Victory Leadership Podcast - Leadership in the Family

Summary

In this episode of the Victory Leadership Podcast, Pastor Dennis C. chats with Pastor Ariel Marquez, a senior pastor at Victory Alabang and a key member of the Philippine Apostolic Team. The discussion revolves around the crucial role of family in leadership and faith, emphasizing balancing family commitments with ministry responsibilities. Pastor Ariel shares personal insights and practical approaches to ensuring family is prioritized amidst a demanding schedule. He also explores the importance of character development over academic success in raising children and the concept of marriage as a message in leadership. This episode highlights the power of forgiveness and the significance of humility and honor within familial relationships.

Highlights

• Pastor Ariel emphasizes the importance of family alignment with God's principles 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦.
• The idea that one's marriage is a profound leadership message 💑.
• Balancing church responsibilities with family commitments through time management 📅.
• Character over academics in children's upbringing for true success 👶📚.
• Forgiveness as a repeated, conscious action among family members 🤝.

Key Takeaways

• Family is central to God's vision and essential in leadership roles 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦.
• Balancing ministry and family requires intentionality and prioritization 📅.
• Marriage and parenting serve as powerful messages of leadership in action 💑.
• Character development in children outweighs academic success in long-term impact 👶📚.
• Practicing forgiveness and humility is key in family dynamics 🤝.

Overview

In this insightful podcast episode, Pastor Dennis welcomes Pastor Ariel Marquez to explore the intersection of leadership and family within a Christian context. Pastor Ariel, a revered leader with extensive responsibilities, shares his experience of managing family life alongside a demanding pastoral role, emphasizing that the family, much like the Holy Trinity, is integral to God's design.

Pastor Ariel introduces the poignant idea that one's marriage serves as a living message of leadership, far more impactful than spoken words. He recounts the deliberate decisions he and his wife make to ensure that family time remains sacred, highlighting how prioritizing loved ones provides a profound example to others in their community.

The discussion further delves into the principles of raising children, focusing not just on academic achievements but on instilling strong moral character aligned with Christian values. Pastor Ariel speaks candidly on the power of forgiveness and humility in family life, presenting these virtues as essential building blocks in sustaining loving, resilient relationships.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Guest Welcome The chapter starts with the host, Pastor Dennis C., introducing himself as one of the pastors at Victory and welcoming the audience to the Victory Leadership Podcast. He introduces the guest for the episode, Pastor Ariel Marquez, who is the Senior Pastor of Victory Alabang and a member of the Philippine Apostolic Team. Pastor Ariel is also noted to be a father of four and husband to Shirley. The introduction concludes with Pastor Ariel expressing his gladness to be part of the podcast.
• 00:30 - 04:00: Family Importance and Prioritization The chapter discusses the importance of valuing and prioritizing family. The conversation includes a guest, Pastor Ariel, who is revered for his strong family values. The importance of maintaining strong family ties and acknowledging the beauty and love within the family unit, as exemplified by mentions of individuals like Shirley and Tammy, is emphasized.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Balancing Ministry and Family Time The chapter emphasizes the importance of family within the context of ministry and its significance to God. It highlights that family is central to God's essence, as explained through the familial relationship within the Trinity, described in terms like Father and Son. Further, it underscores that the first institution created by God was the family, beginning with marriage in the Garden of Eden, and ultimately concluding with marriage at the return of Jesus Christ, as described in the Book of Revelation. The chapter concludes that family is a vital and pervasive theme in Scripture.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Marriage as a Message The chapter discusses the importance of nurturing and valuing family within the context of leadership and ministry. It highlights the challenges faced by leaders, specifically pastors, in balancing the demands of their work and their family life. Pastor Yell shares insights on how he manages these challenges, given his responsibilities in a large church and overseeing a hub in the south. The chapter underscores the notion that strong family values are crucial for effective leadership.
• 09:00 - 12:30: Raising Godly Children The chapter emphasizes the importance of prioritizing family over professional or ministry obligations. It discusses the principle of not sacrificing family for career success, and highlights the author's personal commitment to choose family when faced with such a decision. This mindset is shared and implemented with his wife, especially in the context of his role as a pastor.
• 12:30 - 15:30: Character vs. Academic Excellence In this chapter titled 'Character vs. Academic Excellence,' the narrative focuses on the balance between personal responsibilities and professional commitments, particularly in a ministerial context. The speaker emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's calling and recognizes the necessity of delegating tasks within church leadership. The chapter highlights the tension between commitment to family and ministry obligations, ultimately advocating for the ability to say no when schedules become overwhelming to ensure that both personal character and academic goals are upheld.
• 15:30 - 18:00: Youth Leaders and Parental Relationships The chapter titled 'Youth Leaders and Parental Relationships' highlights the importance of prioritizing family time, as demonstrated by an agreement between the speaker and Shirley. They agreed on having dinner at home with the kids at least five times a week. This decision affects the speaker's scheduling of activities, such as counseling, which is arranged during the day instead of evenings, emphasizing the balance between work commitments and family relationships.
• 18:00 - 20:30: Handling Disagreements and Conflict Resolution The chapter titled 'Handling Disagreements and Conflict Resolution' emphasizes the importance of prioritizing family in resolving conflicts. It highlights the uniqueness of individual responsibilities, such as being a father or husband, which only specific individuals can fulfill. The narrative suggests seeking advice and learning from experienced persons, demonstrated by the example of arranging coffee meetings to gain wisdom and insights for effective conflict resolution.
• 20:30 - 24:30: Practicing Forgiveness in the Family The chapter titled 'Practicing Forgiveness in the Family' discusses the vital role a healthy marriage plays as a living testimony of one's values. It emphasizes that the true message isn't just what is verbally shared, but is conveyed through the everyday actions and treatment of one's spouse and children, especially in private moments. The chapter encourages intentional love and treatment within the family, highlighting that genuine relationships model devotion to God and motivate others to lead a life of service and integrity.
• 24:30 - 25:30: Closing Remarks and Prayer The chapter emphasizes the importance of marriage and family as a message in itself, especially for leaders. It highlights the concept that one's personal life, including marriage and parenting, serves as a powerful message to others. For leaders in various settings, such as campuses and offices, valuing family is crucial. Even singles, while not having their own families, are part of a family. The chapter concludes with a reminder for passionate individuals to balance their dedication to ministry and family life.

Victory Leadership Podcast - Leadership in the Family Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] hello everyone my name is dennis c and i'm one of the pastors in victory and you're watching victory leadership podcast in our podcast for today we have the senior pastor of victory alabang pastor ariel marquez and he's also a member of our philippine apostolic team he is the father of four kids and a husband to shirley pastor ariel welcome to our podcast glad to be here dennis
• 00:30 - 01:00 how are you doing great how's shirley oh she's more beautiful than ever and how's tammy well she's just lovely and awesome oh i like that today we're going to talk about the value of family and that's why we've invited pastor ariel pastor ariel since uh knowing you i've you've been someone that i look up to when it comes to family you're a family man today we talk about valuing family now why is valuing our family
• 01:00 - 01:30 very very important family is important because it is important to god it's central to his being in fact the very thing that describes the relationship between the trinity is actually familial terms like father and son the first institution that god made is family that it starts with marriage in the garden and it actually ends with marriage ultimately when we see again our lord jesus christ in the end in the book of revelation so basically family permeates scripture and i believe that is the
• 01:30 - 02:00 reason why it is so important uh to nurture and to take care and to value our family as a movement and as leaders pastor yell you're a very busy guy you pastor a very large church in lebanon you oversee our hub also in the south how would you be able to choose between the demands of ministry or work for us as pastors in the demands of family i think that's a very good question dennis um you know i've always heard of this apostolic saying if i may
• 02:00 - 02:30 say that that we are not here to sacrifice the family of the altars of ministry or success and so i think that is one of the principles that i live by that ultimately when it's when it comes between choosing uh between the church as my profession and my vocation and family it's an easy choice i've always have prioritized family and me and my wife i've talked about ministry and i think as a pastor and as a senior pastor also
• 02:30 - 03:00 like leading churches and hub i had to be secure with myself that i can only do what god has called me to do and i cannot do everything that i should be doing in the ministry and so part of it is also delegating to the other pastors the other staff of course when you talk about family per se i have learned to say no to some commitments if the harendar has been filled with too much ministry i definitely had to say no
• 03:00 - 03:30 many times with that i clear my evenings me and shirley also made an arrangement or an agreement that that i get to have dinner in the house at least five times a week with with the kids and so that's why some of my counseling is not really scheduled in the evenings but during the day if i'm freer so it's about really prioritizing things uh so that's that's how i manage it's not practical yeah i think we've
• 03:30 - 04:00 i've heard it so many times in our movement only do what only you can do only we can be our the father to our kids only we can be the husband to our wife and so i think it's very important for our people to know their priority and family is on that top priority list that we all have yeah you know tammy and i would would arrange coffee in times where we would get your brain and pick your brain and just get importation from you and shirley and we enjoyed those times all the advices you gave us but
• 04:00 - 04:30 every time we would go home the conclusion that we'd always have is your marriage is the message more than what you shared during the coffee time it's how you treat your wife when nobody's looking it's how we see your kids grow up loving god serving jesus it's really a motivation for us as husband and wife to say you know what that marriage is the message and we've got to be intentional about how i love you how i treat you not so that the public would see how good i am but really even in the private times because
• 04:30 - 05:00 our marriage is the message and for every leader that's watching this your marriage is the message your parenting is the message and i think that's a very powerful concept that i've learned here in this movement now how about our leaders in the campus and in the office especially how can they value family of course when you talk about singles you don't have your own family but you're part of a family and they may be so passionate and on fire for you know the ministry and serving the church but i
• 05:00 - 05:30 think ultimately they're also needed to go back in their homes and spend time with their parents the first command with the promise is children obey your parents in the lord because it is the first command with the promise and so i think we get to honor god not only in the ministry but also through our families all your kids they love jesus they worship jesus i hope so serving in the church what were the steps that you and shirley made or the
• 05:30 - 06:00 culture that you've established in home on how you're able to raise godly kids well um of course we don't claim to have perfect kids what we need to establish is not just focusing on the family but families that are focused on christ and so i think a consistent way of teaching them the word family devotion is important to really focus on their character more than the academics focus on their uh the way we raise them up in the fear
• 06:00 - 06:30 of god model before them what real christianity is all about i think when you talk about christianity yes we open the bible but in the home and in the family that's where you first see where humility is modeled and forgiveness is practice and felt and there's unconditional love that is given to one another and so you put a flesh in the scripture so to speak they know that we're not perfect parents we miss out on things sometimes we you know we drop the ball
• 06:30 - 07:00 but that's where grace comes in and then we ask for forgiveness from one another when we ask for if we make a mistake and we ask for forgiveness from from them i think they see that okay the gospel is actually seen and felt and manifested in this kind of environment even in the homes pastoral you mentioned about character first before grades you know we live in the world today where the pressure among especially younger parents and first-time parents that my kids by grade two they need to know algebra grade 3
• 07:00 - 07:30 they need to be an engineer already you know just too much of the celebration of academic excellence and not so much on the character how could you maybe in some way encourage those who are listening today on why character first in before academic excellence not saying that great is not important yeah if you're you're right i think it's just a matter of priority character trumps academic excellence all the time the fear of the lord is a beginning of wisdom when you talk about
• 07:30 - 08:00 you know having you know what it takes to be successful in life the best thing to deposit in our kids heart more than love for learning is the love for christ and if they have the fear of the lord then they get to make the right choice choices in life they it'll be easy for them to choose what is right and not what is wrong it'll be easier for them to go against the flow even if it's popular in their school they would
• 08:00 - 08:30 know how to question what is popular in the culture but not in accordance with scripture and so they they get to choose what is right they get to choose to live you know in accordance with the word of god and so i think when you focus on the character uh like you know integrity and the fear of the lord so first things first character and then i think academic actually is also important we value that but that is not the first thing that we it's powerful yeah i think a lot of our listeners here are single some are youth
• 08:30 - 09:00 leaders and most of them are asking what if my parents won't allow me to go to church and the parents would always say is that what the church is teaching you how do you go about that and what would be your advice to some of our leaders who might be experiencing those things you are the best bible that they can read your testimony your witness the way you treat them the way you respect them the way you prioritize them can be seen i think that can minister to them as well if we want to reach out to our
• 09:00 - 09:30 unbelieving parents then of course first thing is we need to pray for them second thing is we need to be a good witness at home and they will notice the change you know you know we know the basic scripture if anyone is in christ he's a new christian the oldest god in us come they will notice that you are different but then that is not enough it has to be further expressed by you know the time you know if you can bring them out spend time with them introduce them to some of
• 09:30 - 10:00 your friends that are believers as well maybe bring them to church you know if they're not open to coming to church maybe bring the church to them and you are the church and so i think being a good witness in testimony should be a priority so at least for the youth leaders you know one of the things that helped me when i was young was affection i think nothing beats telling your dad and your mom love you so much give them a hug not during the time that you're asking for the allowance but really just out of the
• 10:00 - 10:30 blue showing affection affection is so powerful it's something that god commands us to do right to to love and care for others and especially our parents right yeah now one of the things that challenges us when it comes to valuing families disagreements or disagreements now how would you how would you go about when there are disagreements at home ultimately when you talk about conflict resolution it boils down to
• 10:30 - 11:00 humility it's really just humbling yourself and realizing that you're not always right so if i'm the i'm the leader i'm the christian guy i'm the the the son and my parents they're really wrong in all angles now i want resolution in this conflict what do i do if you're a single and if you don't agree necessarily with your parents i think your posture should still be that of honoring and humility more than what you say it's
• 11:00 - 11:30 your attitude towards this spirit behind it and if they see that their child is one that is humble he may be right but if his attitude is wrong he's still wrong and so i think we we win them by the way we treat them and if our if our attitude is out of humility uh forgiveness and honoring i think ultimately that is a big win for for us all right last question and you mentioned it forgiveness
• 11:30 - 12:00 how do you go about forgiveness in the family as what they say the one that would hurt you the most are not the people you don't know but those who are closest to you and family is very very close to the hearts of every listener in this podcast how they deal with forgiveness or unforgiveness you're right actually when you say that because forgiveness is actually felt and practiced more in the family more than anywhere else you get to offend your
• 12:00 - 12:30 husband or your wife or even your children more because you're always together and when peter went to the lord one time how many times should i forgive my brother or seven times you just said not seven times but seventy times seven and so it's in other words what he's saying is you always have to have a lifestyle of forgiveness and forgive this is not really based on feelings i think when you talk about forgiveness it's not about forgiving forget or forgive and you feel like forgiving i think forgiving is really an action word it's a verb
• 12:30 - 13:00 it's a decision that you make and though it's it's difficult to forgive by the grace of god you just drop the matter and say you know no matter what transpired in the past i trust the lord that god will heal my heart from the offense and then i'm going to move on and so the attitude should be forgive as christ forgave me you know it's it's not about collecting the debt it's not about an eye for an eye it's really about
• 13:00 - 13:30 uh just dropping it because ultimately i am a sinner myself and god has forgiven me i think the phrase i've heard ever since it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong the goal is reconciliation that's right yeah yeah thank you pastor yell for this wonderful time why won't you lead uh our people watching this to a prayer maybe a prayer for family and also pray for forgiveness for those who might be harboring some unforgiveness in their
• 13:30 - 14:00 heart sure let's just pray thank you lord father we thank you so much for this opportunity to be able to speak to our the leaders in this vidcast we asked our god even right now that your holy spirit is permeating every home we thank you lord god the work of christ is uh is is happening like that even in the marriages of our leaders lord and so we thank you that ultimately you are the one who builds the church and lord your dawah who also uh watches
• 14:00 - 14:30 over the homes lord and i thank you god that you are the one who is the the watchmen or god in our homes god and so even today we lift up to you every need in in our homes or god in our family strengthen each family i thank you for your forgiveness to also flood and to be released like god for every kind of offense lord and i thank you that just us christ has forgiven us that we will also learn how to forgive others lord bless every husband to love their wives just as christ loved
• 14:30 - 15:00 the church i also pray that you would help the wives to submit to their husband as unto the lord and even for children to obey their parents for god and so i thank you even for strong families to be raised up or in our church this we ask in jesus name we pray amen amen thank you thank you then [Music]
• 15:00 - 15:30 you