On this episode of The Disciple-Making Parent, we welcome Brian Croft to discuss the delicate balance between pastoral ministry and family life. We explore practical ways pastors can faithfully serve their church while prioritizing their spouse and children. Brian shares personal stories about adapting his parenting approach to meet each child’s unique needs and how these family experiences have made him a more effective pastor. We discuss how receiving honest feedback from family members can improve preaching, and how explaining scripture to children helps create messages that connect with all ages. Brian also offers valuable insights on maintaining meaningful connections with children into adulthood and applying family leadership principles to church leadership.
Resources From This Podcast
The Pastor’s Family, by Brian Croft
Practical Shepherding
Podcast episode: Marriage Panel: A Real Life Conversation and Encouragement
Sermons to Children, by J.C. Ryle
Managing Your Households Well, by Chap Bettis
Topics Covered In This Week’s Podcast
03:14 Introduction
06:12 Lessons from The Pastor’s Family
10:03 Looking back on what worked well
15:00 What got Brian’s attention to make a change
19:17 Lessons learned about marriage
26:06 Lessons learned about children
31:43 Lessons learned about teenagers
37:04 Using lessons from the household to be a better pastor
Episode Transcript
I’m Chap Betis and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. How do you faithfully serve the church while serving your family? How do you balance the demands of ministry with the demands of being a father and a husband?
Hi, my name is Chap Bettis and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent, and in our podcast, we’ve been running a small series on leadership and the family. In the previous two podcasts, I covered the material in my new book, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership.
Well, in today’s podcast, you’re going to listen in on a conversation I had with Brian Croft. What started as a conversation about the pastor’s family turned into wise insights for every family. In particular, Brian shares about hard lessons he had to learn as a young husband and as a pastor. Also, you’ll hear some great ways to stay connected to your children that Brian put into practice. And in the process of hearing Brian’s story, we talk about lessons in his book, the The Pastor’s Family. Brian Croft is the former senior pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s the founder and executive director of Practical Shepherding. He’s an adjunct professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he and his wife Kara, have four children: a son, Samuel, and three daughters: Abby, Isabel, and Claire.
Before we start though, I want to remind you of two resources that may be of interest to you. The first is our newest book, Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. It’s been endorsed by a number of Christian leaders, including Tim Challies, Barnabas Piper, and Brian Croft himself. It’s perfect for pastor teams, elder teams, and deacon teams, as well as those who are in training for those positions. You can find it at our website or anywhere Christian books are sold.
Of course, the second resource that we always highlight and that we give away is the audiobook for The Disciple-Making Parent. We’re giving that away absolutely free. Just visit our website and sign up for our weekly newsletter, and we’ll give you the whole audiobook for free. We are on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to pass the gospel to their children, but not only to raise them to be disciples, but disciple-makers who will take the gospel to the world and stand as salt and light in our country.
For now though, let’s think about how pastors, and really all men, can balance faithfully serving their family and others well.
Chap: It’s a joy to have Brian Croft on The Disciple-Making Parent. Thanks for talking with me.
Brian Croft: Good to be with you. Thanks.
Chap: Well, why don’t you introduce yourself for people who may not have heard about you. I appreciate your ministry so much. So just tell us a little bit about yourself.
Brian: So last month I hit 30 years in the ministry of some kind. I did eight years of associate pastor work in a variety of churches. And then I went to be the pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church here in Louisville, Kentucky. I was the pastor there for 17 years. My story is one of, I went to this church to be the senior pastor. You know, dying Baptist congregation, 30 elderly members, in decline for 40 years. One of those very common situations. And I went in, felt called to go there, and the first five years were really hard. A lot of hostility, three different movements to get me fired in the church in the first five years. It was pretty wild. And that’s its whole separate story.
But basically I survived those five years, and God was at work in those years. And in year six, the ship just turned and the church began to flourish from that day on. And I ended up staying there for 17 years. Practical Shepherding started out of just those early years in the ministry where I training young guys for the ministry, for the mission field, for pastoral ministry. That’s really where Practical Shepherding started, out of just some practical resources. And then it became a ministry. We’re also caring for pastors, caring for their families, caring for their own soul, and that’s really what Practical Shepherding is. 17 years later, five years ago, I left my church to serve full-time with Practical Shepherding. So five years ago I became the executive director, and now I started that ministry full-time. And that’s what I continue to do today.
So, my four kids: I’ve got a son, Samuel, who’s 25, and three daughters. Abby, 23; Isabel 21; Claire 18. So Chap, my last child, my daughter graduated high school last month and everybody’s grown. Everybody made it, and we kind of laugh about that because as the children were being raised, we would say things like, I’m not sure you’re gonna make it, you know, but they all made it. So we’re celebrating that around here these days.
So at a sweet spot, ministry-wise, I love the work I get to do. I run the revitalization center at Southern Seminary as just a part-time role I have there, but I also get to work with students and train them in ministry as well. So, I’m at a sweet place and I love what I get to do.
Chap: If your kids are that age, when I would go out and speak, I would say All proceeds from the book go to help a starving family. And that’s me. Please buy lots of books. So you got some college bills no doubt.
Brian: We’ve got some of those bills for sure.
Chap: So look at Practical Shepherding if you’re a pastor, in any leadership position really. But let’s get into your book. A number of your books are co-written with other people. This one is co-written with your wife Kara, and it’s called The Pastor’s Family: Shepherding Your Family Through the Challenges of Pastoral Ministry. Why don’t you just tell us, um. Some of those lessons. Just a few lessons to start us off. There are a number of different quotes I want us to talk about, but one of the things you say on page 13 is “How do you faithfully serve the church while serving your family? How do you balance the demands of ministry with the demands of being a father and a husband? How do you prioritize your time between preaching and the word making disciples and loving your wife and your children?” So what are some, some lessons, what are some things that you would emphasize as you’re talking? You’re still working with young guys. What are some things that you emphasize in that, answering those questions?
Brian: Yeah, so really the core of Practical Shepherding is that we emphasize the holistic care of a pastor. So we’ve got to care for his own soul. We’ve got to teach him what his ministry is, which is shepherding people’s souls. That’s what the New Testament says a pastor does. And then the third is prioritizing the care of your family. And I think biblically, that’s a very clear argument to make. That that is to be a priority in a pastor’s life. Even to qualify according to 1 Timothy chapter three.
So I would first emphasize the idea that those three areas are equally important, that have to equally be addressed to really be able to thrive. And if all three need to be emphasized, then you have to find the balance between them. Where I find a lot of pastors get out of whack is when we’re out balance in those things. A lot of the cliche is we just give everything to our ministry and we neglect our family and we neglect caring for ourselves, but that also can get twisted as well. I know guys that will focus on caring for their family and their ministry, but then just totally neglect caring for themselves as a human being, as a person caring for their own soul. And vice versa.
So I would first say that the key is to care well for your family. The key is to also balance these three areas of your life. So in other words, the answer is not just pour all your priority into your family. That that’s not the point of this. It has to be a priority, the first priority really, but there’s got to be other things in place. I’ve actually seen the swing of this where there are pastors that kind of idolize their family for the sake of not even really giving themselves to their ministry. And so I think that’s also out of balance. So I think the key is seeing these three areas as equally important. They all have to be addressed, and of course, to the area that you focus on, family does have to be that priority. And what does that look like?
Chap: That’s really good. I’m glad you brought up both of those things because on the one hand, when I’ve thought about time management, and you can tell me if you agree or disagree, the clowns and the circus who used to have to balance these plates, and we would see those, use that as a negative illustration, but I actually think that’s a positive one in terms of I can’t spend 24 hours seeking the Lord in prayer. I can’t spend 24 hours with my family and I can’t spend 24 hours seven days a week on ministry. I need to do all those things. And I’ve seen what I think you’re talking about, which is on the one hand, pastors ignoring their family. But on the other hand, I’m thinking ministry is hard work. You should come home at night. And there’d be times you’re like, I’m exhausted. This is hard work.
So what are some things that you did in your own family, or looking back going, Man, I wish I had done this to try and keep that balance to invest really in all three?
Brian: Well, my first response where I first go to when I hear you ask that question is the lessons I learned not doing things well. That’s where I race to, especially in my early years. The church was really demanding. It was really hard work. I had not done some of my own soul work around how ministry affected me personally. And so in many cases, my family took a back seat to me prioritizing my ministry in an imbalanced way. So I look back on some of those years, Chap, and realize that I did that. And it took my wife to speak up. It took some painful situations in my own family, in my own marriage that began to wake me up to see, okay, I’ve got to balance this better.
The ministry’s never done. And I think those pastors who try to check all the boxes by the end of the day and then they can go rest and they can go enjoy their family, never do so because the work’s never done. I work with thousands of pastors all over the world now, and I’ll tell them the same thing. If you are a full-time pastor, that’s your only occupation. I tell guys, “You should not be working more than 50 hours a week on an average,” because it’s really easy as a pastor to work 70 to 80 hours as a week. But when you’re talking about the balance, when you talk about how to care for ourselves, things like sleep, doing fun things, caring for yourself, doing your own soul work, getting a chance to exercise, all those kind of things- that takes time. Sleep takes time, sleeping enough, and then you want to have quality time with your family. Well, you only have so many hours during the week, so a lot of pastors will just work all the time and they don’t realize they do.
When you talk about this balance and lessons that I’ve learned, I actually encourage guys to keep track of how much you work. Sundays count, by the way. Feel free to write me and push back, but Sunday is a workday for a pastor. It just is. It’s the culmination of the workdays. So counting Sundays, working 50 to 55 hours a week. That is plenty. That’s showing sacrifice and dedication, but it’s also putting a limit and saying, I’m going to push that into next week. And then that usually gives some margin and capacity to be able to make sure we get time with our families, time to care for ourselves.
So I learned the balance eventually, but I learned it through some hard lessons. I learned it through my wife feeling neglected. I learned it through her being exhausted because she was the one taking care of all the kids when they were little and I was gone. So I went through all that, failed at all those things. I would definitely put that as one of the best lessons.
But as I started going, I started seeking counsel and looking for models that I could emulate. So trying to find pastors who seem to have strong families. I looked for wives that seemed to love and respect their husbands. I looked for kids who seemed to want be with their dad and adored their dad. And I actually started trying to study and look and see what they were doing. And one of the lessons I learned is how important it is to be present when you’re with them. That quantity isn’t as important as the quality of it.
And this is also determined by what season of life your family’s in. When your kids are two and three years old and they want to play on the floor, you can be half checked out and they have no idea. You’ve got a teenage girl at 12, 13 years old who’s trying to tell you about her day. Check out once and let her know you’re not fully listening, and she may not share that with you again. So you’ve got to know your season. But being present with the family when you are with them, I learned, that was so valuable. They were willing to give me away when the church needed me more, when I got better at being present with them when I was with them.
Chap: That’s really good. One of the things you focus on is, so much of this has to do with our heart. So you talk about how we’re tempted because of our desire for approval or appearance or to be significant or successful, so all those are temptations and the work is never done. Jesus said in John 17:4, “I completed the work you gave me to do”, but everybody had not heard the gospel. Everybody was not healed. So that is a hard thing in our own heart.
And I love something else you said: Children can come to the conclusion that our dads love the church more than them. Well, how did your wife get your attention? Maybe I should ask that question. You and she co-wrote the different sections, and then the second section is on the pastor’s wife. So how did she get your attention, and what did you hear from her?
Brian: That’s a tough story. I learned a really harsh lesson with this. She would try to share with me what was going on, that our schedule was too crazy, too overwhelming, and I just didn’t listen well. And here’s where I learned a really harsh lesson. I’ll tell guys, if your wife stops trying to share with you and get your attention, it doesn’t mean you all of a sudden are crushing it. It means she might be tired of telling you these things and you’re not listening. And that was unfortunately what happened. And it ended up getting to a place where my family really blew up in a lot of ways. And I just basically crushed her and our family with my ministry schedule. It actually got very difficult, very scary. We had to bring some help in for us, counselors and doctors even, and it took a few years. So some really painful memories and things to come out of that.
So in a sense, my story is one of somebody whose wife spoke up. But I didn’t listen, and we got the consequences of that. It was kind of the family imploding that got my attention. It was a counselor we were meeting with that actually got my attention. It was going through that process where I finally saw what I was doing and how I was harming my family. And that’s what got my attention in it. It was a painful road for several years after that, but I would say God used that to really get my attention. And I did some of my own soul work around trying to figure out why was I doing this? That first section that talks about wanting people’s love and affection and approval of man, and that can just drive us to crazy things. And that was my own personal story. And so when ministry was no longer the idol that it was in those early years, I began to figure out how to be balanced. I began to listen to her realizing probably the most significant lesson I learned.
A counselor helped me see that my wife- and I think every pastor’s wife, by the way, this is God’s design- That she’s the barometer. And that was an interesting lesson that he taught me. You think of what a barometer does. It measures what? It’s just pressure. And I’m convinced this is true in my own marriage. This is true, I think in every marriage: the wife seems to have an ability and a gifting from God that we don’t have to measure the pressure that the family feels in a ministry bubble. And it took some pushing and prodding for sure, for me to see this and finally get it. But when I came around to see it, I realized, man, God used her- and he still does- to be able to measure the pressure, which is why I’ve got to listen to her in a way I was not in the early years of my ministry. It’s a longer story, but God used a lot of painful things to get us there.
Chap: Thanks for sharing that, and I appreciate that. That’s one of the things I’m hoping to accomplish with the book Managing Your Households Well– is to say, Hey, pastors, this is a requirement and especially to listen to your wife.
I thought she did a great job and her section, but I was clueless about this, especially in my younger years pastoring. But thinking about how vulnerable pastors’ wives are in the sense that they’re usually tuned in more to relationships, and yet they’re powerless in the sense they have our ear maybe, or maybe not in your case. But if people don’t like us, you and I may go, Oh man, that person doesn’t like us. Well, they’ll either leave or not. But our wives feel that and then can’t always make things right or well as much as they’d like to.
Well, let’s see. I wanted to talk about thinking about caring for our wives. What are some lessons? So you talked about listening, but you also talked about, and I loved how you phrased it: Love, understanding, and delighting in your wife. That’s a little different from how it’s stated in 1 Peter: dwell and understand your way. But the delight in your relationship- what are something things you would same came out of that that you incorporated into your marriage?
Brian: It’s a good question. I would say that there are seasons that are just hard to do that, first of all. I think to just recognize those, to realize that marriage is hard. It’s something that we’re struggling to try to grow in. We’ve always needed help from others to help us to do that. So I encourage pastors and pastors’ wives to be in marriage counseling. That has been, off and on, something we’ve done for years. We have found it very helpful. I say that because, you know, Chap, I think pastors and even their wives think, We’re the pastor and the pastor’s wife. We’re supposed to be able to figure all this out. And I’ll be the first one to say, in many seasons of our life, we’ve needed a third person to help us talk through things that we actually had trouble doing on our own. So I’ll just put that out there. I think a skilled counselor who knows and understands is a very helpful gift to have.
But I think the other side to your question is, and this took me time, to see the value that she is to me personally, outside of my ministry, just as my wife. And to want to try to cultivate that and to want to try to invest in that. And then to see the value she is to the ministry that I do. I spent some years, and at one point because she was pushing back on a ministry schedule we had that was not sustainable long term in the early years, I would’ve told you she was potentially a hindrance to my ministry. And then I came around to realize that not only was that not true, but she’s actually a unique gift that God helps me to thrive in my ministry. That’s why I say I think our wives, if we’ll listen to them and see the value and the unique design of God in our marriages for ministry, I think it’ll cause us to love and delight in them even more. When we see this unique gift and role God’s put them in our lives and our family’s life, and even in our ministry’s lives. That’s usually a tension pastors feel. Some will say that my wife’s hindering my ministry if they’re honest about it. And it has to do with seeing that lot of times our wives are saying things and pushing on things that nobody else will, and we think they’re wrong because no one else is.
That’s kind of the running joke. I eventually would always say, Look, I know my wife’s wrong because my elders aren’t telling me this. My friends aren’t telling me this. Nobody else is. Clearly, she’s got to be wrong.Right? And another harsh lesson I came to learn, a painful one, is actually, that’s when I need to listen the most, is when nobody else is saying it except her. And to love and delight in her means that I’ve got to find a way to hear something that’s hard to hear, but also encourage her to say it. And say, I need you to say these things. That’s a hard balance to find, Chap, you know?
Chap: Oh, man. Several things just went through my head as you were talking. One is just that we are in this together. And just talking about when you were going through some difficult, difficult times . . . well, several, several different things. One is, I’ve got the podcast up there. We had a marriage conference at our church and at the final thing was the panel. And they had a young couple, a middle couple, and us representing the older couples. And the first two couples are like, Oh, we’ve been each other’s best friends forever. And Sharon and I are looking at it going, If there are two ways to do things, we each do them the opposite way. So we represent the people who struggle.
And yet she is my partner in ministry. She has a heart for ministry. And at the same time, one of the hardest times we had was when we were going through a very difficult church discipline issue. And back to that pressure, that barometer. She’s feeling the pressure. She’s connected to the people we’re disciplining. Does she trust me, her husband? So ministry can take a toll. And I think we just need to realize that- you said this: shepherding families through the difficulties and sufferings they’ll encounter, not try to avoid them. So just assume that this is for our good, and listening to them.
Brian: I’ve often said that in a tough church, which we were in for those first several years, there’s one tougher place to be than the pastor’s being attacked by people. And that’s the person married to him. Because as a pastor, if I’m being attacked, like I can pick my battles. I can choose to fight if I want to. That may not be wise, but I can choose to do that. But I have yet to see a scenario where the pastor’s wife goes and fights on his behalf and that goes well. I have never seen that go well. So she’s got the tougher spot. She’s got to watch people attack him. She’s got to figure out, Do I even agree with you in what you’re doing?And then she’s got to sit back and just support and pray. It’s by far the hardest position to be in.
Chap: I agree. Yeah, I agree absolutely. Well, one of the things that I believe she wrote or you wrote about her- When our husbands grow discouraged, we must help them pick up the pieces. It’s an extremely important job, helping them sift through the criticism to see if there’s any truth in the accusations, and providing a balanced perspective, and then encouraging them to love people again. Man, oh man, that’s just a beautiful perspective about a wife’s role in that.
Let’s shift a little bit to thinking about children. What are some habits that you tried to inculcate? Maybe, again, you learned them by not doing them, and you’ve already talked about being present. But I’m wondering what are some other things where you’d say? Let’s talk about young pastors with young children, and then also maybe pastors with children the age of yours.
Brian: Probably the one thing that I would share that really was a game changer I learned, not from a pastor, but a friend of mine who was a deacon in his church. He’s a pharmacist and he has seven kids. And we went and stayed with them for a week. The week we were there, I watched him in his family life, and he met with each one of his children every morning individually. Each one of them had their own morning every week. I’d just watch this happen. They’d meet early in the morning and they’d read together, they’d pray, they’d read scripture together, they’d read a book together, they’d talk. And he did this with every single one of them. Seven children, seven days a week. And at the end of the time we were staying with him, we were about to go home, and I knew it was coming. He was going to come to me and like, why don’t you do this? I had four kids and they were little, and I knew he wasn’t going to take some weak excuse that I didn’t have time because I had like less kids than him, you know? So he challenged me to begin to meet with my children individually every week in some form or fashion.
And I humored him. I felt kind of pressured to do it and humored him. And we went home. Now, mornings were always chaos in our house. Nothing spiritual happened in our house in the mornings. So I went and decided, okay, Monday the through Thursday, four nights, four kids, each of them get their own night. So this is when they’re young enough that they all went to bed at the same time. So what I started doing is whoever’s evening it was, everybody else went to bed. And that child got to stay up 30 minutes later with me. And that’s where we read scripture together. We prayed together. We picked a book out to read. I didn’t read well growing up, and so I always wanted to be able to hear my kids read as they were learning to read. And we did that together.
Sometimes a wrestling match ensued, which mom wasn’t crazy about, but she was very supportive of me doing this with the kids. So I would say, being challenged to meet individually with each of my kids when they were younger and in the home. And I’ll be honest with you, Chap, I humored my friend to do this, and I thought to myself, Okay, I’m going to do this for a few months and they’re going to lose interest. It’ll grow old and we won’t do it anymore. And man, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d say for about the next 10 years, I met with each one of my kids every week individually. And I can’t tell you the impact that had on me on our relationship. It was just incredible how God worked in the midst of that. Especially as my kids are grown, now they’re leaving the house to look back on those years.
So I would say, if I could emphasize one thing for a pastor, we dedicate our lives to disciple, meet one-on-one with people, and do all these things, right? And then we come home and we don’t have the same mentality. So I would say meeting one-on-one individually with each one of your kids every week. And to invest that time, figure out a way to do that. And they will be your best accountability for sure, because they’ll love it too.
Chap: That’s great. So to be clear, he was doing it in the morning, you just did it at night, and then how often would one of these times happen? Because I think I can maybe feel guys saying, Oh my gosh, that’s overwhelming every week. So every week for an hour? 30 minutes?
Brian: Every week for 30 minutes. So like I said, they get to stay up 30 minutes later with me. So 30 minutes and then they would go to bed. And that became doable. They all go to bed. I stay up 30 minutes with that one child, and it ended up working well. If it’s an hour, that’s just a different conversation. That 30 minutes was very doable. And that’s the thing, you’ve got to figure out how to do this, when to do it. Again, mornings would’ve been terrible to try to do it. But to do it in the evening, when everybody’s going to bed, that just seemed the best time for us to be able to do it. And because it was a, a doable scenario, we were able to be consistent with it.
Chap: Okay. That’s really good. I hear echoes of kind of my donut date journal in that, going out on donut date, but I like yours better, honestly, I didn’t hear that, but there’s lots of good there.
Brian: Here’s the thing about that: it doesn’t just happen naturally is what I learned. So I think we expect, Oh, it’s going to happen, and on average it’ll be once a month, maybe we do this or we do that. But what I found is the regiment of every week, same time, same day for each kid, especially when they’re younger, they keep track of that stuff. And I found doing it this way, 30 minutes once a week was so much more valuable. Even if I was consistent to do like an hour, hour and a half, once a month. You know, we go out to do something or whatever for a couple hours. That’s still good to do, by the way, but I found that the once a week was just a lot more doable.
Chap: That’s really good. How did, did that change as they got to be teenagers or what advice would you give for the guys who’ve got teenagers going, Man, I wish I’d heard this advice before!
Brian: That’s a great question. Here’s what I learned as they become teenagers. When my older ones became teenagers, I could tell they weren’t into it as much, but they were humoring me because it was something we’d always done for years, and I was getting discouraged by that. And I’ll never forget, I went and mentioned it to my wife. And I said, “You know, it’s just not the same. I mean, they’re doing it with me. They’re honoring that, but it’s just not the same. I’m not sure what to do.” And my wife just had some profound advice, you ready for this? She says, “Why don’t you ask them what they want to do?” I went, “That’s a pretty good idea actually.”
Chap: Who would have thought!
Brian: It’s pretty wise and insightful, eh? So it’s what I did and what I learned as each of them became teenagers was, they’re becoming their own people. They’re different. And so there’s a uniformity you can get away with when they’re younger. And then as they’re becoming their own person and as teenagers you want to honor that, you want to even celebrate that. So as I would ask them what was helpful as they would share with me, and it was really interesting how it was different for every kid and what they want to do. So I had one daughter that loved spontaneity and so she was explaining that to me. What I had to shift on is this: these things didn’t happen every week. Then when they became teenagers, outside of school and work stuff, life just happening and they’re growing up and activities and sports and all that stuff. So what I did was, it became less frequent, but if I was trying to do something that would cater to what they’re asking for, I found that that was very meaningful.
So one example is, I have one daughter that just loved the spontaneity. So the very thing I was doing before was the opposite. You know, it’s the same time, same thing every week kind of thing. So what I would do is I’d plan, and on a Saturday morning I’d wake her up and go, “Alright, you want to go to breakfast? Why don’t you get up and get dressed. Let’s go to breakfast.” She loved that. And what’s interesting, this is important. What’s interesting is it carried over into adulthood because it’s revealing who they each are in their own individuality. And so I’ll still remember these things and I still remember what each of them love to do. And I’ll still try to do those kind of things.
So this daughter lives local. She lives on her own, has her own job, own apartment, all this. But I knew she would be off one day. I’m like, “Hey, I’m 15 minutes from you. Want to meet me at the restaurant for breakfast?” She loved it. So even into adulthood that would carry over.
Chap: Oh man, that’s so good. I just think all the kids want that. Even when I’m in a booth and we talk about the Donut Date Journal, I had a women come up and say, “You know, my dad didn’t do anything like that, but can I tell you how he took me out to breakfast on a regular basis,” you know, and just connecting with their heart.
I love how you switched and it was more like, What do you want to do? But I want to stay connected to your heart. Like in Malachi chapter 4. I want our hearts to stay connected. So you picked a thing.
Brian: And by the way, I would emphasize that for our marriages, too, because things change. I am a creature of habit. I don’t like to change. So I’ve had to push myself in all these areas to really ask, what if the thing you want to do now isn’t the same thing you wanted to do five years ago? I had to be pushed to ask those questions and to think like that.
So when you’re married almost 30 years, those are the kind of conversations you want to continue to have. And so whether it’s your children or your wife, I think ongoing conversation like that. I made so many mistakes, Chap, especially with my wife, assuming too many things, instead of just asking and clarifying and just not assuming I knew the right answer. And I’ve gotten better at asking questions and not assuming, but yeah, that was something I was really stubborn about.
Chap: This sort of ties it together. So we want to honor the Lord, shepherd our wives, and yet I think one of the arguments Paul’s making in 1 Timothy 3:5 is there are lessons that we learn that carry over through pastoring. So you’ve already talked about sort of insights into yourself, but have there been insights that have helped make you a better preacher or a better shepherd of souls? Because there are people like my wife, there are people like my daughter, there are people like my son in my congregation. I’ve learned to ask better questions. So are there are ways in which you would say, Actually, yes, I am a better pastor. I should shepherd my family, full stop, out of honoring God and yet this is a way to strengthen those skills?
Brian: A couple things come to mind. One is, I don’t even think I’m in the top 10 of my wife’s favorite preachers. So to be married to somebody who’s not impressed, it ends up meaning you get really solid, honest feedback to help you grow as a preacher. That’s not at all to say she wasn’t encouraging. She was. But I always say, If you want people to tell you how great your sermon is, ask your grandmother, and if you really want to grow as a preacher, talk to people who are going to be honest with you. And she was, so that’s helpful to have that, even though it’s hard to hear things at times that are hard to hear.
The other thing I would say is, one of the things I did when we talked about meeting with my kids every week. We usually would read the passage that I was preaching that week and I would get a five-year-old’s take on it. I would get a seven-year-old’s take on it. I’d even get a three-year-old’s take on it.
And I started to see the value of when we were told to have a childlike faith and childlike reflections and things I found myself really helped by my own children’s take on things, spiritual things, things in the passage, things from the Bible, things we would talk about, and I found myself equipped to go and preach, knowing an 8-year-old sitting there and an 80-year-old sitting there.
So there’s all kinds of little things like that that I would say once I started paying attention to it, it really helped me to grow and be attentive know how to just care for people, just better in general for the church.
Chap: Yeah, that’s great. Martin Luther said something like, I preach for the milkmaids and don’t worry about the doctors. That’s my paraphrase, but yeah.
Brian: You’re right. We often preach over people’s heads. I’m in a seminary town, man. Like I see guys coming out of seminary all the time. And they go in and they just preach over people’s heads. So it’s almost like we had to be reprogrammed to realize there’s six-year-olds sitting there, there’s 85-year-olds sitting there who can’t hear. There’s 50-year-olds who can’t know how to read very well sitting there. We need to remember it’s regular people sitting in church.
Chap: Yes, absolutely. And I’d say it makes you a better preacher. What are you trying to say? Can you not explain your sermon to a 5-year-old? Okay. Then you’re not clear enough yet.
Brian: Here’s a quick plug. JC Ryle. And one of Ryle’s best books is his Sermons to Children. If you haven’t heard of that before. Ryle is brilliant and everyone knows that Ryle’s this masterful theologian, which he is, but some of his best work is a sermon to children. It’s brilliant.
Chap: This has been really, really helpful. I appreciate the book a lot. It was on my research list as I was writing my own book. I think the pastor’s family has a target on their back and we need to be reminded that it’s not in competition with our ministry. It’s in addition to. We can learn lots. So I appreciate your ministry. Where can people find out more about you? Obviously Google. Or look into Amazon and look up Brian Croft and see all the books you’ve written or co-written. How else can they find out more about you?
Brian: Yeah, thanks. So practical shepherding.com is the best place to go. You can really learn everything that we’re doing, what I’m about. There’s information about me and some of the ministry I do there, but it just shows the ministry that we’ve built the last 17 years. So that’s the best place to look. I’m also on social media. So you can find me on practical shepherding and some different places in social media, and you can reach me through this: If you want to reach out to me, you can also go to practicalshepherding.com and there’s a contact page there. You can reach out. Our staff will get that. And if you want to reach out to me for anything, it’ll get to me.
Chap: Super. Well, thanks for your time. Good to talk with you. Thanks for listening to the Disciple Making Parent podcast. We love offering resources to equip you in family discipleship for free, but we can only do that because of our faithful financial partners. Would you consider joining us? We’re a small and lean ministry, and we make your kingdom dollars go far. So head on over to the disciple making parent.com/partner. Thanks for listening.
