Jason Daye 
Welcome to FrontStage BackStage. This week we have a hand-picked highlight that we believe you will find valuable. If you do, we invite you to listen to the full conversation. You can find the link to the complete episode in the description. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, and share so we can continue to bring you meaningful ministry content, helping you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you flourish in both life and leadership. Are you ready? Let's go in ministry. As we say, you know, one of the unique things about ministry is that oftentimes we don't go as deeply. We're not as vulnerable, right, because we're in ministry, so we're not as vulnerable with, you know, our flock, you know, or those people God's entrusted to us, perhaps. And so does that, so we're practicing, you know, subconsciously, perhaps, right? We're practicing, you know, keeping our guard up to some degree, you know, with you know, as part of our regular life in ministry, so does that bleed? Can that then easily bleed over into our marriage, where we're so accustomed to kind of keeping our guard up that now we're keeping our guard up with our spouse? Is that what you see? Is that what we can experience?

Trevor Hislop 
Yes, absolutely. That happens, and we see that all the time. And so I love how, just even with you describe, we keep our guard up right, we're a little bit defensive, and we're guarded where with those other people in our lives, whether that is again as ministry leaders, whether that is the congregation, whether that's the community, whether that's our staff members, whether it's our board members, right. We're constantly on guard, and again, back to why are we on guard, because it doesn't feel safe, right? Like, think of a boxer in a ring, right? They're going to put their guard up. Why would they put the guard up? Is it because they don't want to get hit, right? Yeah, right. It's just part of human nature. It makes sense. And so you're.. you're right in that, that carries over into the way that we experience our marriage. So we're already at this posture, right?

Jason Daye 
Right, right, right.

Trevor Hislop 
So it's not like we just flip a switch when we get home, and the guard comes down. We become so familiar and so comfortable with that guardedness, with that putting, putting our guard up. Some, in like therapeutically, we call those walled boundaries. Like, we set these boundaries where, where people are just not able to, we're not able to get to them and them get to us. Why? The reason we put walls up is the need for safety, so one of the things we find in this, how it carries over into marriages within ministry is the way that we experience mentioned earlier this idea of this, this need to be perfect, and the reality is, is we know that we're not perfect, we'll never be perfect, right, there's always going to be some gap between perfection and us, right? And that is the gospel. We know how that works, right? We know the gap is Christ, right? You know, he has built a bridge, right? He has filled the gap for us, but there's something that happens in us, just in our humanity, but specifically for us as ministry leaders. So, there's this clinical term called cognitive dissonance, and it's this idea of essentially it's this gap between what we believe and how we behave. It was first developed in the 1950s, and it's caught on over the last number of decades a similar concept, and often used in the same line of thinking, is what's called the action value gap, which all of this is around this idea of dissonance. Again, there's this gap between what we believe and how we behave, and the dissonance is the pressure between the two, right? So we even know in the, in the New Testament, where Paul says, "I don't do what I know I should do, and I kind of do what I know what I shouldn't do, right? Way before the science of psychology, right? That's what he's talking about, right? He's like, "I feel this tension, I feel this dissonance between what I know, what I'm called to do, I know what I'm supposed to do, and yet I don't, right? It's, it's just, it's sin nature, right? It's just, it's just, it's just the narrative of, of humankind, but we, we carry that, and so, for us as ministry leaders, the way that that ties in, and I'll connect this to the idea of marriage, but as you talk about the way that we're guardedness with other people, it's back to this idea of we can't let them see us sweat, right? We can't let them in to know that we're not perfect, we can't let them know that there's some disconnect between the things that we stand onstage and preach, and then the way that we live those out, right? This idea of this ability to practice what we preach, there's this friction of inconsistency, hypocrisy that shows up in our lives, and so rather than often confess. Those things find somebody to sit down and talk about those things, process those things as part of our guardedness. It's not only to keep others out, it's to keep what's in from getting out. So we, we have this, this, this part of us that is constantly guarding, guarding ourselves inside of ourselves around this idea of dissonance, so like clinically I see this all the time, like pastors who walk into my office and wouldn't dare to tell anyone except for somebody who's, you know, who's bound by law for confidentiality, to talk about their porn addiction, or talk about their relationship with alcohol, you know, or whatever it might be, and they carry this incredible weight. So, let me tie this back into the idea of what happens in marriage. So, what happens in when we type, we bring this into marriage, and just as you were absolutely right, you know, can we see the way that we're guarded with other people carry over into our marriage, and as I already referenced, yes, we see that all the time, like our posture doesn't change when we, when we get home, but we don't, we have it externally, we also have it internally, we also have these parts of being able to say, hey, if I'm a ministry leader and I'm supposed to be living out biblical life, every day I'm scared to death to tell my spouse the things I feel that are that are misaligned with God's word.

Jason Daye 
Right.

Trevor Hislop 
Right, like I don't know how many times I sit with ministry leaders, and we, you know, they reference the verse, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, in prayer and petitions, submit your request to God. It's a really difficult verse to absorb when you're anxious, right? It's back to this idea. Well, what do I believe? I believe that I shouldn't be anxious about anything, but I am, right? So think about that with the spouse. Right, is it safe for me to come and talk to you about how I really feel, to be able to be open and honest with you? Whatever's happening relationally and dynamically, what we see in ministry spouses is it's not just one member of the spouse, it's oftentimes both members of the spouse, they have their internally their own stuff, they're dealing with their guardedness about, gosh, you know, back to Paul, like I'm, I don't do what I know I should do, and I do, I know what I shouldn't do, and I have that all swirling around inside of me, and then, you know, knowing this external stuff that's coming at me as a leader, or us as a couple, what we find is rather than finding safety in our spouse, rather than finding this like this respite place to be able to say, hey, can we just be open and honest, can we just be vulnerable, can we just be real, just to be able to say, hey, I'm struggling, I'm freaking out, I'm having a hard time, you know, whatever it might be, we forget we find oftentimes the opposite. We find it difficult for us to be able to open up with our spouses in ministry because of, again, what's happening to us internally in our own ability to hear what somebody else might have to say while we're processing our own stuff, and then the externalized, and a lot of times it's expectation, isn't it? That's right, exactly, expectations of, hey, so you know, sitting again, sitting with a pastor who's struggling with alcohol, to be able to say, hey, I need to have a conversation with my spouse, can be can feel very un safe with right with that with that partner, particularly when we know for many, many ministry couples some of these things can be can be detrimental, they can be detrimental not just in the marriage but it can be detrimental to a vocation.

Jason Daye 
Right, livelihood, yeah, right, yeah, exactly

Trevor Hislop 
Right, yeah, yeah. To be able to tell my spouse I'm struggling, right, yeah. And what do they do with that information? And then who else gets involved with this information can be very, very challenging.

Jason Daye
FrontStage BackStage is a ministry of PastorServe. Here at PastorServe, we love walking alongside of pastors and ministry leaders. If you'd like to learn details on how you might qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. Now, FrontStage BackStage is more than just another podcast. In fact, we create an entire toolkit that complements every single conversation. You can find this toolkit at PastorServe.org/network for this episode, and for every episode in the toolkit, you'll find a number of resources, including our ministry leaders' growth guide. In the growth guide, you'll find both questions and insights that are pulled from the conversation that you and the leaders at your local church or ministry can process together to consider how this content relates to your particular ministry context. Again, you can find the toolkit at PastorServe.org/network. Now we hope that you are finding this content valuable, and if so, we'd love for you to share, comment, like, follow, subscribe. That engagement is incredibly important, and also, please take a moment to give us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your engagement and your reviews help other pastors and ministry leaders help find this valuable content. I'm Jason Daye, and encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. Thank you, and God Bless.