Article
Don't Leave Your Family at the Dock
June 13, 1793. It was a momentous day in church history as the “father of modern missions,” William Carey, set sail on the Kron Princessa Maria for India. The coldness of the church towards even the idea of missions, the uniqueness of what Carey was attempting, the financial pressures, the limited knowledge of the world’s geography—none of it was enough to stop Carey from expecting great things from God and attempting great things for God.
Of all the remarkable graces in Carey’s missionary story, one of the most unexpected was standing at his side on that June 13th—his wife Dorothy. Just two months prior, Carey had all his belongings on another ship and fully intended to leave his wife and children behind. Carey was forced off the first ship he had boarded, however, and in the months' delay in finding another one Dorothy was able to join him. Regrettably, future missionaries would follow Carey’s intention of leaving family behind for extended periods of time or even permanently for the sake of their mission.
Ministry and family don’t need to be mutually exclusive, nor uneasy friends, but with God’s grace complementary partners to see his kingdom come and his will be done.
Many more families than just Carey’s have been figuratively “left on the dock” for the sake of ministry, however. There are always plenty of good reasons we use to rationalize such a decision. The work is noble, the workers few, and the demands great. But what of our families in ministry? Do we plow forward, even at the expense of leaving them behind? Are strained marriages and poorly shepherded children simply the cost of doing ministry business, an unfortunate consequence of serving the King? Or are they a sacrifice with which God is not well pleased?
While we may not still be physically leaving families on the dock as we set sail on our ministry efforts, we might still be doing something similar:
- When we won’t sacrifice our time for our families as we would for our ministries, we might be leaving our families behind.
- When we don’t invest shepherding energy in our families like we are in our ministries, we might be wrongly prioritizing formal ministry over the family ministry.
- When we don’t preach, teach, and model the gospel at home, we might be failing in our first mission field.
- If we’d drop anything the moment a church member texts but can’t slow down to look at our first grader's artwork, we might be the ones missing the boat.
Instead of leaving our families behind in ministry, how can we find ways to bring them along with us?
- Let’s tell our families about the things God is doing and the thrills in ministry so they love this ministry work.
- Let’s share the burdens of ministry with our families, with appropriate levels of detail, so they know why we might be discouraged on a given day.
- Let’s involve our families in our ministries in any way possible, from attendance to serving together.
What grace do we have from God in our efforts to not leave our families on the dock? He promises to give us wisdom, so we can skillfully navigate the challenges of ministry while caring for our families. He’s given us the grace of insignificance, the blessed reality that there’s already a Savior and a Holy Spirit and we’re not either, so time away from our “ministries” but with our families is not wasted time. And he’s given us the grace of repentance, so we can course correct as needed. Ministry and family don’t need to be mutually exclusive, nor uneasy friends, but with God’s grace complementary partners to see his kingdom come and His will be done.