Doing It With The Daniels Podcast
Welcome to ‘Doing It With The Daniels’! This is where we show couples how to GET-IT-ON in life, marriage, AND ministry! 🚀
Doing It With The Daniels Podcast
Balancing Acts: Marriage and Ministry
Balancing marriage and ministry can feel like juggling two full-time jobs, each demanding your time and energy. What happens when these worlds collide, threatening the harmony in your relationship? On "Doing It with the Daniels," we unpack our personal journey of navigating these challenges, sharing the moments of tension and triumph that taught us the value of teamwork and communication. We promise you'll gain insights on how to ensure ministry responsibilities don't eclipse the needs of your marriage, and how to nurture your relationship even when life's pressures mount.
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balance is the key. If you don't learn to balance, your marriage will suffer. Welcome to doing it with the daniels, the podcast where we navigate life, marriage and ministry.
Speaker 2:I'm charles and I'm tisa. Join us as we share insights, wisdom and practical advice to strengthen your marriage, empower your life and enrich your ministry let's dive in together and discover the joys of doing it with the daniel.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome back to another episode of doing it with the daniels, where we help couples get it on in life, marriage and ministry. We are so glad to have you once again. We are back I'm glad to be here. Come on, so good to see you always. Good to see you, always good to see you. Good to see you too, I like to see you.
Speaker 2:You like to see me. I do like to see you all the time, so crazy?
Speaker 1:Hey, it's me. Well, what are we talking about?
Speaker 2:today. Today we're going to talk about overcoming challenges together.
Speaker 1:Overcoming challenges together. So really it's like working together when challenges show up. Yes, I mean, how often do challenges show up in marriage, in life?
Speaker 2:relationships um all the time all, really all the time.
Speaker 1:What you mean? All the time I thought people would, just you know, live in life enjoying the good life.
Speaker 2:You get married, say I do, and then it's like wedded bliss because you are you and I am me, and we are two different people yes and so it's going to be challenging to kind of work together every day and bring your lives together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different views, different upbringings, it's all that and the reality is that life presents certain challenges that couples have to navigate through. They have to work through and overcome, and you need to do it together. You're not going to be able to do everything alone. I think that's where some couples mess up when problems show up, challenges show up, and they think, oh well, I'll deal with this by myself. And we learn something in our marriage that whenever one of us is having a challenge, it affects both of us.
Speaker 1:there's no way we can be in love, be married, be joined together as one. And you have a problem and I not. Feel it may not be my problem directly but, I feel what you feel as a result of yeah and vice versa when you're hurting, I feel it yeah I can see it yeah, I think for us, one of the challenges with us that we we have had to navigate through and continue to navigate through I don't think it ever ends, it's just you get better at navigating around it is, for us, it's balancing.
Speaker 1:It's a balancing excuse me marriage and ministry yes I think that's yes, because both of them demand that we give our all. Yeah, both of them require a lot of time, uh, and I mean you have to take away. When you're taking away when you're doing ministry, you're taking away time from your marriage. When you're doing your, when you focus on your marriage, you're taking away time from your ministry, and, and it can create some challenges.
Speaker 2:It creates a lot of challenges. I remember one time I was like am I talking to the pastor or am I talking to charles? And he was like I'm the pastor right now and I was like, oh my lord you know, it all depends on what the topic was yeah. So you know, just having to balance all of that and navigate through all of that is it's kind of interesting yeah, and just, I mean, life comes with what it comes with.
Speaker 1:Having children comes with the challenge it comes with a ministry in our case is unique. Being ministry leaders, we have to deal with the challenges of marriage and the challenges of ministry and be careful that we don't allow one area to spill over into the other, because they can't. I don't care who you are, how strong you are. Your marriage, your, your relationship with your spouse has a direct impact on your ministry. Your ministry has a direct impact on your marriage, and I think that's the thing. Early on it was really tough understanding that balance because we were like man what we do at home shouldn't affect ministry and what we do in ministry shouldn't affect us at home. But we found out very fast that it does, it affects. So we need both aspects to be healthy yes we need to be healthy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I don't think those things. I think we have to be healthy in order for those things to be healthy. And so that's been a big, big matter because, I mean, our marriage can be wonderful. We could have no challenges in the marriage. Things are going great. But all the challenges are in ministry and it affects the marriage and we have to navigate through. So some of our stress may not be stress of our lives, it's just stress of ministry. Be stress of our lives, it's just stress of ministry. Or sometimes ministry can take your mind, your thought, your engagement, where you're not as attentive at home because your mind is focused on ministry.
Speaker 2:So much that's good. I was getting ready to say that you can kind of lose your marriage if you're so ministry focused yeah try to balance the two. You're just so running and doing everything with ministry and you forget about oh, we need to, I need to connect with my spouse, oh, we need to spend time together, we need to talk, we need to go out, all of that, and so you can kind of lose the marriage, just so focused on ministry. So it just needs to be a balance, yeah, and ministry is important.
Speaker 1:Hopefully this episode, this topic, will help those who are in ministry, not just senior leaders right but even those who serve in their church if you're not careful yeah, you can be so committed to your church and not committed enough to the well-being of your marriage and you can create chaos and challenges in your marriage because you're not balancing the two. Or you can let challenges of ministry just showing up to serve overwhelm you. And then you take that home and imagine this if you work a full-time job, most people take home baggage from work. Now you take home some weights from ministry and now you have to do this marriage but you got this other stuff affecting your ability to be you in the marriage. And people don't realize a lot of marriages in, a lot of leaders, pastoral leaders, their marriages in because of the weight and the stress of ministry. Yeah, or it's vice versa a lot of ministries leaders leave their ministry because they need, they, it's taking so much from their marriage, they they need to go give attention there, and so they have to make those adjustments and say, you know, one of them ends up, ends up paying the price that if we, if you don't learn to balance it, eventually you'll say, well, one of these got to go. So I think it's important that we balance.
Speaker 1:I think, for for us, I think we have found healthy ways of balancing. We know when the really it's being intentional about cutting off. You got to know when to leave ministry at the church and come home and just be husband and wife family. And then you got to know when family has okay, family's good, let me go and do ministry and take care of these things they both. There has to be a balance there and you have to overcome the challenge that comes with each one, otherwise your ministry can kill your marriage or your marriage can kill your effectiveness in ministry. So it's a big thing, but anyway, those challenges may come and people in different challenges. We're talking about ministry. Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest area of challenge that we see, because, as you have a growing ministry, a moving ministry, all they're always moving pieces. You know you're always dealing with people. Here's the other part. You're not just dealing with your problems, you're also dealing with, in ministry, other people's problems. So now you're helping them navigate their challenges, so they're pulling on you all of that.
Speaker 2:Those are the joys of ministry, though it's it's.
Speaker 1:It's a joy of ministry, but it's a cost too right? Yeah, it's a call, it's always a cost. One thing is being pulled um either the marriage is being pulled on or ministry is being pulled on and so balance is, I think we. I keep saying that word because that's the key Balance is the key. If you don't learn to balance, your marriage will suffer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will.
Speaker 1:If you get stressed out with ministry, it can even affect your intimate life with your partner yeah. Where you lose your drive and your desire for intimacy. Now, how is that going to be a healthy marriage?
Speaker 2:it's not it?
Speaker 1:no, it's not, it's not so you got to have that balance. Or if your marriage is off, how you gonna show up to church and help yeah, if we not getting along and we went through this early on in ministry where we were at odds on saturday and sunday morning and then I'm up trying to preach and looking at you upside your head like child, please, and you looking at me thinking what?
Speaker 2:he don't believe nothing hopefully you ain't think that no, um, or just he ain't living nothing, I don't know, just something crazy. You know the enemy?
Speaker 1:will breathe.
Speaker 2:I didn't get saved all over again you know, the enemy will bring anything to your mind. So when?
Speaker 1:you're mad when you're at odds with one another. You have all of these things that, like you said, the enemy brings to your mind and tries to really just get you at odds because that's a ministry thing but the marriage is affected by it. You have those kinds of thoughts. We have those kinds of thoughts towards one another. Well, guess what? We're ministries over. Guess what's going to happen when we get home. Now we still looking at these other crazy.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:We've had these crazy thoughts and it's just all over the place, but it's about moving forward from that, overcoming, working through that together. I think for both of us, we had to work through all of those challenges together, yeah, yeah, whether it's money, uh, whether it's paying off debt, raising children, all that stuff is gonna come with some challenges yeah, especially raising children.
Speaker 2:I think that does come with a lot of challenges because, you got to make decisions on what school and sports and you know just all kind of stuff homework.
Speaker 1:This is a lot yeah, and they need to be made together so that you're in agreement yeah, right, even the way you raise them discipline yeah how.
Speaker 1:How do you discipline the children? That's a big one, because some people believe in harsher punishments than others. How do you do that If you came from a home where you just got talked to but your spouse came from a home where they got I'm going to use the word beat? They got beat, hopefully not abused, but you know how do you balance that when you're saying I don't want my children to get that level of punishment.
Speaker 1:And the other that when you're saying I don't want my children to get that level of punishment and those partners like, well, now they need it and they got by spread around sports.
Speaker 2:They got the bible, you know so yeah, you got to come to an agreement. You got to work together absolutely, and so how do you what? So what do you do when nobody wants to bend and they got to make a decision or come to agreement on the situation, but nobody's giving? Yeah so then, what do they do?
Speaker 1:there's always compromise, you're not going to get anywhere. There's always compromise. There's always a level of communication where you have to navigate how both you all feel and you've got to make those adjustments right. Somebody's gonna have to give, it has to happen, or somebody just has to accept the other partner's view and that can lead to them not feeling heard, not feeling value in the relationship what if they can't do that together?
Speaker 1:then they probably need to get a third party involved. A trusted third party, yeah, that can help them, that will be unbiased and will assist them in making a sound decision.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but let's give them more practical. What can we give them as practical steps and application that can help them in overcoming challenges together within their marriage?
Speaker 2:Okay, so number one would be acknowledge the challenge together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think some people try to avoid challenges you can't avoid. You have to acknowledge, you have to call it what it is, let it be what it is, accept each other's position and then work from there yeah, that's good I agree.
Speaker 1:Number two is build a stronger, a stronger foundation of trust and communication yeah, I here's one thing that I I think we learned our challenges actually brought us closer together. Yeah, I can remember one day we had a disagreement on something and we just could not get it together with each other, but we decided to go on a date. You remember that we went on a date.
Speaker 1:We went to applebee's oh yeah and we sat there and we just talked and we just laughed and we just reminisced and when we got done we were in a better place. We had navigated through our challenges. Whatever our difference was I don't even remember what it was but whatever it was we had settled it and we had begun doing something else. That's the first time, I think, I really saw our marriage going from this kind of pushing back and forth, this tension, to. We took that thing that was creating tension and we used it to make us stronger through the way we communicate, Because we didn't avoid it, we didn't ignore it. As we said, the first one is we acknowledge it and because we acknowledge it, we were able to talk about it. I think most people, when they deal with trauma, we call it challenges, but some people call it trauma. When people deal with trauma, their trauma response is avoidance.
Speaker 2:Let's not talk about it.
Speaker 1:Let's just act like it didn't happen. Let's act like it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:And move past it and act like everybody's fine. Everybody's great, we're great, how you doing, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:And that and that doesn't work. You're lying to yourself and eventually that stuff is going to come back to hurt you, yeah, if you don't deal with it. So so that first step, definitely, in acknowledging, dealing with it and being willing to talk about it, no matter how difficult it is to discuss it.
Speaker 2:I think that's what it is. It's the difficult piece yeah that people, that it's that hard place and it's a place of honesty. Right, you have to be honest in order to get over the communication.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you know your spouse doesn't want to talk about it. It's sometimes the challenge is talking about it Because I know. I didn't always want to talk about it, but.
Speaker 2:I had to. I had to learn that. Number one, you don't need to hold it. And number two, you need to be honest and just go and just talk about it, and it's how you say it. Like I said before, it's how you say it, but it's my true feelings on how I feel, and so it has helped.
Speaker 1:And that communication. Like you said, that honesty should come up in the form of unity. It should lead to unity and, as you said in the second step, build a stronger foundation for trust, right and and that honesty in the relationship yeah, yeah, so that's good.
Speaker 2:Number three is a set clear joint goals clear joint joint goals because everybody has their own goals, like right, so we want, we know what we want for ourselves, but do you ever think to set goals with your spouse? Like what we're going to accomplish together.
Speaker 1:Yeah and I think those goals also go to what do we want to accomplish through this challenge? If we're going to work to overcome this, what do we want to see happen? Sometimes some people have to pull all the way back and say, before we set a goal for overcoming the challenge, let's set a goal for how we're going to communicate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a big one yeah.
Speaker 1:We're going to respect one another.
Speaker 2:We're not going to yell at one another.
Speaker 1:We're not going to say offensive things to one another. Sometimes you got to set goals around even the communication to set the goals, because some people never get to setting the goals because they their their views are so different that they bump heads even in the conversation because they were raised differently you know some people were raised where you just hang up on people there's nothing wrong with that. You know what I'm saying it's just different.
Speaker 2:And so you got to talk to each other and say, hey, we're not going to be disrespectful.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know we're not going to raise our voice. And if we do raise our voice, you know you just acknowledge. Okay, your tone is a little, you know a little elevated and. I'm like okay, bring it down.
Speaker 1:If we set those goals, then too, we have to also have enough respect for one another. So here's our goal for communication, here's our goal for where we're going. We have to have enough respect and value to also hold one another accountable. Some people do not want their spouse to hold. They'll let somebody else hold them accountable, but they struggle with their spouse holding them accountable because they'll take it as criticism. And so that's another key factor there of if we're going to work through this jointly, if we're going to be a partnership.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this today as we were preparing to even talk about this episode or this topic. I was thinking about, um, a marriage is like a business. But then I pulled out. I was like, well, I don't want to say it's a business like a partnership. I think I like the idea of it being more so a team. Oh yeah, we're team and we're teammates on the same team, and so we should be working towards the same goal. Any team, those teammates have to communicate, they have to understand one another, they have to know the strengths of their teammates and their weaknesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's something that helped us. Once I learned your strengths and your weaknesses, it helped me to deal with you better right, but some people don't want you to see their weaknesses and that's the issue even in marriage.
Speaker 2:But you're gonna see it anyway, oh yeah that's when you get up under the same roof. Oh, you're gonna see it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're gonna see everything and that's where people, when you marry somebody, it's okay. You got to be okay with your spouse seeing your shortcomings. Truth of the matter is you're not comfortable because you don't know how they're going to handle your short, your shortcomings. You don't feel safe enough with them to be vulnerable on that level. So a lot we'll hide, yeah we'll try to hide it.
Speaker 1:And when a challenge because challenges are going to come to expose it, Then guess what? You go into this super crazy mode to keep it concealed, instead of being honest with your partner and say that's not a strength of mine.
Speaker 2:That's I'm not good right there. That's the area I'm struggling in right here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not. I don't handle this well, Because most of people like to think I do everything well, but the reality is that.
Speaker 2:No, it's that, it's that image you want to. You want to, you want to present your best self and the perfect image and the perfect person, and it's not you don't have to do that sometimes you don't have to do that 100, so that was good, all right.
Speaker 1:What else?
Speaker 2:number four is support and encourage one another through actions. I think that's really good.
Speaker 1:I think I struggled with that one you think so what makes you say that? Because you tell me what do I give me an example? What do I say that makes you feel like you struggle with that?
Speaker 2:You would say stuff like you ain't tell me, you don't tell me I did a good job, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's just pulling for encouragement, maybe Pulling for a compliment sometimes, maybe Something like that.
Speaker 2:Okay but I think I do when you like fixing stuff around the house. I guess it depends on what it is well, I gotta earn my praise.
Speaker 1:Why?
Speaker 2:I gotta why. Why?
Speaker 1:is this performance based? I?
Speaker 2:don't know, just trying to figure out like when do I do it just like naturally, and when do I have to be intentional?
Speaker 1:I think it's important for us to support and encourage one another, especially as we're working through. So for me, the way it looks for me is when I see you trying to give your best to push back against, um, a weakness or a struggle or something that you don't feel great about taking on personally, I think that's the place for me to say you can do it. Yeah, you know you. You know how can I support you in doing this? Or you're doing a great. If I can't do anything, you're doing a great job. Keep, keep up the good work, keep moving in that direction. I recognize your part. It's just that little bit of supporting so that when those challenges arise, they don't. They don't. It's not like you're my enemy. Yeah, sometimes I think we feel like I'm fighting maybe my own challenges within and I'm also fighting with my spouse if they're not supportive yeah I'm fighting your opinion of me, your criticism of me, all that so
Speaker 1:being supportive at least removes one of the potential challenges from the relationship. At least I know I don't have to continue with you. I know you love me, you accept me, and so let me face what I need to face and we're we're in it together. That's the togetherness. That's what I talked about earlier. It may be your challenge, but I'm affected by it because it affects you. But my role is to be supportive and say no, you're gonna face this. I'm gonna face this with you, yeah, and I'm gonna do all I can to help you overcome it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you've been, you've done that you've been very helpful with that.
Speaker 1:I think we do that with each other I think we do our best to do that with one another, to support one another through challenges. I think I have more space with you because you kind of share your challenges from time to time. Yeah, sometimes you don't like talk about them, but you may share what it is, I think, for me, it took a minute yeah, I mean, it took both of us a minute, I think, for me.
Speaker 1:I like to believe that I can overcome anything, so so I don't even see it as a chance, I See it as a temporary problem that I'm about to find a solution.
Speaker 2:I like that attitude, though you know I like that that you. You know you look at stuff and you go with stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my mindset is I'm gonna figure it out, I'm gonna deal with it, it'll be all right. But there, but having your support, even when I don't deal with it as well as I think I'm going to, I don't handle it as well as I think I can, or?
Speaker 1:I'm not as equipped to handle it, as I would like to feel like I am your support when I come to the acknowledgement of hey, you can't do this by yourself, or or there's some growth that has to happen in order for you to handle this yeah your support, uh, and encouragement is really helpful. Just just even convert the conversations of being able to be transparent with you and have you listen and be supportive when I share my weaknesses and challenges.
Speaker 2:It's I mean, that's huge, it is I like when you do that, because sometimes you know I I can offer, you know, some kind of suggestions and sometimes it works, sometimes you know it doesn't, but sometimes you just want me to listen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it brings us closer together. Sometimes I want you to listen, sometimes I want you to tell me how you feel, because hearing how you feel helps to challenge how I feel. Maybe I'm overthinking, maybe I have the wrong perspective. Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking, maybe I have the wrong perspective. So hearing you talk about it helps to kind of bring up a settledness, a balance and a calmness to me where I can think, man, this is the biggest problem ever, what am I going to do? And get stressed about it. But then I talk to you and say, well, it's not as big as you're making it out to be. It may, yes, a big problem.
Speaker 2:Yes, it has to be dealt, dealt with, but maybe it's not as hard as you think. It is okay. So number five is celebrate your progress and stay resilient. I like that 100%.
Speaker 1:Stay resilient 100%. Yeah, we definitely got to celebrate. Yeah, couples need to learn to celebrate.
Speaker 2:I think we didn't celebrate enough early on no, we just started celebrating, we just started yeah because we we realize where we come from we realize where we started and where we are now, and we are in a different place. We are not the same two people. We're so much better, but we're still working every day every day, you know because the challenges don't stop um. So we're just so we're better absolutely, and I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm all for that. Celebrate, enjoy one another and you can celebrate, as you just said, even while you're making progress. Celebrate the progress, enjoy where you are, enjoy who you're becoming. Yeah Right, like you said, looking back to all of us, hopefully are growing in our relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Growing in our lives. We're talking about ministry and marriage, growing in all those areas. We celebrate on both sides of the spectrum. Because we've grown on both sides, we deal with the challenges a whole lot better and, uh, and we don't have nearly as many problems together among us as a result of life or ministry. It's just that calmness, that peace that's coming. We celebrate that growth. It's just that calmness, that peace that's coming. We celebrate that growth. It's a good thing, and so we encourage those that listen to us Find the positive, don't focus on just the negative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:And you'll find a lot of reasons to celebrate where you're going and where you come from.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:All right Sounds good. Hopefully this helps some of you guys overcome different challenges in your life, in your marriage. Work together, support one another, be encouraging one another. Don't be your partner's enemy. Be their teammate, be their support, be the one they can lean on to help navigate the different challenges of life. And I promise you, with god on your side, nothing's impossible. You can handle everything that's thrown your way, no matter what angle it comes from. You'll have, you'll handle it. You'll survive if you stick together. All right, thank you for joining us today. Got anything else? That's it cool. Listen, we look forward to seeing you. Make sure you like subscribe and share this with somebody. You think it'll help, and we'll see you on next time, god bless. Hey, thank you for joining us, for doing it with the daniels, if you want to. God bless.