Managing Your Households Well: How Family Leadership Trains You for Church Leadership

“A good and much-needed book on a subject that, though clearly laid out in Scripture, has been too often neglected and overlooked. Every pastor or prospective pastor will benefit from reading and considering it.”

“I opened this book with some trepidation because I dislike being berated or barraged with instructions. Instead, I found encouragement laid out in a clear, biblical portrait of a faithful father and pastor—the kind I would like to be. Bettis offers accessible and attainable instruction from Scripture but not a low bar. He honors the nobility of pastoring and fathering and builds up the reader. I particularly appreciated the clear link between faithful shepherding in the home and in the church. It was logical, personal, and biblical. I would recommend this book to any young or aspiring pastor and elder.”

“Chap Bettis does an outstanding job of highlighting one misunderstood but key component to biblical eldership—managing one’s own household well—and showing how household leadership connects with the leadership of the local church, the household of God. Leading a local church is more like leading a family than leading a business. This book should be a required training tool for preparing future pastoral elders.”

“There is a great misunderstanding over a pastor’s qualifications in regard to his homelife. This is why I’m grateful that Chap Bettis wrote Managing Your Households Well. This book is a clear, careful, biblical, and balanced resource in regard to an essential category of a pastor’s calling—his homelife. The chapters that address, with charity and grace, the behavior of the pastor’s children are worth the price of the book alone. Pastors, I commend this to you.”

“Chap Bettis offers invaluable insight into an often-overlooked qualification for church leadership—the leader’s homelife. Drawing from biblical wisdom and practical experience, Bettis demonstrates how family leadership develops essential skills that translate directly to church leadership. The book’s concise approach and practical self-evaluation tools, including thoughtful questions for both leaders and their wives, make this an indispensable resource for current church leaders, those in training, and those responsible for developing future leaders. This is the practical guidance many of us have been waiting for.”

“Christian leaders and aspiring Christian leaders have needed a book like this for a long time. Not only does Chap Bettis unpack the biblical qualifications for faithful spiritual authority, but he also explains how leadership in the home trains men to lead in the church. He speaks from a thorough understanding of Scripture and decades as a pastor. This is an essential book for your church’s leadership team and should be a required text in pastoral studies at Christian colleges and seminaries.”