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Marital needs key to pastors & spouses recapped by speaker

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BRANDON, Fla. (BP)–“Strong families making strong churches makes for a strong denomination,” pastor Forrest Pollock said at an Oct. 2-3 Kingdom Family conference in Florida.

Pollock, pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, has served on the Southern Baptist Convention’s Council on Family Life for the past three years, and his church hosted the conference, which is part of the larger Empowering Kingdom Growth (EKG) initiative within the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Kingdom Families Conference at Bell Shoals drew more than 80 leaders from 18 churches in four states — Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama.

“I really believe we see the beginning of a movement in the SBC as hearts are turned toward the heart of God,” which encompasses the home, Pollock told the Florida Baptist Witness in an interview. “These pastors are going to take what they have learned here … to the highways and byways of Florida and beyond and we are going to see slowly, intermittently, a change in both the perception of the SBC and also in the strength of the families.”

The conference offered five 90-minute sessions which included information about premarriage counseling, Kingdom-focused churches, expressing the love of God, listening and forgiveness.

Speaking to leaders about their own marital relationships, Pollock said the relationship between a minister and his wife can be unique and present its own set of difficulties. Recognition of the different ways men and women communicate can be the beginning of understanding, he said.

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“Since we are different, we have trouble communicating,” Pollock said. “We all do.”

Citing Philippians 2:3 as an example, Pollock said Scripture makes clear the need to consider others’ needs.

Pollock noted that a popular book points to differing needs men and women say they have. Women say they need affection, conversation, honesty and openness, financial support and family commitment, he said, while men list sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, spouse’s attractiveness, domestic support and admiration as things they most need in a relationship.

“What strikes me about these two lists is that there is no overlap whatsoever,” Pollock said.

Adding his own list, Pollock went on to describe what he believes every minister’s wife needs from her husband and what every minister needs from his wife.

A wife needs time, talk, touch and trustworthiness, Pollock said. She needs to know the house and cars are not going to be repossessed and she needs to trust her husband at his word.

“T-i-m-e is how ladies spell love,” Pollock said. “Men can be stimulated visually into an affair; women by touch. Let your wife know that you care.”

Conversely, a minister needs acceptance, applause and affection — and a wife with a very short memory.

“He needs you to forget some things,” Pollock said. “Normally we admire people with good memories, but forget every sermon in the first two years of his ministry and … forget some of the theological lines he has drawn in the sand. He is trying to preach a life he aspires to himself. He can fool the church most of the time, but he needs you to forget.

“No minister is an ideal husband, no wife is an ideal wife,” Pollock said. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.”
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: ADVICE FOR PASTORS & SPOUSES.