obtain higher levels of education, or helping them pay a bill that they don’t have money to pay—all of that is ministry. So when you actually go into the room of a sick person and sit down next to them, hold their hand, or examine them and find an ailment that can be corrected either through medicine or surgery, you are actually ministering to their bodies. In addition to ministering to their bodies, you are also ministering to their spirit and their soul if you do it the right way. If I just go in and say, “Ok, you have terminal cancer,” and then walk out, that’s not ministering to their soul. Most physicians who do it well not only have to take care of the physical component, but they also have to take care of the spiritual component; that is ministry within itself. There are people who depend on me at the hospital just like there are people who depend on me at the church. Do you feel a need to balance everything? That would imply that everything is of equal importance. I don’t consider myself a bi-vocational pastor who is in part-time ministry; I consider myself in full-time ministry. I am always the pastor of the Antioch Church, and I am always working on behalf of the members. The only challenge is finding enough time to do all of the things that I want to do. Unfortunately, sometimes my family ends up getting the short end of that because I’m so busy dealing with the issues of the church and then handling my responsibilities at the hospital with patients here and there, and as a result, there is often very little time left for me to do much else.
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How do you maintain a successful marriage with such a busy schedule, and what is your advice to other married couples who are in the same situation? I don’t consider myself to be an expert in the area of marriage. My wife and I have two grown daughers, and we have been married for over 30 years. We still work every day to make sure our marriage is strong, but the first thing is that you have to marry the right person. You can’t just get a dime piece to be on your arm, or you can’t just get somebody that you are going to work into the ground to support you. It has to be someone who loves you, and then you have to be loving toward them. You have to marry someone who understands that the job you want to go into may require you to be absent quite a bit. When my wife and I got married, I was in medical school, so even if I had not become a preacher, one of the things that was understood was that I was going to be gone a lot. My wife went into our marriage with that understanding, and she is secure with that. She doesn’t necessarily need me to complete her because she is strong in her own right. Do you think that’s an area of struggle for many couples? I think that is the case for many people who are married to someone in a very high powered position. Their spouse may be considered less than because they are always the second fiddle to Mr./Mrs. Big Stuff. A person who is in a high powered position has to validate their spouse; that’s one thing. The second thing is that you have to always love, honor, and respect the person that you’re married to and make time for them even when you are busy with so many other things; cut