Most churches will spend thousands on youth ministry without blinking — but let marriage quietly fall apart in the pews. In this episode, Brad continues his conversation with Pastor Jamus Edwards, who spent his early ministry years building a thriving church while his own marriage was running on empty. Jamus opens up about the turning point that changed everything for him, his wife Annie, and ultimately their entire congregation — and makes a compelling case for why ignoring marriage ministry may be the most expensive mistake a church can make.
(adapted from Podcast content)
Why Your Marriage Is Your Most Important Ministry
Read time: 8 min
There’s a quiet crisis unfolding in churches across the country. It doesn’t show up in attendance numbers or budget reports. It shows up at home — in the silence between a pastor and his wife at dinner, in the loneliness a ministry leader’s spouse carries alone, in the slow erosion of a marriage that was supposed to model the gospel.
The pressure to give everything to the church is real. But as one seasoned pastor put it plainly: “If my congregation likes me, but my wife doesn’t, then I’ve got a problem.”
The Ministry Trap Nobody Warns You About
Most seminary graduates enter ministry with their hearts in the right place. They want to build something, reach people, grow a congregation. What few are taught is how to do that without sacrificing their marriage on the altar of ministry.
Jamus Edwards, lead pastor of Pleasant Valley Church — which grew from a congregation of 25 to over a thousand members — experienced this firsthand. At 24 years old, newly married and newly pastoring, he went all in on the church. The results at church were impressive. The results at home were not.
“I probably pastored the church pretty well, but I didn’t love my wife very well. My first ministry was my wife — and I had abandoned her on the altar of ministry.” — Jamus Edwards
His wife Annie felt increasingly lonely and, over time, grew resentful of the very church her husband was pouring his life into. He was working late, skipping date nights, attending church functions multiple evenings a week — all for good reasons, or so it seemed. But back home, the emotional distance was growing.
The Misplaced Priority Nobody Is Talking About
This pattern isn’t unique. It’s pervasive. And it’s quietly destroying marriages among people who are outwardly doing all the right things.
The apostle Paul is direct about this in his pastoral qualifications: a man who cannot manage his own household well cannot manage the household of God. And before that passage, in Ephesians, Paul calls husbands to love their wives the way Christ loved the church — sacrificially, consistently, with pursuit.
That is the first gospel ministry. Not the sermon series. Not the capital campaign. Not the community outreach. The marriage.
As Tim Keller famously observed: if anything comes ahead of your marriage other than Jesus, your marriage will slowly die over time.
Warning signs — is ministry crowding out your marriage?
- You’re working multiple evenings a week and not protecting family time
- You regularly come home to a spouse who is quiet, withdrawn, or emotionally distant
- You can’t remember the last time you planned a dedicated date with your spouse
- Your spouse would describe themselves as “second” to the church
- Your kids associate the church with dad being gone, not with something good
The Real Root Issue: Fear of Man
Why do so many ministry leaders fall into this trap? Often it comes down to a familiar sin: the fear of man. The desire to be seen as a good pastor. The need for congregational approval. The pressure to be present at every event, every meeting, every class.
Spurgeon reportedly told his ministerial students that learning to say no would be worth more to them than learning Latin. It’s advice the church still hasn’t fully absorbed.
Learning to say no — to a counseling appointment after 6 p.m., to a Tuesday evening meeting, to yet another church event — is not a failure of pastoral commitment. It is an act of theological faithfulness. It’s choosing the approval of God over the approval of the congregation.
“I had to learn to fear God more than I feared my congregation.” — Jamus Edwards
When a pastor’s acceptance before God rests in Christ — not in how many hours he logs, how fast his church grows, or how many new ministries he launches — saying no becomes possible. Protecting the marriage becomes possible.
Practical Steps to Put Your Marriage First
1. Create non-negotiable protected time Set firm boundaries around evenings and days off that are reserved for family. This isn’t laziness — it’s stewardship of the first flock you were entrusted with.
2. Date your spouse — consistently and intentionally Dating your spouse isn’t a nice extra. It’s how marriages stay connected. Couples who stop pursuing each other don’t just drift apart — they create the conditions for crisis. Scheduled, protected, regular time together is non-negotiable.
3. Guard your spouse’s heart toward the church If your spouse grows to resent the church because it gets more of you than they do, that’s a leadership failure, not a congregation problem. The goal is a home where your spouse and children feel more important to you than any ministry.
4. Learn to say no — and get better at it The first no is the hardest. The second is easier. Soon, saying no to what doesn’t belong in your schedule becomes a practiced discipline rather than a crisis of conscience.
5. Be honest with yourself about the real costs A moral failure in ministry is rarely just one bad decision. It is almost always the downstream consequence of years of disconnection, loneliness, and misplaced priorities. The complacent, ministry-dominated life creates the conditions. The decision is just the moment it surfaces.
The Role of the Church in Championing Marriage
This isn’t only a personal responsibility — it’s an institutional one. Church leaders set the culture. If marriage ministry is an afterthought, a once-a-year program squeezed into the calendar, that’s exactly how the congregation will treat it.
One telling benchmark: one pastor confessed he spent three times more on landscaping than on marriage ministry. That budget tells a story — and so does the culture it creates.
Churches that are genuinely serious about healthy marriages ask hard questions: Does our budget reflect a heart for investing in marriage? Are we giving marriage ministry real stage time, not just program blurbs? Are the leaders visibly modeling what they’re asking others to prioritize?
The movement is growing. More churches are hiring full-time marriage pastors. Congregations are building marriage into the DNA of the church, not tacking it on as an afterthought. And the data bears out what pastors have always known: when marriages thrive, families thrive, and when families thrive, churches thrive.
It Gets Easier — and More Joyful — When You Invest
Here’s what’s often missed in the conversation about marriage and ministry: a healthy marriage isn’t just an obligation. It’s a source of genuine joy.
Ministry life is far more enjoyable when things are good at home. Writing a sermon without guilt about being a poor husband is a completely different experience than writing one haunted by it. Investing in your marriage — dating consistently, pursuing each other, giving grace — creates an atmosphere in the home that benefits everyone: you, your spouse, and your kids.
Marriage, like fitness, gets easier the more you work at it. The first few months back at the gym are miserable. But then it becomes tolerable. Then, for some, it becomes something you actually look forward to. The same is true of intentional marriage. The couples who never stop dating each other don’t experience it as work — they experience it as life.
“If dating my wife is work, give me more shifts.” — Brad Rhoads
Your marriage is your testimony. It is your most public and most honest sermon. Anyone can watch you preach. But follow you home — that’s where they’ll learn who you really are.
Lead there first.
Grace Marriage exists to make that step as simple as possible for churches of every size. Visit gracemarriage.com to learn how your church can get started.
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