This book is a manual to help inform and encourage those who are about to go into pastoral ministry or are already in the ministry and are struggling to hold their lives and families together. In it, they will learn, from a pastor with over forty years of ministry experience, the ministry and family challenges that they will encounter and how to navigate the rough waters of these challenges. This manual will give them encouragement and insight into building necessary personal habits and family structures to thrive and persevere in the midst of these challenges . Bible college and seminary students especially will be helped to be better prepared to understand and avoid the personal and family pitfalls that full time ministry will inevitably bring .