Family Matters Most

“Never sacrifice a job that only you can do for one that someone else will do.”

I was once again inspired by Andy Stanley as a listened to him on my jog this morning. The man is only 56, but he has some really strong wisdom in leadership and life.

If you want to win at being a husband and a father, keep reading and I’ll share with you what I learned.

If you don’t know, Andy Stanley is the leader of NorthPoint Community Church. At last check, the church had 5 campuses and over 24,000 weekly attendees. So Andy knows a lot about leading a large organization and the pull between work and family life.

Andy and his wife (who have been married for 25 years) started off with two visions or goals for their family.

  1. To enjoy spending time together once their children are grown.

  2. For their kids to want to spend time together when they have the freedom to do otherwise.

To reach these two goals in their life, they established 4 principles

  1. Don’t give up what is unique to you for what someone else will do. Someone else will run your company someday (or it may not exist). Someone else will run your church or sports team. You think none of these organizations can exist without you, but they will. Being the best husband to your wife and being the best father (or wife & mother) to your children are relationships that are uniquely yours.

    Do not over-invest in roles that are not unique to you at the expense of those roles that are uniquely yours. Work hard, then go home and take your brain with you. Don’t spend your family time thinking about your work. Focus on being present with your family. Trust that God will handle any of the issues at work that you keeping wanting to dwell on.

  2. Discipline your kids with the goal of preserving your relationship with your children, not your reputation. If you have kids, you take a lot of pride in them. Their appearance, their behavior and, far too often, their performance.

    Never sacrifice the relationship with your kids to preserve your pride. You see this way too often in youth sports. For goodness sakes, just because you didn’t make it to the pros does not mean that you need to live vicariously through your kids’ sports performance.

    Love your kids for who they are, not how they perform. Cheer for your kids’ first name, not their last.

  3. Prioritize your marriage on your calendar. In work world and even in most of my personal world, everything is calendared. I calendar meetings months in advance. Bike rides, workouts, they get on the calendar too. Getting into the Bible with my wife or going on a date night seem to always get crowded out by life. We need to clean the house or I need to write a blog. Life just keeps expanding to fill in every free space.

    Therefore, calendar time with your family. Especially your wife. My wife will always sacrifice her time for the kids. Set date nights, weekends away with just your wife, calendar fun days with your entire family. Andy says that a yearly trip away, alone with his wife was a key for them being ready to enjoy each other once the kids are gone. It won’t be easy to schedule a weekend away with your wife, but you’ve got to make it happen. It is a discipline now that will provide rich rewards in the future.

    Let your calendar be evidence of your love for your family.

  4. Say no for now, but not forever. If you are like me, you love saying yes to every charity or community event that comes along. What I’ve quickly found is that if I say yes to every “good thing” I could very easily fail at the most important things in my life.

    Learn to say no for now. Once your kids are grown and going in a hundred different directions, there will be plenty of time to say yes to other things.

    If you have to travel, have dinner at home when you are in town. Eating at home is different than eating at a restaurant. There are conversations that will occur at home that can’t happen at a restaurant. Andy’s wife says that dinner at home was one of the most important things they did as a family.

Nobody at home should feel like they are competing with work or other obligations. Be a hero at home first. Once you accomplish everything you can at home (which is your unique duty), then you can say yes to the other good things.

Getting the child raising years right will lead to a lifetime of happiness with your wife and your children as adults. Make the investment.

If you liked this blog, please share it with your friends and join the conversation by leaving a comment or question on our website. While you are there you can sign up for email updates, or take our growth quiz.

Thank you for being a part of our values driven community!

Image courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/.

By: