During my first full year in youth ministry, success—not failure—was what almost did me in. What I eventually learned not only made me a better pastor but also a better husband.

I had taken a temporary position as I was finishing seminary. Surprisingly, I fell in love with the ministry, the students, and the thrill of seeing them grow in their passion for God. Unfortunately, my wife was less in love with it all. In fact, in a new community with a 1-yearold child and a baby on the way and attending a new church where she knew almost no one, she was rapidly beginning to feel marginalized.

I thought I was being a good husband and a good minister of the gospel. I believed with all of my heart that God had led us to this church, and I told her so.

“But God called us here, honey,” I said. I didn’t understand what was wrong and was feeling threatened. Whenever she tried to voice her concerns, I thought she was trying to take away the thing in my life that I felt God had created me to do. So out came the unfair trump card that left her feeling powerless to respond. God’s call always wins, right?

Loving as Christ Loved

 I’m not sure what changed, but at some point, I finally “got it.” C.S. Lewis tells the story that when he left for the zoo he didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God; but by the time he got there, he did, and he wasn’t sure exactly how it happened. In the same way, as Heidi and I lay in bed talking one night that summer, I got up to lock the front door; and when I came back to lie down again, I saw things in a different way.

I finally realized that if God were truly calling us to this church, then Heidi would feel the call as well. I realized that while she was trying to honor Ephesians 5 by submitting to me, I too needed to follow the instructions by loving her as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

I needed to give myself and my ministry up for my wife.

Six-Month Deadline

So I did a very difficult thing. I looked her in the eye and said, “Heidi, if your experience here doesn’t improve in six months, if you don’t feel like you also have a call to be here, I will lead us away from this church. We won’t leave because you don’t like it; we’ll leave because it wasn’t the right place for us as a family.”

Next I went to my senior pastor. In as humble a manner as possible, I let him know that my wife was having a hard time and that we were praying about whether this was the right place for us or not. I told him I wasn’t threatening to leave by any means, but I just wanted to keep him in the loop.

It was scary, but I couldn’t ignore this thought. To paraphrase Jesus’ words: What does it profit a youth pastor to gain a successful youth ministry and lose his wife?

God Builds His Own Church

By the end of that six months, Heidi felt encouraged that this was, in fact, the place for us to be. Part of me wonders if the real change wasn’t that things at church got better but that Heidi knew I was listening and genuinely willing to sacrifice for her sake.

I heard a very successful pastor recently tell a conference of pastors that at a critical moment during his ministry career, he made a promise to his wife and to God that he would never cheat his family to do church work. He pointed out that Jesus told Peter that He will build His church.

Paul said that Christ loves the church, and we are to love our wives. It’s especially easy for us to get this mixed up because there’s always so much to do. You’re never really “done” at the end of any day, right?

We have to have the maturity to know when our roles as youth worker s end and our unique roles as parents and spouses begin.

A native Texan, Syler Thomas is the student ministries pastor at Christ Church Lake Forest in the northern suberbs of Chicago.