Guests:
Jeff Grimm, Peggy Jackson, Ted Steffen, Michelle Strahm, Ted Witzig, Jr.
Show Notes:
How can our congregations help support and protect church leadership?
- Get to know your elder/ordained deacon couple; get to know their needs.
- Remember your leader's children at home when travelling for church business.
- Offer to sit with children in church.
- Give grace to leader's children like you would your own.
- Find out what needs to be done around their home; offer your skills.
- Gifts/acts of kindness are helpful, whether it is help with a vacation or thoughtful gifts periodically like gift cards.
- Take care of church visitors from the community; don't expect leadership to do it all.
- Encourage converts.
- Be willing to serve in church offices when asked.
- Pray for us.
- A text or email can be very helpful; we get down too.
- Don't expect leadership to be perfect; give grace; expect good intentions.
- Sometimes we can't share certain things; please be patient.
- Don't think leadership is too busy to talk about life or get together for dinner.
- Sometimes we need to make hard decisions; please be understanding.
- Our wives have to bear with us when leadership is hard.
Challenges and blessings being in church leadership:
- Challenging to disengage from leadership responsibilities and spend quiet time with the Lord.
- Blessing to see first hand what God is doing in people's lives.
- Challenging seeing all the hard things going on in your congregation.
- Blessing being invited into people's precious moments (death bed, premarital counseling, etc.)
- Challenging for our wives to balance family issues and husband's busy schedule.
- Challenging managing pressure from others' opinions and expectations for our children.
- Blessing when financial burdens are shared.
