[0:02]
LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network. G'day, I'm Scott Sanders. Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel-centered ministry every week. And as always, The One Thing is brought to you with thanks to Geneva Push, the Australian Church Planning Network. It is a lot easier to get through that intro without Derek, but I am missing my sidekick, Derek Hanna, this week.

[0:37]
I want to introduce our guests today and I'll get them to introduce themselves. Today we're talking about marriage and ministry. And I reckon it's a topic that is and should be discussed more often in ministry circles. And I always find it's great to get different couples in because they've got different insights. And I always find it's great to just send someone a whole bunch of different, you know, resources. So they go, oh yeah, that's like me, that's not like me. So it is great to have Dan and Teresa Lee from MBM Rudy Hill Church here in Sydney's West to talk about marriage and ministry.

[1:16]
So Dan, can you introduce Teresa for us? Sure. Teresa, I asked my kids for this and they said that she's arty, she's creative, she's cool. And I would echo all those things. She also happens to be born in Singapore and came to Australia in that great year, 1988, the year of the bicentenary. Which I missed. Which she missed, yes. But she's also someone who's very godly, very gifted. We're very different in other ways.

[1:46]
Teresa's a night person, whereas I'm a morning person. She can cope with disorder, whereas I like to be ordered and structured. And yeah, I think that would probably be enough detail for this point in time. Yeah, I've known Dan for a fair bit. We've done a lot of ministry stuff together. Dan has been the ministry pastor, the maturity pastor, you know, the pastor pastor on a whole bunch of things at MBM Rudy Hill. And you're both, you know, kicking off a new congregation. Now, Teresa, tell us a bit about Dan.

[2:17]
The kids were really funny with this one. They just said, Daddy breathes a lot and he talks a lot. He breathes loudly. He breathes loudly. But about Dan, mad about basketball. He's a football, loves his sports, seems to know about every sport and every sports person in the world. And it can explain sports pretty well to me anyway. And yeah, ministry pastor at MBM. Loves Seinfeld and is a bit of a, yeah, just picks things up pretty quickly.

[2:49]
So just really annoying, that kind of person. Yeah, it's interesting you both talk about your children. So you're married with three kids. Can you tell us what was ministry like before kids? Ministry before kids? So I guess both of us were keen to explore full-time ministry and things like that. So I did MTS. I did that at my church. And we basically were a couple with me or him always doing some kind of ministry training or training for ministry at Bible College.

[3:22]
So you were at different churches when you started dating, courting? That's right, courting. And so, but you were in the midst of doing apprenticeship and Dan, you were doing full-time work? That's right, yeah. And then I started going along to Teresa's church before we got engaged. And then Teresa was actually doing MTS at the time, which is part of the reason during the engagement period. And then when we got married, we decided that actually it would be great for Teresa to go into Bible College while I continued to work.

[3:55]
MTS was on the cards for me, but I did that a couple of years after. And then Dan did two years of MTS again while I worked for a Christian organization called Crusaders. And so I just did that for a few years in schools ministry. So, I mean, church life was basically us doing ministry together most of the time. We would do, we'd run Bible study groups. We had a uni group that seemed to live at our house, it felt like. And basically served at church, spent a lot of the time at church together, meeting people and running things in different ways at church.

[4:33]
Yeah, because I'd been doing, I'd been working at the church before and then he was working at the church a couple of years after. So you did your ministry apprentice at the same church? Correct, yeah. Okay. Now this was, can you name the church? It's Chinese Christian Church in Norsens Point. Yeah. So Teresa was there as a ministry apprentice and then I came on board a couple of years after. That's great. So tell us how, how has this changed since children? So kids come along, how many years ago? Yeah, so our eldest is turning 12 this year. So she arrived on the scene as we were in first year at Moore College.

[5:08]
And for us, I guess there's ministry during college is obviously different to ministry outside of college. But I guess first and foremost, we realized that ministry in the home context was now going to look a bit different. Teresa having a primary role in terms of being more housebound. And so I guess for me as a husband, I was keen to make sure that she still had opportunities to, in a sense, have a ministry beyond just the home, as important as that was. So freeing her up to have opportunities outside of motherhood, whether that was getting along to the women's Bible study, whether that was getting along to the women's conferences, whether that was getting on to the training events.

[5:47]
So that she was being not only fed, but also pushed and encouraged in ministry. Yeah. And so I think it was also a tag team affair as well when it came to marriage with kids. We went through some pretty hard times. We dealt a lot with grief since children have come along. We've lost one of our own children, sadly. And we've also had grief within the family. So that's been a challenge in terms of ministry as well. But I guess that's kind of brought us together and kept us wanting to not only…

[6:23]
It's very easy, I think, to be tempted to do ministry outside of the home and to think of our identity in that, but actually recognising that we actually have to minister to one another is equally important and just as vital, if not more vital. That's great. That's really helpful. I do want to come back to going deeper into some of these things in the second half of the podcast. But for now, we've got to open up the toolbox. Marriage and ministry resources. These are, I guess, my top three.

[6:54]
I've found the book Confessions of a Church Planter's Wife just a helpful book to give to church planning ministry couples to just start opening up the questions. It's very American. So there's lots of chapters you go, oh. But there's also lots of stuff, just, you know, lots of gristle just for good conversations. So I encourage people to read, you know, read chapters from that. My wife and I have been working through a book called Eight First Dates. So if you've heard of Gottman, he's got the seven principles of a highly effective marriage.

[7:24]
He's a secular author. But I found this book, you know, just really good. My wife and I try and read a book on parenting and a book on marriage each year. And this is the one we've got this year and we're, you know, we're enjoying working through it at the moment. And then there'll be a whole bunch of links in the show notes, talks from Ray and Sandy Galea, Al and Kathy Stewart, Craig and Kathy Tucker. I think one of the most helpful things is just to have conversations with an older ministry couple and just learn from them. So check those out.

[7:55]
Now, I want to come back to, I just want to come back to thinking about your kids because your kids are getting older and they're probably aware that they're ministry kids. Were either of you ministry, you know, ministry kids or grew up in a ministry family, you know, have you got that memory of being a pastor's kid in the fishbowl environment? You're nodding your head, Teresa. I wasn't a pastor's kid, but I guess, yeah, I had the blessing of Christian parents who are very ministry minded. And I think particularly for them, opening their home up and having Bible study and we pretty much used to have people over at our house at least once a week, if not several times a week.

[8:40]
And just, yeah, again, doing life, doing conversations, sharing kind of fellowship with other Christians. That was a real, I guess, natural part of our life. And so that's something that we've probably tried to import into our family life as well. Just hearing you both speak, it sounds like you communicate, you know, pretty well as a ministry couple. You know, early on with young kids, you had loads of people coming into, you know, house pretty regularly. Did that change when you had young kids? Is it changing now that you've got older kids?

[9:12]
Are you feeling freer now to have more people in your home, you know, less people when you were younger and managing nappies? Vomit and everything else that comes with those feral little young kids? All that bag. Yes and no. We were really blessed with kids who slept quite well. And so we just chucked them in bed and I would join things late. And actually it's harder now because they're sleeping later. And we have three fairly extroverted kids that want to be with all the other people that are coming into our house.

[9:46]
So it's actually a lot harder to have them. But I think the kids love it and enjoy the fact that we have people of different ages over at our house and things like that. So it's a real joy to be able to explain that, you know, this is why we're having people over. It probably felt easier in terms of conversation and relating to people. Having said that, I was super tired. Super, super tired. So it was really God's strength that helped me get through a lot of those early conversations when the babies were really young. That's great. That's really helpful. Now, what habits do you have to cultivate your shared spiritual growth?

[10:21]
Yeah, I feel like it's different in different seasons and it's always a work in progress. So, you know, now that we've got all of our kids at school, we've got a bit more time and flexibility, whether it's a day off or while the kids have gone to school, to spend time reading the Bible together, praying together. We try, don't always succeed in this, but we try to at least make sure that we're praying together, you know, on a nightly basis. I guess we've involved our kids as well in, you know, bowl time around the table and praying together.

[10:53]
But, yeah, it's also, I think, recognizing there's things that we do together, but there's also ways in which we can do that separately. So freeing one another up to do that. So, you know, if I can help Teresa to have some time, whether it's at a cafe or outside of the house, to spend some time with God or help her to get away to a conference where she's going to get fed and have fellowship with one another, with other women, then, yeah, we try to make that work. And try to free each other up that way to make sure we're growing in godliness and growing in our love and knowledge of God.

[11:29]
Can you tell us, how do you deal with criticism, you know, ministry criticism? So I know Dan's amazing. Oh, he is. But sometimes I'm sure people say Dan's not that amazing. How do you guys deal with that as a couple, yeah, together? We do that together. I think that's basically it. We are a team and we try to speak as much as possible.

[11:59]
We try to, I guess, at the same time, protect each other from those things. So, like, if it's things that I hear that he hasn't heard, we will discuss it, but I don't kind of run to him straight away and kind of air it out. And similarly, I think that happens the other way around. The difficult things that he faces, he knows I'm there to support him. We'll talk it through. We'll pray together. We'll point each other to Jesus. But at the same time, he doesn't need to tell me every single thing.

[12:30]
And I think that's helpful that we've got each other's back, but we don't have to bring every single burden to each other because that's what God does. Like, that's what we bring to each other. Teresa, you sound really robust. Like, I'm sure there are moments where you're not. But are you overprotective, underprotective, Teresa? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I think every husband cares and wants to protect. I've shared a few tears in my time. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And so, yeah, there is the thing that I, maybe this is the typical male, I want to get in, I want to fix the solution.

[13:03]
If there's something that's hurt her or she's been on the receiving end or she feels the weight of something that's impacted me more so, I kind of want to jump in and fix those things and nut it out. I'm certainly, I'm not a conflict of what I'm probably going to go in there and resolve it. But, and so, yeah, but we have certainly shared a few tears. And we've also had to learn to be patient, I think, and just trust God's timing. But, yeah, as much as we want this to be fixed ASAP, we've got a journey and we've got things to learn from that.

[13:34]
It's great. I really appreciate both of your honesty. But I do want you to leave our listeners with one thing. I want to hear from both of you on this. So, what's one thing that our listeners need to hear from you guys in terms of marriage and remembering about marriage and ministry? So, what's one thing? So, basically, I think, yeah, that ministry is part of your marriage, but we also need to make marriage a ministry, that we serve others within our marriage. Yeah, the one thing which is not necessarily unique to marriage and ministry couples, but I remember it was actually something that Ray said to me when I first started NBM.

[14:12]
And that was the question that we ought to be asking one another is, you know, Teresa, do you feel more loved by Dan this year than compared to last year? And Dan, do you feel more respected by Teresa this year than compared to last year? And that's just the question we've kept on coming back to again and again. It's helped us to work out, yeah, this is what's important in marriage. And to also keep ministry, which we can often get caught up in and see that as our identity more so. But it's helped us to stay grounded in our marriage. Great. Well, thanks for joining us on The One Thing.

[14:42]
It's been a real pleasure having you. Well, that's it for today's episode of The One Thing. I'm Scott Sanders. Looking forward to chatting soon. Bye.