Episode description

As a Christian minister who grew up in a family of Christian ministers whose lives revolved around the church, I can tell you from first-hand knowledge: Shocking and staggering is the number of Christian ministers who cheat on their spouses or whose marriages end in divorce. Many more Christian ministers who do not actually get into affairs often entangle themselves in ministry relationships and ministry work that slowly takes them away from their spouses until they wake up one day and find that their marriage is all but dead.

Dad was a case of the latter. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the congregation he served grew and grew. As it did, Dad chose to take on more and more responsibilities. Each of those new responsibilities left less and less for Dad to invest in his relationship with Mom. Finally, the morning came when Mom woke up and Dad was gone. In the aftermath of that break in their relationship, Dad finally realized that he would have to make a choice he avoided for almost 30 years: Choose the church or choose his marriage.

Send questions for future episodes to bt@btirwin.com.

Learn more about Dad's new book, 'We Are God's Masterpiece', here. 

Keep up with Dad's cancer treatments here.