REPLANT

ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF EFFECTIVE REPLANTERS
Spousal Perseverance
Spousal Perseverance
The wife of a replanter will have to endure suffering. She needs to
believe that the replant is a worthwhile endeavor; that it’s worth the
emotional strain and stress and sacrifice. This is not an optional
characteristic. A replanter is a husband first and foremost, and if he
doesn’t have the support of his wife in ministry, he will ruin his
marriage for the sake of his ministry, and in doing so, he will ruin
his ministry as well.

Micro Skills
Spousal Cooperation- If married, his wife shares and supports his
conviction and call to replanting

Healthy Marriage - In a God-honoring and thriving marriage

marked with mutual respect, cherishing, and affection

Integrity - Demonstrates integrity and wisdom in managing

his household

Healthy Family - Leads his family in a manner that honors and

glorifies the Lord

Spiritual Vitality - Committed to pursuing personal holiness and

demonstrates a vibrant walk with Christ

Sexual Purity - Maintains a healthy sexual relationships & purity

in his marriage, thought life, and relationships

Spousal Perseverance: Supporting Scriptures

Philippians 1:6; Proverbs 18:22; Genesis 2:18; Ephesians 4:1-6, 5:22-23;
1 Peter 3:7; Colossians 4:2; Proverbs 31:11-12; Matthew 22:37

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A REPLANTER: SPOUSAL PERSEVERANCE
by Sam Parkison
Genesis 2:18, Proverbs 18:22, Ephesians 5:22-33

It is significant that of all the creatures Almighty God spoke into

existence ex nihilo, it is man who was made in His image. It is also
significant that the full expression of God’s image in creation is
represented in two genders: man and woman (Genesis 1:27).
God certainly discloses Himself in all of his creation, and His
attributes can be clearly perceived in everything (Psalm 19:1-7,
Romans 1:18-20), but in a mysterious and profound way, He is most
clearly and most sacredly imaged in mankind.

Moreover, God’s most glorious activity—saving people through the

gospel—is displayed in mankind’s most fundamental institution:
marriage (Ephesians 5:31-32).

The drama of the gospel is that Jesus lays down His life for His
bride—the Church—and every marriage is intended to be a
microscopic rendition of this beautiful story. Every marriage is a
picture of the gospel, and is either giving onlookers a clearer depiction
of the gospel, or it is obscuring it. When a husband spends himself at
work, and comes home to roll on the floor with his kids, and attends
and nurtures the soul of his wife, he is teaching his family and anyone
else who may be exposed to his life that Christ is a self-sacrificial,
long-suffering, kind and benevolent husband to his Church. On the other
hand, a short-tempered husband, with his gruff and impatient attitude,
is teaching something untrue about Christ; he is teaching that Christ is
temperamental and impatient and explosive towards his Church. Just
like there’s no way for a human to shake off the image of God, there’s
no way for a marriage to shake off the image of the gospel, which is a
weighty reality, to say the least.

This theological concept is important for every married couple to

understand, but it is particularly important for the pastor and his wife
to grasp this truth. Pastoral ministry is a public vocation, which means
that the pastor is never not instructing. He teaches with his words in
and out of the pulpit, and he teaches with his actions and demeanor
and tone. Specifically, the way that he relates to his wife—whether he
is sacrificially loving, humbly leading, diligently nurturing or not—will
either confirm or contradict the gospel that he proclaims on Sunday
morning.

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Conversely, the way that the pastor’s wife relates to her
husband—whether she is joyfully submitted, affectionately encouraging,
devotionally supporting or not—will either confirm or contradict the
gospel that her husband proclaims.

This is precisely why Paul gives particular attention to the status of a

man’s marriage and family when he writes on the qualifications for
pastoral ministry (1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9); a pastor’s marriage is
more public than anyone else’s, and it is therefore crucial for a pastor’s
marriage to accurately depict the gospel. This is especially true for the
replanter, since his ministry is largely corrective in nature. He is coming
in to a congregation that has misunderstood or misapplied sound
biblical teaching or wisdom in some fashion, and his marriage will either
validate or undermine the biblical direction he is trying to implement.
This is one reason spousal perseverance is incredibly important for the
replanter; the integrity and success of his ministry depends on it.

However, another reason—other than doctrinal consistency—can be

given for stressing the importance spousal perseverance. In addition to
its theological, gospel-displaying purposes, marriage serves very
practical purposes. The first function of marriage we ever see in the
Bible is in its giving Adam a helpmate to work the garden
(Genesis 2:20-23). Work is a human endeavor; part of being an
image-bearer of God means working and creating and subduing and
beatifying in the same way that God does. When Adam was made as a
working, image-bearer of God, he was in need of a helpmate to assist
him in his work, and Eve was given to function in that role. So it’s good
and it’s human to work, and it’s good and it’s human to work through
marriage.

Now, a pastor’s work is hard. Harder still is a pastor-replanter’s work.

And if it is a good for a working man to have a wife who helps and
supports him in his work, it’s only reasonable to conclude that it is
especially important for a replanter—who has uniquely challenging
work—to have a wife who is committed to be supportive and helpful.
The work of a replanter is too demanding for a marriage in which the
wife is apprehensive about the ministry; a replanter cannot be
successful if his wife doesn’t love and cherish the church that her
husband is sacrificially serving. She needs to believe that the replant is
a worthwhile endeavor; that it’s worth the emotional strain and stress
and sacrifice. This is not an optional characteristic. A replanter is a
husband first and foremost, and if he doesn’t have the support of his
wife in ministry, he will ruin his marriage for the sake of his ministry, and
in doing so, he will ruin his ministry as well.

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She needs to believe that the replant is a worthwhile endeavor; that it’s
worth the emotional strain and stress and sacrifice. This is not an optional
characteristic. A replanter is a husband first and foremost, and if he doesn’t
have the support of his wife in ministry, he will ruin his marriage for the sake
of his ministry, and in doing so, he will ruin his ministry as well.

It should also be stressed that a replanter’s wife is faced with unique

challenges of her own. It is not only the replanter who inherits outlandish
and conflicting expectations from his new struggling congregation; his
wife will also receive assumed responsibilities from her husband’s
flock—many of which are not at all biblically justified. She will need to
be a woman with perseverance and thick skin, because her husband can
only keep so much gossip from her ears, and “our-last-pastor’s-wife” will
fall like an anvil squarely on her insecurities. Not only this, but she will
have to watch her husband work himself into the ground on behalf of a
people who will repay his selflessness with backbiting and ingratitude.
He will weep and stress and labor over his people, while they stubbornly
question his decisions—the decisions that his wife will recall watching
him deliberate over, face-down in desperate prayer through all hours of
the night. In all of this, she will need to resist the continual temptation to
resent the people who have been entrusted to her husband’s care. She
will need to press on—coming alongside her husband and loving the
church he has been called to serve. Perseverance must be the mark of
the replanter’s wife. Without the essential characteristic of spousal
perseverance, a man is simply not fit for the task of replanting.

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER UNDERSTANDING

Click any resource title below

BLOGS
Shepherding Your Wife
Finding Joy as a Replanter’s Wife
Encouragement and Community for Replanter Wives

BOOKS
The Pastor’s Family by Brian and Cara Croft
The Pastor’s Wife by Gloria Furman
Marriage Matters by Tony Evans

VIDEO
Putting Your Marriage and Family First