Questions and Answers

She's a much more dynamic communicator than I am, and so I don't know if I can keep up with her today. It's a pleasure to be here, Pastor Leon. Well, thank you for being with me today on the Salt Church show here. So we've been in a series about relationships called Relationship Goals, and you know I thought about mimicking some relationship goals ourselves, like doing some pictures and just kind of be, you know, doing... There's children in here.

Oh, okay, yeah. Maybe not that far okay. But today we decided to set some time just to answer some questions that you guys had about relationships and, you know, kind of be a little vulnerable today. But before I do that, we wanted to kind of share a few things with you here at the church. If you're new with us today, we're so glad you're here with us.

In fact, if you look in that bifold, you have a connection card there that is available for you and you can fill that out. I promise you we won't harass you or put you on any type of mailing list that's going to contact you five or six times a week or what have you. You know, we're not going to sell your number or anything like that. We just want to send you some information about our church. I know you're just kicking the tires filling out Salt Church, but it's an exciting time for Salt Church because we've got a lot of things that are happening here.

And we're going to make some big transitions here pretty soon as far as where our church is, even our location. So we're happy that you're here with us today. Can y'all celebrate our guests and just welcome them here today? If you're new with us, I'd love to meet you over at the table after church. Also, we have lunch with Leon today, lunch with me over at Gino's Pizza.

If you look at the announcements in your notes page, you can find the address there and you can meet us over there at 1230. We'll have a place set up and some pizza for you. And we would love to have you there. I know we have a few families that have signed up, but if you haven't signed up, it's not too late. You know, come on out and be a part of that.

And I'll be there too. My wife will be there with me as well. But we are in a season called Elevate 2020. That was kind of a vision. And Miranda, why don't you share a little bit about where we are in Elevate 2020 and where we're going?

Okay. I'm putting her on the spot here. Yeah. So Elevate 2020. Basically, people don't like going to school or to work.

Am I right? Can I get an amen? Well, we meet in a school and we'd like to maybe meet somewhere else that we think we can be more visible in the community where we can engage Virginia Beach a little more, be a little less off the beaten path and more in public view and just do something that can engage the world where it is. We meet people where they are and then we suck them in and then we wallop them with the Holy Spirit and they get to be where Jesus Christ is. But in the interim, we got to meet them where they are.

Amen. And you know where they are? They're out and about. They're hitting the clubs. They're doing the stuff.

They're living the life. Well, Elevation 27 is actually a concert venue in the hilltop area. It's very visible. It's a great location. It's got plenty of parking.

It's got incredible acoustics. It's right out there in the middle of shops, stores. You know, if we met there, people could see us and say, Hey, that's a church that meets in a bar. What's happening in there? And we think that this could be a great way to alleviate a lot of stress.

It would cut down on setup. There's just a lot of great things that we think could happen there and that could elevate us and propel us forward so that we can meet more people with the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. We have such a big vision. And you know what? Sometimes it's hard because the darkness, it tries to hide.

It tries to hide, but we're like, no, we're chasing it down. We're chasing the darkness down. So in that, in furtherance of that goal, we're trying to fundraise and we're trying to raise $20,000 so that we can make this happen, a facility fund. And that's what we're asking you to do. $20,000.

We just need 20 people to give a thousand and we're there in Jesus name. And don't forget that 20% of every dollar we raise, we are donating to Wade's army, which is a nonprofit that supports the families and parents of children who are suffering from neuroblastoma. It's a highly fatal form of childhood cancer, very near and dear to our heart. That cause because one of our original salt kids, Wesley Zuburg lost his battle to it. And we believe that these are God's funds and we want to be good stewards of those.

And that means give, give, give. So that's what we're doing. And that's kind of where we are with Elevate 2020. Yes. Yes.

Is that good? That was great. I think. Thank you. Yeah.

And if you're a thousand dollar plus giver, just to let you know that we have a, uh, a gift for you of a, um, a hoodie. We have a hoodie, a salt church hoodie. It's gold plated. It's good. Yeah.

It's gold plated and, and a cap to go along with that. You can have both of them cause we're going to bless you if you give a thousand dollars. You bet. But, uh, somebody told me the other day, I was talking to a fellow pastor of mine. He says, 20% you're given 20%.

That's just, that's too much, Leon. Why are you giving away so much? Well, listen, um, in Elevate this, this, this year, when I, when I shared my Elevate 2020 message, I mentioned a higher level of generosity. And I thought to myself and God impressed it on my heart to say that, you know, if I'm challenging our church to be generous, our church is going to be generous with what comes in as well. So we're going to do above and beyond what we're capable of doing because we want to bless.

We want to be a blessing. We're blessed to be a blessing. So thank you so much for what you're giving. We're, we're building towards our future, uh, where we'll be next. This was still uncertain, but if you give towards that, man, we're going to make it happen.

And, uh, you're going to see a lot of things happen, uh, here in the coming months into Easter. Even we're, we're just motivated and pumped. We believe that we're going to reach a lot of people for Jesus Christ. So come on board. If you're new here, if you, if you like what you see here and we let's do it together.

If you're already with us, be pumped about where we're going. Amen. Let's get a one time mind, one mission. Just like we talk about marriage, the bride of Christ is like that too. You know, we want to, we want to aim that direction.

So praise God for that. So let's move on to our message series. So we've been in relationship goals and, uh, we've been talking about the two becoming one flesh. Uh, we, we kind of hit on that the last few weeks, just kind of focusing on being Christ centered second week being mission driven. We talked about being devil stomping, that we're going to fight the devil, and we talked last week about, and this was a really big one, being covenant keeping.

We're going to have covenant relationships in our marriage, and as God has made a covenant with us, we're going to make a covenant with Him. Amen. So today we thought we would just open it up, and you know, last week I was debating on going into our next series when I actually came into Sunday. You said, no, I'm going to hold off and we're going to do one more week, and we just asked people to send in questions, so we posted on social media and some other places to see what people had to ask about our marriage. Like, I wanted to just ask about marriage, and Miranda said, let's go a little further, and let's open up and talk about our marriage, and specifically ask pieces about our marriage.

So we're going to make that daring, so grab your popcorn, get ready. You know, you're probably like, so I'm waiting to hear this, so let's enter into the first question here, okay? So our first question is this, how do you balance the dynamic as a pastor, pastor's wife, and what do you find to be the most challenging in these roles? Ooh, that was one that... Keisha.

Yeah. That was a really, really good question, because being a pastor can be very challenging. A lot of people don't make it, you know, in the pastoral ministry, because it is very hard. You have to deal, you're in the spotlight a lot. I grew up in ministry.

My father was a pastor. I always had the spotlight on me as a child, and sometimes it can be very difficult. The decisions ultimately come to you. I think my friend Chris Green over here kind of mentioned something. You have this awesome, but terrifying, but pleasurable, but just crazy type of job, just all that up in one.

He explained it in just one sentence really well. And it can bring a lot of dynamics into marriage, especially when people have expectations of you, expectations of your time, and expectations of you making decisions that they approve of. Not necessarily what God approves of, but what they think God approves of. So if you make a wrong decision, or something doesn't go well in your ministry, or it seems that way on the outside, a lot of people, you can hear a lot of backlash. And with that, did you know that pastors have, there's a high percentage, I don't have the exact statistics.

I have looked at it a few times, but pastors deal with depression probably more than anybody. And you think, well, you know, a man of God and a woman of God, and they shouldn't deal with depression. You know, they have the Holy Spirit. No, the devil attacks them probably more than they do anybody else because of what they're doing. So I think one of the, probably the greatest challenges in our relationship is when I go through those times with Miranda, just kind of dealing with something, you know, the success and our wanting or the desire to see results and things like that.

And there's seasons in ministry that you're just not going to see a lot of growth. And there's, there's seasons that it's going to plateau a bit before it goes to the next level. And so there's been a lot of conversations about, you know, those things and, and it can affect our, our ministry and she's, she can be encouraging or whatever, but there's times that it just, there have been some dark times, no dark times right now, but there has been some dark times in our marriage. Right. And we just learned, she learns how to love me despite that.

And, and, you know, and help me and sometimes push me, you know, off, off the wagon again, like, or put me, put me back on the wagon rather not push me off the wagon. If I fall off the wagon, she gets me back up there. And sometimes she has to talk some truth to me, you know, and, and tell you got to get up and be a man and move on, you know, but there are challenges, uh, in marriage as, as, um, a result of that. So, um, uh, the weight of the job I think is really important too. I think sometimes, uh, it, uh, and I'll let her share a little bit on that, uh, how, how it can, you know, ministry can get in the way of a marriage if you're not careful.

So when Leon told me he wanted to plant a church. Oh no. We didn't rehearse this. Where's this going? I said, nope.

Pastor's wife. I didn't want to be a pastor's wife. That was never a burning desire that I had. So I've never really had to deal with the, Oh man, are we going to be co-pastors? You know, am I going to be the first lady?

I said, no, no, no, no, none of that. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. So the Holy spirit really dragged me kicking and screaming into the position of pastor's wife. Now I, I grew up, you got to keep in mind, I grew up at an evangelical Presbyterian congregation. Women were not, uh, lead pastors.

That was not a thing. Um, not here today to debate that. Um, um, we can talk about first Timothy and whether it's, you know, a pastor is a husband of one wife or he's just faithful to the current wife he has. I'll leave that one with you and you guys can debate it on your own in your small groups. But I really had no desire at first.

And I dealt with a lot of resentment of getting over that. Um, because, and this goes right into those challenges. This is not a job that you leave at home that you can leave and then come home from. I, in no other job would I go to my husband's office and immediately have his coworkers or people that he deals with come up to me and start complaining about what a crappy job he's doing. Um, that doesn't usually happen.

You know, if you're a nurse, you don't usually have the other nurses calling up your spouse and go, man, she's terrible at starting those IVs. Can you tell her to learn how to find the vein on the first go? It really doesn't happen. Um, so that was a huge burden that started almost immediately was learning how to love people who were pretty constantly disappointed in my husband. And that happened a lot and learning how to come into the worship experience and worship God and love God and love people.

Even though I know that he's under a lot of, uh, criticism and expectations, nobody in here, not talking about any of y'all. Y'all are amazing. That was, that's probably the biggest challenge, um, is just kind of dealing with that. And it, cause it's a job that a pro of the job is that it doesn't really ever end because it's not just a job, it's a vocation and it's, um, and it's a huge, huge privilege. And scripture says, this is such an honor to aspire to.

Um, but that also does create a heavy, heavy burden on me as a wife. And then I would say. A probably the second biggest challenge are unrealistic expectations as the pastor's wife so yeah yeah I not really the biggest fan of kids I don't play the piano and I have zero administrative skills so I am basically useless church people y'all know what she's talking about right because the pastor's wife is either the children's minister the piano player or the secretary so I got nothing to offer I'm thinking what am I gonna be you know what am I gonna be and that was really hard and trying to find my place and sometimes you know Leon asked well what is your place what is it that you want to do and I'm like I'll get back to you on that so that's probably the biggest challenge I will say I have kind of changed my mind on the whole first lady thing if you can call me that I'm fine with it now way less judgy than I used to be all right right and there was something that was said to me and let let me just kind of say this to the church I think a lot of ministers and ministers wives deal with this a lot um you growing up in church and being the son of a pastor uh you you kind of see what your pastor's wife or my mother that is uh that was kind of like my pastor's wife I guess because my dad was my pastor for many years um and uh you know seeing the people around there's certain there are certain expectations that were placed on them and but you cannot place unfair expectations on someone especially everybody has gifts everybody has callings and you cannot expect the pastor's wife to be there and I heard this in a in a in a leadership meeting one time a fellow guy kind of related to me a little bit my wife didn't grow up in ministry she doesn't she she knew she knew I was going we had to talk before we got married I'm going to be a pastor here's what here's the expectations of that yada yada but you never really know until you go into ministry really what that means you know I didn't really know what all that meant you know because I was never the the top guy I was always the second commander the third in command in other ministries and also you know under my father's ministry so I never really got to be you know I never got to experience being the lead but uh what but I have I have a duty to protect my wife and sometimes I have to well can Miranda I mean when we first started our church uh and we still sometimes get this too can Miranda Lee lead a a women's ministry or can Miranda you know Miranda should be taking care of the nursery or should be doing this or should be doing that she's the one to do that right and I said no that's that's not her thing that's not her gift that's not any so I put parameters in place to keep that from happening to her I I dodge those conversations or I just say no we're not we're not going there with that because I care about her health and I know that she can make a greater impact and influence as she's walking in her purpose she doesn't need to be walking in somebody else's purpose also if you she steps into that and that's not her purpose somebody else out there is missing out on their purpose right and they have a ministry a specific ministry for them and we're taking that ministry away from them so so I do protect her from that uh often um she's not available 24 7 a day like that like people expect well what does the pastor's wife do my wife works 50 60 70 hours a week on a regular job okay she's my sugar mama that's right I mean she's taking care of me right now while we have this church and we're growing this church so so she's taking care of me so it's not like she can now she's a wonderful person if you really are in need to meet during the week and stuff yeah you can schedule a time she'll go out of her way to do that but she can't drop things on the drop of a hat like and people have these expectations about her so it's my responsibility to protect her as a husband as it is for you as a man here today if you are in a relationship or in a marriage or you're heading towards marriage you are the man in that relationship and you need to protect your spouse and you need to know who she is what she's capable of doing what God has gifted her to do what ministry God has placed in her heart and you need to support that and what God has called her to do you cannot put unrealistic unfair expectations about even ministry or anything like that on your spouse you let them walk in the Lord in the way that God is calling them and moving them in the Lord all right okay so second question I'm using my phone today because my iPad is was dead this morning and I didn't get to download my stuff here so the next question is and I think this is one that maybe Miranda was going to start we'll see how do you balance the time needed for pastoral ministry and time for your wife and family okay I guess this is mine right okay okay and do you put boundaries in place to maintain that balance I kind of already answered that with my wife a little bit so I headed into that question but yes I do that quite often especially with my husband especially with my wife and kids because my kids need a dad and it's easy for us to to focus on ministry so much as a pastor we can work every day of the week every night of the week because we don't really have a set schedule I mean we really don't so we have to create a set schedule and we have to be intentional about that so I actually have a schedule underneath what you guys see and I have appointments set and sometimes my appointment appointments are my family and I won't tell you that I'll say I have an appointment can we do it another time but my appointment sometimes is with my kids and my appointment is with my wife and there's there's times that you're gonna text me or call me and you may not hear from me it's not that I don't love you and I want to get back to you but I have my phone off or I have or have my phone away because I understand the importance I it's what happens in that house reflects what happens outside the house and if I'm not healthy and my family's not healthy if my wife's not healthy and on board with what we're doing here I can't continue to do what we're doing here if I'm if I'm neglecting her and not showing her love and I'm not making it an intentional effort to put her as my number two God my number one her my number two my church is my number three or my kids are my number three and my church is my number four so you guys are four on the list I love you you're way up on the list and I love you to death but they are my priority so I set those priorities there and I make time for them and I balance those times so I have to set those schedules I have to make sure because my and just a day's time on Monday my schedule can fill up really quick that week and I don't ever plan anything unless I run it by her you know if I had somebody something come in just the other day about going out of town for a few days to to do some coach church plant coach training would take me away for a few days I haven't even set that in my schedule yet because I told the guy get back to him and and and we would we would talk about it I'd talk about it with my wife and we'd get back to him I never do that I don't just say hey yeah I'm gonna do it and because that could you know who knows what what could be going on she may need me that week or Whatever. She comes first and her schedule's first. Just to follow up on that and to praise him a little bit, 1 Timothy 3 says that a pastor, among other things, there's a big long list and he meets all of them, but one on that list is he manages his family well and his children obey him because if he cannot manage his family, how on earth could he manage church?

And that's scripture. That's not us putting words in anybody's mouth. That's what the word says about a pastor. And he does that extremely well. There really are not a lot of specific, you know, quote unquote gender roles in our home as far as who's doing what with the kids.

In fact, more often than not, he's taking the kids out and doing things with them so that I can get work done. And something that was very, very important to us and is not always the way the world sees it is that from day one, before we even had children, we were very committed to the idea just within the home that the children are not the center of your universe. God is the center of your universe. And then after that is your spouse and then below that is your children. And there's actually somebody here, one of my good friends, Dave Johnson, who years ago, he told me, it stuck with me so much, something that he said to his wife and Leon is exactly the same way.

And he said to his children when they, I think they backtalked Christina or something. And he said, listen, this woman is my wife. You children, I didn't choose you. You just came. God gave you to me.

I didn't pick you. I had to just deal with what I got. But this woman, I chose. I picked her. She is the one I chose.

You ever think about that? You choose your spouse. Your kids is just a roll of the dice. I mean, just, just God help you. It's like Russian roulette.

You don't know what you're going to get. Um, and that has stuck with me for over 10 years now because I thought it was such a biblical view of things. And if you do that and you live that way, your marriage is going to rock. The second you make those kids your idols and you put them first, it's going to fall apart. Right.

And they're going to learn from that. That's a spiritual principle for them because they'll carry that into their next relationship and, and, uh, in their marriage. Yeah. Um, and, uh, I, I just think of the scripture, uh, by managing your family well, just to piggyback of that off of that. And, and the book of Samuel, um, we see, uh, in first Samuel, we see Eli the priest.

And we watched that his children who were to take over the priesthood were next in line and lineage to the priesthood ended up falling into sin and disobeying God. And, uh, Eli, the first thing we think, how awful those, those, those kids, how could they do that to Eli who raised Samuel up to be the next priest and prophet, right? How could they do that to this, this amazing man of God? The problem was he wasn't managing his family. He didn't manage his family well.

And he carried that in. And we know the end of that story is that Eli died, uh, in a, in a horrible way, you know, seeing his sons who, who died and God took them out. I mean, that, that's the consequence of, of mismanaging a family. Um, so it's important for us to manage our families. Well, uh, husbands and wives, husbands, you're first, you're, you're, you're the, you're the rock of the family.

And I think one of the greatest issues we have in the family today is that men are not being man. Men are not being leaders. They're not stepping up and owning their family. And within our house, we will serve the Lord. Okay.

You need to make that statement in my house, me and my house, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And this is it. And this is no, no compromising. I learned that from my parents. As long as I was in the house, I was going to church.

I know that's old fashioned for some of you, but look, I was walking far away from God guys. I mean, I moved away, went to college and I came back for a short period of time to stay with my parents. And guess what? I was, I was 18, 19 years old. I thought I was a duck.

Guess what? You're getting out of bed and you're going to church as long as you live under my house. Right. And I wasn't following the Lord and look where I am now. And that's a result of my parents being like in my house, we're served the Lord.

I'm not being, you know, I'm not being, they're not, they weren't legalistic about it. They were just, this is how, this is the mandate. This is what's set up. This is, this is what, what we're honoring and we're going to honor God. And as long as you're under my house, we will honor God.

So I just, I really push that button with people when they're, and they're kids. I've been a youth pastor. I've been all that, you know, with teenagers. I love teenagers. Your teenagers are not, not old enough to make their own spiritual decisions right now.

You need to step in that gap and make those decisions for them so that one day when you release them, they will make the right decision. Amen. Amen. They may make the wrong decision for a while, but man, they, they'll come to the Lord or come back to the Lord. You know, if you, if you're doing the right thing, amen.

Amen. Crickets in here. All right. All right. Let's move on because I'm getting a little wordy here.

Okay. So here's the next question. How do you keep the passion alive in your marriage with your kids around? And you're, and, and you know, how do you do this individually and collectively? And there's a lot of ways we do this.

Who's going to start this? Is this, is this, is this a me question? Um, yeah, well I can, I can start. It doesn't really matter. What do you want to do?

Yeah. And I'm going to let her, my wife, I'll let you start real quick here. Okay. Let's get, she's passionate about some of this stuff right here. Okay.

Let's, let's, can we get, can we get down and dirty? Not too dirty. It's like, let's keep it PG, TV, PG, PG, PG, PG, 13 is just a little too far now. I think, I think PG 13 is like rated R today, right? I mean, it's kind of, so we're going to go TV PG, but let's get real.

If you've been married more than a minute or if you've got kids, you have to schedule the sexy times. Anybody else? Anybody else? You better put it in your calendar. You better say this, this is what we're doing.

We're locking the doors. We're turning on some music. We're locking the kids into their room or we're going to put them out in the back and you got to schedule those sexy times. And what I mean by that is, um, I think you have to be intentional. You have got to be, oh, am I popping?

Yeah. You've got to be intentional about keeping the passion alive in your marriage. It's not just going to happen. Probably the thing I hate the most thing. I hate the most to hear in couples is this idea of, well, we just grew apart and we became more like roommates.

So will everybody, every single couple, you're all going to become like that. You have got to be intentional about keeping the passion alive. And if that means scheduling it, that is what you got to do. And you know, we're super blessed because our kids are still young because we have. Small house, if you've ever been to our house.

So I'm thinking, we need Salt Church to become a mega church so I can get me a bigger house so by the time they get to be teenagers, you know, we can send them off into another wing. But I'd say be intentional. Second, I would say be vocal. You got to open up. Think about the Song of Solomon.

You know, Solomon didn't just think all those beautiful things about his bride. He told her. He told her. You got to be vocal and intentional. You have hair like a flock of goats.

So beautiful. Your neck is like a tower. I mean, your teeth are like sheep. You got to tell your spouse that they're amazing, that they're smart, that they're sexy, that they're talented, that you think his butt looks good. I mean, you got to open up and tell him that and tell him that in front of other people.

Praise your husband in public. Praise your husband in front of others. Maybe not slapped her butt in front of a church congregation. I only did that one time. It was like one time.

I'll never, I'll never live it down. Should we tell them about the hickey? Well, maybe we'll leave that one on. That was like. We'll hit that.

Ask us privately about that one. Well, I think that was, what was that? Was that 2016? That was like the great, like, you know, event of that prayer circle that morning was, was fun. Were you there, Shannon?

Oh yeah. It was Shannon that probably called it out. Um, so, you know, you know, that was fun. Um, but you know, be vocal, make sure you let them know, you know, um, I, sometimes I'm not the most comforting person and I'm not that great at administering that. And you know, for a while, I don't know if I ever told me on this, I set reminders in my phone to say encouraging things to my husband.

I did not tell Leon, um, that you're thinking about him and that you love him and that you're there for him and you're just there. And if he needs to, you know, he needs a hug or to, to, to, you know, to hug up on him. Um, so I hope that doesn't make you sad. No, no, no, that doesn't at all. I think it's important to do that.

You have to put reminders in. I think guys, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta compliment your wife, your wife. Most, most women want to be affirmed. They do. They want to be affirmed.

They want to, they want you to know that they're beautiful. I mean, they, you're like, Oh yeah, they know that I'm beautiful. You know, uh, that I'm beautiful, that they're beautiful. Yeah. Uh, or they may think, I know he thinks I'm beautiful, but he wants, she wants to hear it.

She wants to hear it. So that's been something that's been, that's been hard for me, you know, because my family background, we just, uh, we all, we have, I have a great family. I mean, we grew up Christ centered family and stuff, but there wasn't a lot of compliments in the house. In fact, there was a lot of criticism, you know, if you, if you did good, but you could do this a little better, you did this, but you could do this a little better, you know, maybe you just think about that, you know, and, uh, and a lot of times it wasn't helpful. So I've kind of brought that into my marriage a bit, you know, maybe I was a bit more critical than I was, uh, affirming.

And, uh, I, that's, that's, it's intentional. You have to say, I love you. Oh, you look beautiful today. Your hairs went the background of that is a song of Solomon. What do we see was with King Solomon when he's complimenting his lover, right?

He says, your hair is like a, what flock of goats. Now I'm not suggesting you say flock of goats. It was a joke. Her hair, you know, her hair is beautiful, you know, this and that. And that day in that culture, that was a huge compliment.

And he went on and on and on about his bride. You need to be that. I know it's hard men sometimes because we're men and we don't think about it. And, and the things that maybe affirm us or help us are different, but, and she needs to work on that if that's the case, but on our side, we can only do what we're capable of doing. We can't make them change, but we can change and we can do things better.

And, uh, and we need to be, be, and, and that, that gets a long way. That keeps passion alive guys. If you, if you start talking about, Oh, you look hot today, you look sexy. You know, um, if you keep that going, you know, that, that's what really gets them. You know, they don't want to, we're like, we're like, uh, microwaves, aren't we?

I mean, guys are like microwaves. We're ready to go at any time, right? Let's go. Let's go. But women are not that way.

They're like crock pots. Yeah. Like crock pot. So crock pot, microwave, we've got to operate that way. Right.

And that's a nice segue into my final point, which is ladies and gents, but mostly I'm speaking to the ladies. If you want to keep the passion alive in your marriage, you got to be honest about your sexual needs. And yeah, did you hear that? You got to talk about it. Let me tell you something.

If you can't talk about sex, you shouldn't be having it. I mean, you know, we're all grownups. We can all go fighting wars. We can buy alcohol. We can see R rated movies.

We can talk about sex in our marriage and you got to talk about it. You got to get creative because what worked at 22 doesn't work at 32, 42, 52, 62. It's not the same thing. You got to get creative and you got to talk about it. And sometimes that's hard if you've grown up in a church background and you've been, maybe you've been the subject of some of those stereotypes.

That's something that we've dealt with all throughout our marriage, um, doing marriage series. There's this stereotype that women and wives in general don't like sex as much as their husband. Um, that they kind of. This is her beef guys. Guys.

This is, this is, this is really big. So, um, I actually saw and there, we were doing a video series, but I was so enraged. Yeah. We were in a small group and that went off for about an hour. Sorry.

And, and I love so much of what he had to say, but the, the video that I won't say names cause he's a, I do like the guy. Um, he said, husbands, you need to teach your wives how to be sexual and passionate. And I was like, say what now? Excuse me. Um, I heard some other things that he said that, uh, among other things that women, um, uh, you know, you know, the, the, the climax of the sexual experience that they don't care about it like men do.

Uh, this came out of someone's mouth. How many women would agree with that? So sometimes, you know, if you've, if you've kind of grown up in a background that maybe has, you felt like you've been under that weight of some stereotypes, that's really hard. Or maybe you're embarrassed to talk about it because we do have a culture that has perverted sex so much and has turned it into something that is so ugly and is so far from God and is so far from what God had intended for it to be that we can bring that fear of that perversion into our marriage. And we're so scared to talk about it because all those things are swirling around.

And then we don't talk about it with our kids and then our kids make their own decisions about where they should go and how they, how their sexual experience should be. So they're, they're having sex before marriage or just get there, they're, they're, they're experimenting. And then they've gone off on their own because we haven't talked about it ourselves. So you gotta, you need to tell you something. If you talk about it and you demystify it and you take the naughty, you know, out of it and you pull it out of the, the darkness and out of those secret places and you talk about it, it's going to remove a lot of that stigma and it's going to pull it out of that realm of perversion.

Now, TVPG version now, okay. I mean, yeah, I'm not saying there's a, there's a certain limitation on what you're doing. You talk about it with your kids, but I'm telling you, your kids are learning it at school anyway. You need to be having these conversations with them and let them know. But, you know, Leon, when we're at home, he holds me and touches me and kisses me and gets, you know, sweetly sexy, not grossly sexy, you know, in front of the kids with me.

And when they come in and Savannah's like, what's going on? She just comes right up and, you know, Max runs out of the room. He thinks it's gross. And Savannah, you know, she comes in and she's like, what's happening here? What's going on?

And, you know, Leon's like, just loving on my wife, loving on the mother of my children. So, you know, be honest about those things. And here's what I would say. If you're not like me, who has zero shame, and I will talk about anything to anyone, maybe you're not like me and that's okay. Yeah, I have to keep it quiet a lot.

If you're scared, if you're scared to talk about it, whether you're a man or a woman, and you're nervous, I would beg you to find a counselor to talk with you. Find a couple that you respect and that you feel comfortable talking to and ask them to help you talk about it. Come talk to me. If you're a lady and you're like, man, I don't know how to bring it up. Come talk to me.

I will never share it with anybody else. Okay, I'm going to beep you here because we've got a few more questions to go. So I'm going to roll through these. I think we've got about four more questions and we're already getting to the end of the service here. This is good, guys.

This is great. We're good. Are y'all enjoying this? Are y'all liking this? Yes, is this okay?

All right. So the next question is, how do you keep your relationship private and gossip, drama, stress-free, and separate from work, family, and ministry? I can do this one fast. Yeah, and I'll add on to that. Yeah, she really wants this one.

Well, no, no. This was actually a great one, I guess, and for us, it's not that hard because we talked about this and we said, you know, by necessity, our relationship is pretty public just because of who we are. And we don't really need to worry so much about hiding our relationship or keeping it drama-free because we really don't have anything to hide. Right. We're single-minded.

We're not double-minded. So what you see here, if you were a fly on the wall in our home, for the most part, this is how it goes. Right. We're pretty open about who we are. I mean, we really are.

And so we really don't, we don't have, we're drama-free because we don't have any drama. Yes. James 1.8 says a double-minded man is unstable. Right.

When you're single-minded and you're on the same page, you have stability in your home. You're not going to have that drama. You're not going to have all that stress. Psalm 12.2 in ASB says they speak falsehood to one another with flattering lips and a double heart.

They speak. There's a lot of that in scripture. If you're on the same page, guys, you're going to get a lot of that drama, the stress, the gossip. It's not going to be there. And I would just follow up and say, again, not trying to make any, you know, comments about anything anyone here does.

And maybe we're just old, but we're not slaves to social media too. I think that's really, really important. We don't feel the need to kind of curate our lives and put constant updates and posts and Facebook stories and Instagram posts about everything that we're doing. As a family. As a family.

As a family, like with each other, kind of, you know, putting it out there. Where, you know, we don't really have, because I will tell you that way lies madness. Yeah. Because it is a comparison trap if you're not careful. Yeah.

Just, there's a, there's, you know, everything in moderation. Moderation. There's nothing wrong with social media. There's nothing wrong with posting. I mean, you're, you're, there's a, there's a spiritual and a, a ministry component to social media about your marriage.

You know, so when you post things about your marriage or about your relationships or whatever, your kids and stuff, it's a good thing because people see that and they're honored. They, they, they learn from that, you know, how to, how to love your husband, how love, how to affirm them before other people. That's great. But, but there's, there's also, if you become a slave to it, if you're posting it, some, some people do it because they feel a need to do it. They feel like they have to do it in order to, to hide what's going on in the household or in their lives.

It makes them feel better about themselves. So they can post this wonderful picture of like, look at my wonderful husband and wife. And they just got through cursing each other through, you know, breaking everything in the house. And, and we, I want a divorce and I'm done with this. And, and, and, and then go on social media.

We have, we're just a wonderful, you know, and be honest with yourself. If you're not happy, you're not happy that you need to face it and work on it and, and, and move forward. You know, go, go to counseling, get help, go to your pastor, say, we need help with our marriage. We want what you want, what you have. We want what relationship goals has for us, but we need to know how to get there.

Okay, so the next one is, this is a dating one, because I know some of you who are, who are single, maybe we focused a little bit on marriage here, but this can be for both sides of the house. When dating, how do you guard against sexual temptation when you both love God and obey God? We kind of hit this in this series a whole lot, you know, um, uh, sexual temptation is just going to happen because we're human beings. I don't care how hard you follow Christ. I don't care what you do to, to, you read your Bible, you pray every day, you seek God, you're in church every Sunday, you're in small group every week.

Maybe you do everything, but sexual temptation will come as a single person and as a married couple. Um, uh, you both, both deal with it. So you have to be intentional. You have to make a decision. You have to make a choice.

How far you're going to go in a relationship, who you're going to date. Number one, who are you going to date? Who are you with now? Is this person, uh, going down a Christ driven, uh, uh, Christ centered mission driven devil stomping covenant keeping relationship? Are they honoring all those things or are they, or are they on their own?

Are they trying to push you into something or someplace or some direction that you don't want to go? Do they have some other ideas about what, what, uh, your relationship should be? It should be purely centered on Christ. Number one, and it should be covenant keeping covenant keeping that we aren't going to, to, to be sexual in that nature. Now, if you're doing things, here's the thing I want to say too.

If you're having to ask questions about what you're doing in your relationship, then it's probably something you shouldn't be engaging in. If it looks sexual in nature, you're thinking it's sexual in nature. Maybe you shouldn't be doing it. Maybe you shouldn't be doing it. So setting prime parameters on your, on your relationship is very important.

How late you stay at somebody's house, whether you even go to somebody's house and you're alone with them, depending on where you are. Uh, sexual temptation can be everywhere. If you're not even with anybody and you seem to be flattered by the every man or woman that comes your way, um, uh, at the gym or whatever, maybe you should just stop going to the gym because you want to find the right person. Right. Cause you've made mistakes finding people that you don't need to be with at the gym, or you shouldn't.

Maybe you should stop going to clubs and finding people who are there for only one thing. Right. Getting in the right situations in the right environment, dating the right people. I mean, right. I mean, get, get in the right situation in the right environment.

Um, we got, if you're single here, we got some. Great single people in this church that are looking, okay? And we kind of pick on our keyboard player. He's underway right now, but he's a very good looking guy on the keyboard, and he'll be back in a few months, and he's looking, okay? And he wants a Christ-centered woman, and he will not date anybody but a Christ-centered woman.

And Charlie's ready. He's gonna kill me when he comes back. He's gonna be so embarrassed. He's such a sweet guy. Leave your name at the door.

Right, right. So you need to set parameters on your relationships. You need to stay away from anything. And not a hint. I talked about it a few weeks ago.

You need to keep things out of your mind. You gotta stop watching the Netflix original series that have all that garbage in it. Get the garbage out of your head. Get done with that. And you gotta build your life on righteousness now.

So that you can have a foundation of righteousness in the future. You gotta do that now. You've gotta make those decisions now. Now, for you married people, you got the very same thing going on. And that's kind of a second part of the question.

That's the next piece of the question. There's a lot of things that happen. Emotional affairs are the biggest thing. People getting involved in emotional affairs and they don't think it's wrong. And you're not setting parameters in your relationships.

Whether it's a working relationship or maybe it's a close friend that you've known since high school and you're married. And I can tell you, if you start engaging emotionally with people outside of your relationship, it could easily go places that you don't want it to. Now, I'm not saying you can't be friends with people that you've known since high school, but you can't be texting back and forth, laughing, cutting up, sharing private things, even about your marriage. This is a real thing. I've actually had a case of this where there was someone that was Facebook messaging their girlfriend from years ago and they were married.

Well, I'm not doing anything wrong. We've been friends for a long time. I shouldn't have to give up my friends. Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

You can love them and send them, but your marriage comes first. And I've watched pastors, big pastors, God anointed pastors fall, major ministries fall and fail because it started with an emotional affair. And sometimes it was only an emotional affair and they called it in time, but many times it becomes physical and people, the best of people will fall in those traps. So you need to put parameters around your marriage as well, who you hang out with. If you hang out with somebody, you need to be with your spouse.

For me as a pastor, I've already decided that that if I meet with someone of the opposite sex, it's usually in a public place around a lot of people. So nothing can happen because I don't have an office right now. Now, if I have an office, guess what's going to happen? Either my wife's going to be there in that office or or I'm going to have the door open and somebody there present so that nothing ever happens. Because I know there's some popular mega church pastors that have shared what they do because they travel all the time and they're as vulnerable as anybody.

And Craig Rochelle shared that he always had his daughter travel with them and stayed in the hotel with them. And he has people that have in his church that have his email account passwords, his social media passwords, everything, because he wants to be completely transparent with people so that he never falls into sexual temptation. Never. You never know what people are doing, what people are trying to do. Have one of my overseers, one of my coverings, a guy who's mentored, one of our coverings and a guy who's mentored me for years said he's literally had somebody walk into the office, a secretary that's been working with him for a couple of years.

And she walked into his office, took off all her clothes and says, you can have me right now, just blew him away, couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it, you know. And if somebody hadn't been around, somebody in the office hadn't been around and if something happened, you know, and she could have said she could have done this, she could have said anything at that moment. You know, if he refused or got mad and says he sexually harassed me, blah, blah, blah, you've got to be careful. You've got to be careful in your job situations, in your friendships, it's good to put parameters in those in place. And lastly, and closing, the last question is because most look to you for guidance and counsel, how have you as a couple needed it?

Well, that's an area we've really never needed, I wouldn't say needed, but we've never pursued an actual marriage counselor outside of premarital counseling. Now, I will say for all the singles in here, premarital counseling is very, very, very important. You need to know who you're marrying. You need to know, you need to dig into some of these things because you may think you know who you're marrying, but you may not. Because when you get married, a lot of things, a lot of things happen, a lot of things, a lot of doors are open about the person.

So you're talking about finances, you're talking about theology, what you believe, even Christians, you know, what they believe, you know, what they believe theologically, biblically about things. There's a lot of things that you need to work on, so premarital counseling is very important. But here's what I would say, there's been some pretty hard times in Miranda and I's relationship, and the band can come on out if y'all are walking, I hear you walking back there. But here's what I would say, never be afraid to seek counsel. Never be afraid to seek counsel.

It's there for you. It's not that you, it's nothing, it doesn't, it's not weakness. That's the word I was looking for. It's not weakness, guys. It's nothing to do with weakness.

It's about strength. It's about being strong enough to say that I need help. My wife hit on that a little bit about sexual issues and things like that. You need, sometimes you just need counselors, good medicine. Sometimes you need to open up and talk to somebody.

My father, who is a professional counselor as well as a pastor of a church in North Carolina, been doing it for over 35 years, a professional family counselor. There was one time I called him because Miranda and I were fighting. It was probably the first or second year in our marriage, and we were trying to figure out each other. I mean, it wasn't like we were on the edge of divorce or anything, but we definitely were trying to figure each other out. There were things about us we just didn't know, and it was just coming out, right?

It was probably my fault. No, no, it was definitely, a lot of it was my fault. And I talked to him, and the first thing he told me, he says, Leon, this looks like it's very trying. Have y'all thought about getting a counselor? Now, it can't be me because I'm your dad, but I can suggest some people that you can see and talk to.

Your parents are not your counselor. Your parents are not your counselor. Your best friend's not your counselor. Counselor. Because they're going to be biased.

Listen to people, godly people, elder in the church, somebody you believe in, somebody you trust in, somebody with wisdom. And here's another thing, Miranda, maybe you should share this. You stated this last night as we were talking through this about healthy people that counsel you. You need healthy people. If your marriage is in trouble, if you just think about it, if you're sick, you're going to go to a doctor.

You're not going to go to someone else who is sick. And if your marriage is sick and your marriage is suffering, I would beg you to seek the counsel of healthy people. Misery loves company, folks. Misery loves company. And we, so often, we know what we need.

And we need deliverance, right? We need deliverance and transformation and reconciliation. But what our flesh wants is commiseration. We want somebody to listen to our problems and say, oh man, I've been there. I feel like you do.

Let me talk about what my wife did. And that's unhealthy. Now, I'm not to say that there aren't some couples that have gone through things and have come out strong and can now offer some wonderful, wonderful, wise counsel. But let me tell you, if I was going to go to a couple, I would go to Leon's parents. They've been married since they were 19 to each other.

They love one another. His dad is so attentive, treats his mom like a queen. His mom respects his dad, respects the heck out of his dad. They have had their tons of problems over the years, like anybody. But they are a healthy, rock-solid marriage.

And I would go to them and say, man, your marriage is boring. You haven't had all these tragedies. And you haven't had, you know, near blow-ups and almost a divorce and this and that and the other. I want a boring marriage like yours. I want a nice, stable, boring, wonderful, you know, you know, a marriage that is smooth the whole way because you can have that.

You don't have devastation. You don't have to come back from the brink of divorce. You can start as you mean to go on. And that's what I want for all these couples in here. So go to a healthy couple.

You go when you say, I am sick and I need a doctor. Can you help me? And I just want to, you know, as we close, I just want to get the chance to say really quick, you know, part of the reason I think we've been really blessed and haven't needed just tons of massive professional, professional counseling. I wanted to say and really act on something that I believe in. And that is, again, praising and respecting your husband, because that is something that I need to work on every day.

But I was just, I was researching, you know, just what a pastor is. And I just got up this morning and I prayed and I thanked God that according to First Timothy, my husband, pastor, a church leader, is a man whose life is above reproach. He's faithful to his wife. He exercises self-control. He lives wisely.

He has a good reputation. He enjoys having guests in his home. God knows he enjoys that. He is able to teach. He is not a heavy drinker.

He doesn't drink at all. He's not violent. He does not love money. God knows he doesn't love money. He's gentle.

He's not quarrelsome. He manages his family well. He's not a new believer because that could lead to pride. And people outside the church, unbelievers, speak well of him. He ticks every box that a church pastor must according to the word of God.

That's what the word says and he does that. But you know what? Every man or woman in this room can tick all those boxes too. And if you do and you aspire to that, you're going to have a stress, drama, gossip-free marriage. And you're going to succeed.

And you're going to stomp the devil. And you can do things together that you could never do apart. Because you're going to be two where two are gathered. Can't imagine what you can do. You can change the world.

You can do that. So I just thank God for this man right here. Keisha, am I doing good? I thank God for him. I love my husband.

And I am so blessed. Sometimes I say, I don't know why I got blessed with him. When others didn't get somebody as good. How did I get this, God? Why?

And I don't feel like I deserve it. But God is good and I'm grateful anyway. Amen. Thank you guys for letting us share with you today. I didn't expect that.

Thank you, baby. That's like I'm all like, oh. All right. We went a little long. And I know we've been a little long.

Actually, I've been long-winded in a few messages here recently. I was born long-winded. But I just love talking about relationships and marriage. And I think that all of you can have successful relationships and marriage. And I believe you can start.

It's really the foundation of the church. So goes to family, goes to church. Amen. And I think it's really important that we focus on these things and make them priorities. Our marriage, our emotional lives, our sexual lives, our kids, raising our kids properly, all these things.

If we have healthy marriages, we can conquer the world. We can conquer the world. Amen.