Protecting your marriage

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Welcome to the Unfiltered podcast. My name is Lee Stevenson.

I have the joy and privilege to be the executive director of church planting with Converge and a local church planter as well. And today we got some special guests with us I want to introduce real quick.

We've got Amy and Randy Moore, church planters in McKinney, Texas, planted Revolution Church about five years ago or so. So I'll give you a chance. Guys, welcome. Say hi to the audience out there.

Amy Moore: 00:00:32

Hey, we're so excited to be with y'all.

Randy Moore: 00:00:35

Pumped, man. I'm so grateful to be here and.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:38

It'S good to hear your Texas draws on the other side of the mic.

But I want to talk a little bit because you guys kind of unique perspective coming into ministry that I think would be very helpful for a lot of our listeners and specifically thinking through planters as they're moving forward towards the plant. What are some things, what are some tips that you would give them to protect their marriage in the midst of kind of the.

The pressure cooker and the stressors that surround church planting? So, but I'll. I'll start with you, Amy, and allow. You can give us your perspective on that as well.

Amy Moore: 00:01:14

Those. That's great question.

So I think number one thing is making sure that your marriage is in a really good, healthy state date you are about to jump into a hard thing in life and where your marriage is going to be attacked by Satan heavily and Satan's going to use people to attack your marriage. And I would recommend go to counseling before you even start a church, because work on your issues that you might have in your marriage.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:45

Bring them to life. That kind of.

Amy Moore: 00:01:48

Exactly. I think it's vital.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:50

Yeah. What advice would you give? Because I know sometimes as pastors, the last place that we would personally want to go is to a counselor.

You know, and there's an element where I've seen it time and time again, even in my own life. Well, I was trained to do that. Why. Why do I need to go to somebody else?

And so what advice would you give to a pastor and their spouse as to this is why this could really benefit you?

Amy Moore: 00:02:16

Yeah.

You know, I think that unfortunately, that is something that our past generations have taught us incorrectly, that it's not a good thing to go to counseling. And I'm a strong proponent that everybody should go to counseling, that everybody has junk and stuff in their life.

And having an outside person coming in and seeing what's going on in your life, that maybe there's holes that you wouldn't Typically. See, see, it's healthy.

Lee Stephenson: 00:02:46

Yeah, no, that's. That's great. How about for you, Randy? What. What advice would you give to a planning couple as they're preparing for a launch of a new church?

Randy Moore: 00:02:55

Well, I have to definitely echo what Amy said that you don't know what you don't know. And so the only way to know what you don't know is to get an outside perspective to help you through.

There's wisdom, the Bible says, in the multitude of counselors. And so I think that we do miss that a lot. I think going into a church plan is tough.

I think it is a journey that is filled with blessings, but it's also something that the devil could use to put a wedge in between you and your spouse.

And I think being prayerful, being on the same team going into the process and saying, hey, we know that this is going to be tough and not just, you know, hey, you say this at me and I'll listen to you more. So of really both parties being on the same page and saying, you know, we know that God's called us to our marriage first.

Before he gave us this call, he gave us that call. And I think having a mindset that says we are going to protect this, but we're called to do ministry together.

And so we're going to go in prayerfully and with counseling and just know the devil doesn't like us for what we're trying to accomplish.

Lee Stephenson: 00:03:54

Yeah, yeah, that's great.

I know that there's all kinds of stressors that come before the launch, but even after the launch that you know in your right mind you're preparing, you're getting ready, you know something's coming, you don't know what it is. And I find time and time again when I sit down with pastors and with planters, it tends to be.

There tends to be something, some type of financial pressure that becomes a stressor in their life. It could be something emotional, it could be connected to a family member, it could be connected to even the marriage.

Something happens with your kid, it could be somebody with on the launch team. And then there's just a time demand that is very challenging as well.

Which one of those three were the most challenging for you two as you were making your way way.

Randy Moore: 00:04:39

All three of them. All three of them were bad. So I know I can connect all three. Amy, what would you say?

Amy Moore: 00:04:44

I think so. Going into planning the church, we already had two children. Right now we have four. So time for me.

And I was going to say this, I Think before you start the church, making sure that you have a designated date day. And I know you're poor. I mean, let's. Let's be honest.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:04

Dates are like Taco Bell.

Amy Moore: 00:05:05

Yeah. Dates are. Let's go to the park and have a little picnic or something. You know, it doesn't matter what you do.

Just set aside that time so that way that you can make sure that your partner knows you're important to me. And I'm going to set out this time before we launch the church, during the time we're launching the church and even after, when it's established.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:25

That's great. That's great.

Randy Moore: 00:05:27

I think there was emotional stress when we decided to actually launch the church. Hey, we're going to do this. We're all in. That means we're going to move out of state. That's away from family. It's away from all of our certainty.

Lee Stephenson: 00:05:40

Your support system changed.

Randy Moore: 00:05:41

Yeah. And it was this crazy ride, but it was two months into that that Amy actually found out that her.

Her dad went to hospice and, you know, ended up passing away. And that was a super challenging time for her, for us, for, you know, her family, but.

But also her mom feeling like, hey, I've lost my husband, and now I'm going to lose you, too. They had a very close relationship, so the emotional pain was tough. It was.

That was, I'd say, one of the first, like, oh, wow, the devil doesn't like this. Moments that made it difficult to go, you know, well, we still have to answer God's call. We can't not go. But this is a challenge.

Lee Stephenson: 00:06:23

So thinking about that, like, you land in Texas, you're ready to launch this support system, and now you're dealing with a death. What did. What support system did you have? And what would you have done differently now, knowing what your experience was?

Amy Moore: 00:06:37

Great question. So I feel like I had the negative thing of relying just on Randy and I, and we were a part of Converge.

But I felt like I was too proud to reach out to some of the women that had went through what I had went through in planning a church. And if I had to go back and redo it, I would definitely spend.

Spend time with those women and go on lunch dates with them and really open myself up to what's going on in my life because they've experienced it.

Randy Moore: 00:07:13

We're so much better together, and we know that we're better together, but we know that through the experience of having been alone. Yeah. And I think you learn that best when you're like, man, I don't have anything that I really need as a support system.

And I think that it is invaluable to have relationships with people you can truly trust. And I know that everybody listening to this goes, I don't know who that person is because it's so hard being in ministry.

You get burned and you feel like, I don't know who to open up to.

But I also would encourage through that same thread of thought of saying there are good people out there and there are good people that have walked your path. If it's not exact, it's something similar and if there are expenses, sometimes even worse, and you go, wow, I thought I had it rough.

And then you talk to somebody else and, and you realize.

But I think the Bible tells us that in order to go to each other when we have issues, you know, we go to God for forgiveness, but it says we go to his people for healing. And so when we, when we share our issues and our stressors and our problems, man, it's amazing what God can do.

There's, there's an immediate release of just saying it to somebody. Whatever your pain button is when you say it and it comes, you know, from your soul, your mind, your soul, and then out loud into the atmosphere.

I just think that there's a healing that God told us would be there. But then we get to pray with one another. And I think we underestimate the power of prayer sometimes. Again, we'll just pridefully pray on our own.

God knows our needs. Yeah, he does. But he also said to share our burdens together. And so having that network is huge. We should have jumped into that sooner.

But as most people, we had some reservations. Can we trust? Can we not?

And we really have found a partnership where we know we can, we know that, we know that we can call at any given point in time and somebody will be there.

Lee Stephenson: 00:08:58

Yeah.

Kind of follow up question to kind of where we began is there's kind of two sides to the coin when it comes to pastoral ministry and staffing of the church where some line up going, we as spouses will not both be on the same staff team of the church. And then there's the other side of the coin where like, absolutely, why wouldn't we do that together?

You landed on the latter side where you know, from day one both of you are employed, your staff of the church. And for our audience out there, I love to hear a little bit more about how did you come to that decision?

What have been some of the challenges, you know, because Challenges?

Randy Moore: 00:09:38

What are you talking about?

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:39

How do you leave work at work? You know, leave work at work? Well, it's what I hear, but, you know, how do you navigate that within the home life?

Randy Moore: 00:09:48

I think for me, I read all throughout the Bible of, you know, the Levites. It was the Father and then the Son, and then, you know, their son. And it was like generations of people that were working together.

So I almost look at it. You know, it was kind of biblical. Now, that's not how we arrived at it. I just see that as we've done it together. It's like, wow, okay, God kind of.

We see all that throughout the whole Bible. And so, you know, he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So you. You see the story in the thread. For us, it's like harmony together.

And knowing that our vision is the same makes it really pretty easy for us to go, okay, we're both called to this. I guess I never view it as just my call. I knew that Amy wasn't just going along for the ride.

As a passenger, she had a heart and a desire to see lost people come to meet, know, and follow Jesus. And so it makes it pretty easy to go, okay, now what do we have to do as far as gifting?

You know, you're going to be in this role, and I'll be in this role. Not to say one's better than the other so much as to say, how can we help each other succeed and empower one another, encourage one another.

I think that's a huge thing between couples, is to realize that your biggest cheerleader really should be your spouse. And if it's not that, then. Then I think you're hurting more than you need to be.

Amy Moore: 00:11:05

I think, too.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:06

Please add to it here.

Amy Moore: 00:11:08

Yeah, I'm going to add to it. So before we even met, we got married really young and. But.

But before we even met, I felt called into ministry before I even met him, and I didn't know what that meant. I've always been passionate about music and worship, but I think that played a really big part in even everything we've done.

We've always done ministry together, and I can't imagine not doing it that way. But I will say that doesn't work for everybody. Sure.

And I think that, like Randy said, I think being in support of one another is the key and making sure that you're on the same page. Because if we did go into this and I had a different vision than he had, that's gonna cause a lot of problems in your Marriage.

And so I think that you've. You've got to figure that out with each other if you're gonna do ministry together. What does that look like?

And like you said, Lee, you said, you know, how do you leave work? At work, you've got to force yourself. It's hard. Sometimes you aren't able to do it very well.

But then sometimes we have to look at each other and keep each other accountable and say, hey, you've been on your phone quite a bit. You know, while we're supposed to have family time, you know, what's going on? Is there a lot going on at work that we need to figure out?

And so it's just really communication.

Randy Moore: 00:12:34

I think one of the challenges that we bumped into initially having not done this this way was the idea of we would be in a staff team meeting, 4, 5, 6 people at a table, and, you know, I would be leading a charge towards where we were headed in that meeting. I'd almost go person to person to person to person. And then when it came to Amy, it was like I would skip over.

Lee Stephenson: 00:12:54

Her because I already know what she's going to say.

Randy Moore: 00:12:56

Yeah, I already know what she's going to say.

So if you're trying to avoid those potential pitfalls, you have to realized that, you know, she needs a voice in that room just like the other four people in that table. And I never viewed it in my mind as, oh, I'm trying to, you know, undercut her or not hear her voice or in any way like that.

And I think that if you have the viewpoint of, oh, I'll just go home and talk, we'll talk it all out then I think that the key leadership that she can bring to the table is never heard by the rest of the team. And so I think that's where I realized at some point, hey, I got to do different there. And just having her bring that message.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:31

I would have loved to hear that conversation.

Randy Moore: 00:13:33

Yeah, I came to that through the power of the Holy Spirit. And like I always say, my second Holy Spirit is my wife. And she let me know that I needed to adjust that. And you know what?

I'm so glad that I did, though. It was huge.

Lee Stephenson: 00:13:44

Awesome. Awesome. Well, it's been a privilege. I appreciate you all taking the time to just share your story. And for our audience out there, you listening?

If you're ever out in the McKinney, Texas area, great Church Revolution Church, stop on in, say hi to Amy and Randy, and thank you all for joining us. This has been the unfiltered podcast. Until next time, y'all. Keep it real.