-men who tend to be absent from the home evenings and weekends. The study also indicates that wives do not talk about their husband since this could jeopardize his career (McMinn, 2004).

“It would have been most helpful if I had connection with other church planting spouses early on.”

3. Sabbath Rest

“The highest levels of exhaustion were caused by overextending ourselves because of perceived expectations that we feared we were not meeting. Overall, we were not trusting the Lord.”

“We did not take regular days off or vacations. Nor did we know about keeping boundaries. So a lot has been learned and changed over the years.”

4. Reliance on Christ

“I attribute my spiritual and emotional health to daily repentance, and to understanding how great my sin is, to the ability to laugh, and balancing my heart for the church with the fact that the church is not my life or my significance.”

“…it is God alone, salvation, prayer, his goodness, his very presence in the Spirit.”

“While I give head assent to relying on Christ, my life style shows my functional belief system which is in myself and human effort”.

5. Boundary Ambiguity

Ambiguity is endemic to ministry. To the clergy family, the system is not clear. All members of the family participate either directly or indirectly in the church. There is some role expectation of the congregation which must be fulfilled by the minister, his spouse, and even his children. This level of ambiguity causes high levels of stress for clergy spouses (Lee, 1988).

a) Role Ambiguity

“My greatest challenge has been how the ambiguous role of the cp spouse would affect me. The struggle of knowing church planting was my passion, being trained in ministry, and yet not knowing how to interface this without having a defined position was difficult. I often functionally operated as an assistant minister yet without title, pay, or decision making power.”

b) Emotional Ambiguity

“How much should my husband tell me? I realize I am his primary support, but it’s hard to love people well when I know how they have hurt him.”

c) Physical Ambiguity

The constant unknowns of facility and where we will be located coupled with the constant unknowns of who will stay and who will leave the church plant has been my biggest challenge.”

6. Physical health

Having balanced or unbalanced health

60% of church planting spouses reported leading more than one major ministry in the church plant or community along with being involved in 2-3 other ministries. It is no surprise they report exhaustion and often burn out in ministry.

Eight Secondary Sources

1. Changed lives

“Walking with people in their journey and seeing their lives changed because of the existence of our church is incredibly exciting.”

“Transformed lives, mine and others, have been the greatest source of satisfaction.”

2. Commitment and sense of call to church planting

“What is our major calling if we have other passions? How do we balance this with the demands church planting places on us?”

“I feel just as called to church planting as my husband. We are both in this together.”

3. Family Time

“My husband keeps his day off and is intentional about building a relationship with our boys. We work hard to build a family focus, identity, and history.”

“I don’t show the kids my unhappiness with their dads lack of participating in our family life. I feel like he spiritually takes care of the church and I take care of the family.”

4. Raising kids

“I really suffer here…often my husband is not a part of what we do as a family. When the church is struggling, the less my husband does for and with the family and the more he wants me to focus on helping him with the ministry.”

“He helps us apply the word to our lives as we go…in devotional time, in the car, around the table.”

5. Church growth

“Having come from a large church it has been discouraging to see the slow growth.”

6. Expectations- from/of self and others

“I didn’t realize how high my expectations were of others. It took me time to realize not everyone has the same calling I have but also that some may not be passionate about seeing others come to know Christ.”

“I have been disappointed with the lack of responsibility and loyalty some people have”.

7. Finances

“Church planting is like starting a business only after the hard work we don’t get the financial payback. It’s hard to give our blood, sweat, and tears to this type of work and not have some sort of financial outcome that we can then pass on to our kids.”

8. Use of gifts and abilities

“I thought I would have an opportunity to use my gifts but with the exhaustion my husband experiences, the needs of our kids, and without having other leaders, most of my time is spent in areas the church needs but not where I’m passionate.”

Shari Thomas (GCA Blogger) has been involved with her husband, John, in church planting for over 25 years both in North America and abroad. Shari serves on Mission to North America’s church planting staff as the Director of Parakaleo, a ministry primarily to church planting spouses. Shari and/or Tami Resch (also on staff with Parakaleo) lead the Women’s Forum (6 Sessions) at the North America GCA Conferences & Seminars. John is the director of global training for the Redeemer Church Planting Center in Manhattan, NYC. They have 3 children who amazingly still claim them as parents. They love sailing, only do legal drugs, and are known coffee snobs.

Given at the Global Church Advancement North America Conference

I wish someone would have told us (Shari and her husband, John), that we both would need a support system greater than just each other…

…that we would need coaches and mentors, and we should plan at more than one stage in the journey on getting counseling….

…and when we didn’t have this support system it would be up to us to seek it out!

I would have greatly benefited knowing that we needed to come to a mutual understanding and commitment about what my involvement in the church plant would be…

…that pursuing and nurturing my gifts was as important as nurturing his.

And that we would often need to review this involvement through out the stages of church planting and seasons of life…

…that when the children were young, my husband and children would require and need most of my time.

I wish he’d known how much I would need his support in sticking to these commitments rather than both of us rescuing ministries and people when they floundered.

I longed for someone to gently come alongside me and remind me again and again that what my husband needs from me most is love and respect. 



He can find coaches, teachers, nags and critics in countless places. He already has one mother. And when it’s late at night and we are falling into bed that this is not the time or place to hear one more idea on how to make the church successful! 



But at the same time I also wished he’d known how very important it was for the two of us to have our weekly “staff” times to talk about how the church and family life intersected.

I was a part of the church planting team and needed to know about the plant, give my input and have a place on the team. I wish we had spoken more openly about this to our staff as they too needed to work through their understanding of my role on the church planting team.

If I had known that my heart as well as our kids would be hurt, angry, and almost torn in two by this ministry we might not have planted a church. 



….but we also may never have learned the delight and satisfaction of pointing each other to Jesus, to the hope that only the gospel brings, and the deep joy of leading others to this hope.

…if we hadn’t planted a church I don’t know if we would ever have known the joy of watching the people we had led to Christ then turn and point our hearts to Jesus during our dark hours.

We would have benefited from being told that the question “should we stay in this church?” will be one that will haunt us through out our ministry lives. 

I was not prepared for him rolling over in bed doubting his call.

I didn’t know we would question if God had brought us here…that when my husband’s passion and energy for the church plant was waxing, mine might be waning and vice versa. It would have been helpful to know this was normal.

I am thankful that someone told us we would have to work harder for a marriage where there is spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy than we would have to work at planting the church…that this would involve sacrifice on both of our parts, and it would be well worth it. 



…that this would mean being honest about the damage we both do to one another and then seeking reconciliation to whatever point was needed for the sake of the other.

…that repentance involved not a simple “I’m sorry” but asking the other person to tell how we had harmed them and to listen without defending .

That it would mean doing this over and over in our marriage…that it would mean being willing to give up church planting, even leaving ministry for the sake of loving the other person.

I am glad my husband learned early on that church planting gave him great freedom to creatively mold his schedule to fit the needs of both his family and the church. 


I am grateful he takes time from church ministry to pour into the lives of our kids: working on school projects, creating feasts in the kitchen, taking vacations, catching the latest blockbuster, filling their lives with music, asking them the tough questions, drawing out their hearts, repenting openly before them…

…I love watching their eyes fill with pride when they introduce their friends to their dad. Nothing draws my heart to him more than that he loves our children so well. 



And at the same time when both he and I love our kids poorly, I really wish I had known that the Christian life and Church planting was not about working so hard to get it right, be right, and do right.

That it was not my job to perfect myself. That even learning the gospel was not another tool to add to my arsenal of how to live a better life. 

But it was church planting that finally brought me to the realization that I can’t change myself.

That it’s not about what others say about me. That Jesus has already said, “It is finished.”. That God’s verdict spoken over me comes before any of my performance, before I ever started on this journey of church planting…he delights in me already! 



If I had known this, I would have enjoyed life so much more. But the journey isn’t finished and I’m planning on joining the party more these days.

But I am most grateful that my husband keeps learning that no one can pursue, strongly lead and cherish me the way he can. 



…that when I’m withdrawn and discouraged, his gentle wooing speaks volumes

…when I’m masking deep hurt with anger, his strong, consistent pursuit melts me like nothing else 



…when darkness has masked Jesus face, I have felt another strong hand leading me home 



…and when it’s all said and done, and we are at The Great Marriage Feast I will recognize the tastes and sounds and smells. The dance will be vaguely familiar…

…for hints of the realm unknown have drifted across the border land.

…and I have caught glimpses of what is yet to come for so many of you, my friends, my church family, my kids and my husband have shown me the way.

 *Shari Thomas has been involved with her husband, John, in church planting for over 25 years both in North America and abroad. Shari serves on Mission to North America’s church planting staff as the Director of Parakaleo, a ministry primarily to church planting spouses. Shari and/or Tami Resch (also on staff with Parakaleo) lead the Women’s Forum (6 Sessions) at the North America GCA Conferences & Seminars. John is the director of global training for the Redeemer Church Planting Center in Manhattan, NYC. They have 3 children who amazingly still claim them as parents. They love sailing, only do legal drugs, and are known coffee snobs.