A man’s qualification for ministry cannot be separated from his leadership in the home. “The family is a vital training and testing ground for church leaders. It is your first field of ministry that must be cultivated. God intends you to develop and display in your family the relational wisdom you need to lead God’s people.”

The Bible lays out a whole list of qualifications that must be present in the life of a man who wishes to be a pastor. He must be the husband of one wife, he must be a lover of good, he must be hospitable, and so on. Meanwhile, he must not be arrogant, quick-tempered, violent, or a drunkard. It is no small thing to pastor God’s church and it stands to reason that the qualifications would be exacting.

Yet for all of the qualifications we take seriously, there is one that so often seems to be overlooked: He must manage his own household well. I suspect most of us have known pastors who were capable preachers and perhaps good at motivating a group of people to follow, yet whose home life was chaotic. To that end, I have often pondered Alexander Strauch’s words:

Managing the local church is more like managing a family than managing a business or state. A man may be a successful businessman, a capable public official, a brilliant office manager, or a top military leader but be a terrible church elder or father. Thus a man’s ability to oversee his household well is a prerequisite for overseeing God’s household.

This qualification has finally received its due in Chap Bettis’ new book Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership. “One reason God’s people have so much poor or merely passable oversight,” he says, “is because we often have not pursued leadership wisdom. In this digital age, we confuse knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is information, while wisdom is information aptly applied to a situation. It is skillful living. Leaders must have knowledge. But they also need wisdom and wisdom of a particular type—relational wisdom. It takes wisdom to build a family and wisdom to build a church family.”

Read More