Discussion Thread - Calling and Family Leadership
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Jan 9, 2024
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Discussion Threads
PROMPT: For this discussion assignment, I want you to
synthetically
analyze these leaders and their families/marriages. This means you are not to analyze them one-by-one, but to coordinate your analysis into major themes and bring these themes to salient statements/observations/conclusions. Here, you should focus on the mission and calling of these leaders, and how their mission and calling impacted their family and their marriage. The goal here is to draw some applicational practices for leaders who want to rightly prioritize their family
and their marriage. But, as you do this, be careful not to make the mistake of presentism—which unfairly judges the past by standards of the day. Calling and Family Leadership
In my analysis of Billy Sunday, William Carey, John Wesley, and Adoniram Judson’s family lives I am struck by one glaring similarity, they all experienced incredible pain and difficulty at some level or another. Sunday’s kids all died and all but one had very ungodly lives, Carey’s wife basically went crazy, Wesley was trapped in a miserable marriage for thirty years, and Judson lost multiple wives and children to death. While all of these difficulties are different in some form, there is an underlying current that I believe I see in at least three of these four men: they failed to balance their responsibility to their family with their call to ministry. Carey and Wesley, for example, both had horrible relationships with their wives, whom they either largely ignored for the sake of their professional ministry or pushed into very rough mission fields.
12
Sunday, on the other hand, may have had a great relationship and ministry with his wife, 1
Doreen Moore, Good Christians, Good Husbands? Leaving a Legacy in Marriage and Ministry
(Fearn, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2004), 23.
2
Jason G. Duesing,
Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary
, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2012), 22.
but his children were largely raised by strangers, and his three sons all went on to lead very rough lives and die early deaths.
3
Judson is the only of these leaders that I cannot quite make the same observations for. Although he faced incredible tragedy in much of his family life, he did so in true partnership with his family as a whole.
4
It is this mindset that I believe is worth modeling one’s own life and ministry after. Merely experiencing tragedy is not proof of unhealthy family and ministry balance, in fact, enduring brokenness in this world should not only not surprise a follower of Jesus, but it is to be expected. Jesus’ own words out of John 16:33 speak to this clearly, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (English Standard Version). That said, forsaking one’s family in pursuit of other ministry pursuits is not godliness. All throughout the scriptures we are instructed to love our families well, and specifically, men are told to love their wives as Christ loves the church. At times, this means walking away from another speaking engagement or a potentially exciting new job, in order to first love those whom God has untrusted to us most. 3
Roger Shultz, “Billy Sunday and Family Leadership” (video lecture in LEAD 520 at Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, Fall 2023). 4
Duesing,
Adoniram Judson
, 102.
Replies: Hey Belinda, I greatly appreciated how succinctly you broke down all of the different leaders and their marriages from our study this week. Your ultimate conclusions about the responsibility to family
as a primary “mission field” in the life of a believer was one that I found myself arriving at as well. It is frustrating to look back at the lives of many of these titans of faith and see such unbalanced priorities. This painful reality reminds me that we all, as sinful and broken people, have areas that we will make mistakes in. As I look at my own life and ministry, it is my hope that I will remain committed to the calling and blessing that is my family, even if it “gets in the way” of other ministry opportunities. On a personal note, I am incredibly thankful that my wife Cora is incredibly supportive of my role in vocational ministry. While our calling and hardships might not be nearly as extreme as Adoniram Judson and his wives, we do mission together, and for that I am extremely grateful. Judson and his wives all set an example that I believe stands in rather stark contrast to the examples set by Wesley, Carey, and Sunday. It is an example that one can actually follow. Great post! -
Andy -------------------------
Hey Santanna, Your thoughts on Billy Sunday’s family and leadership intrigued me right away. Although I had processed through, and agree with, your thoughts on how his effective abandonment of his children was a spiritual failure, I had not given much specific thought to the effect of a failed
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family dynamic on one’s professional ministry. Interestingly enough, we see the effects of this all the time in our modern age. Pastors cheating on their spouses, abusing their leadership, embezzling money, etc. are all stains on otherwise amazing ministry track records for many significant Christian leaders throughout the world, and a failed family dynamic is no different. Just this past few years I watched wayward children sway the mindset of an incredibly influential
pastor in my life and cause him to turn his back on ultimate biblical truth. It is our responsibility, as aspiring change-makers in the global church, to keep our priorities and values in line. God calls us, first and foremost, to lead our families well. By ignoring this calling, we are ultimately failing in our responsibility to the Lord, regardless of how successful we may be at evangelizing the masses, planting churches, or translating the Bible. Beyond this, when we trust God’s priority
order and focus on our family first, he can then use us to do more than we could possibly imagine in other areas of ministry as well. Great post! -
Andy -------------------------
Hey Jonathan, Your detailed analysis of John Wesley’s theological and practical inconsistencies were striking to me. Beyond just having an incredibly unhealthy marriage for over thirty years, Wesley’s life is
seemingly marked by uncertainty in many of his convictions as well. This causes me to wonder just how much credit is actually owed to his legacy as a Christian leader, especially with his family issues being brought into consideration. Judson, on the other hand, I believe was a much better example in many ways. I must admit, and maybe I am misreading the intent of what you
wrote, but I struggle to see where there was a definite “strain on their (Adoniram and Ann) marriage, ending with Ann's unfortunate and premature death.” Was there a clear marital strain there, and even if there was, did it even contribute to Ann’s death? I was under more of the impression that these two served the Lord passionately together, and that her death was merely a matter of unfortunate circumstance. That said, I may very well be wrong in this case! Just expressing my uncertainty on that point. Regardless, the dedication that we see out of not one, but all three of Judson’s wives, is something to be deeply admired. Great post! -
Andy
Bibliography
Duesing, Jason G.
Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary
. Edited by Michael A. G. Haykin. Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2012.
Shaw, Mark. 10 Great Ideas from Church History: A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Shaping Your Church
. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017. Forrest, Benjamin K., Kevin L. King, and Edward E. Hindson.
Celebrating the Legacy of the Reformation
. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2019.
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