WHY YOUR MARRIAGE NEEDS A MISSION
by Jamie Ivey
I will never forget something Aaron said to me when I was throwing around the idea of starting my own podcast. I had been in radio for a hot minute here in Austin(1) and was thinking I’d like to do my own thing with a podcast. I brainstormed a few ideas and finally knew I’d hit on a great concept for a new show. I marched my proud self into our living room and announced to Aaron that I had the perfect idea for my very first podcast. I was giddy with excitement and couldn’t wait to see him giddy with me.
I laid it out to him with all my excitement and eagerly awaited his response. There’s no need to rehash the whole podcast idea, except to tell you I’d imagined a podcast where a friend and I would recap a certain reality TV show and put our views and opinions out there for the world to enjoy. I felt the idea was brilliant and could see it taking off instantly.
As soon as I finished with my whole spiel, Aaron looked at me and, without skipping a beat, asked me this one question that I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Since when do we do things with our lives that don’t have kingdom value?”
Mic drop.
I paused and tried to hold back my tears because my most brilliant, perfect idea(2) had just been smashed to pieces on the rug of our living room. I think I said something like, “why do you have to be such a pastor right now? Can’t you just support me in my ideas?” and stormed off like any super mature adult would do.
After a few tears, and after realizing that he wasn’t being my pastor but was simply being my partner on this mission we’ve dedicated ourselves to following, I knew he was right. Everything we’ve ever done in life has been all for the mission that Jesus left us to live for at the end of the book of Matthew, right before He ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father.
Everything we’ve ever done. All for the mission.
Moving to Tennessee with no money and barely a job?
It was all for the mission.
Aaron getting a job at Starbucks in the middle of traveling full-time?
All for the mission.
Me staying home with our babies when they were little?
All for the mission.
Aaron taking a job at The Austin Stone Community Church?
All for the mission.
Me quitting my job at the radio station?(3)
All for the mission.
Me starting the podcast that I produce and host now?
All for the mission.
Us having people sit around our table for dinner?
All for the mission.
Me traveling around the world telling people about Jesus?
All for the mission.
Us opening our home to a medically fragile child from Haiti for nine weeks?
All for the mission.
You can get caught up in thinking that this “all for the mission” talk is for those who work for the church, in the church, or in church settings, and you couldn’t be more wrong. Aaron and I are on the same team – as believers, not as people in ministry – and the last I checked, teammates always have the same goal. The prize. We are running the race that is set before us and we are looking to Jesus as our guide (Heb. 12:2) in everything we do. If Aaron were to take a job in a corporate setting tomorrow, and I would become a teacher tomorrow, nothing about our mission would change. Nothing.
Pastor and author Ray Ortlund said it best, I think, how when you get married and become “one flesh,” you’re now one in everything: “one story, one purpose, one reputation, one bed, one suffering, one budget, one family.”(4) Aaron and I are indeed one, and that means our mission in life must also be one.
1 I tell this whole story in my book, You Be You, if you are interested in how I ended up on the radio.
2 I have friends that do this exact thing in their podcast and it’s awesome.
3 Again, it’s in the other book.
4 Ray Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 30.
JAMIE IVEY
Jamie Ivey has been running Ivey Media for seven years where she creates and produces two podcasts and a YouTube show. The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey podcast launched in 2014 from her dining room table where she interviewed her friends and thought only her mom and Aaron would listen. It has gone on to have over 30 million downloads and she has interviewed over 400 guests. In 2020 Aaron and Jamie together launched their podcasts, On The Other Side. We believe everyone is on the other side of something and we believe those stories matter. In 2018 Jamie released, If You Only Knew, and in 2020 she released, You Be You. In 2021 she will be releasing The Jamie Ivey Show on YouTube.
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