For the last nine months, I have had the great pleasure of serving the Kilmarnock Baptist Church as their interim pastor. They have recently called Matt Tennant who will begin Oct. 18. Matt and his wife have two young sons.
For the past several weeks, I have been preaching a series of sermons on how to care for their new pastor. Last Sunday the topic was caring for your pastor’s wife. For that, I asked my wife, Connie, to draw from her 25 years of experience and speak to them. Because her comments were so well received, and because so many pastors’ wives are hurting, I decided to make them the subject of this week’s editorial. Here is what she said — Editor.
Like their pastor husbands, no two pastors’ wives are identical. Despite this, some needs are nearly universal. Were I once again a minister’s wife with young children and relatively little experience in a full-time pastoral setting here are some things that I would want a congregation to consider.
Jim White
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First, I would like the church to realize that I am my husband’s most ardent supporter and that if I am not mindful of this, I may also slip into the role of being his self-appointed defender. I would like to realize that he doesn’t need me to fix the challenges he faces. It would help me if you realize that my concern always is that he be the best pastor he can be.
I want him to succeed and to be well-loved, and I want only to help him minister effectively. However, I also have a family who needs him. Because of this, I would need you to help us by insisting that he take his day off and that he set aside at least one night each week for our family. Further, you can free him to attend school and athletic activities even when they occasionally conflict with church activities. It is important to me that our children remember that their father was there for these important events in their lives.
I would also ask you to respect our privacy. In no other profession is the husband’s success so dependent upon his family’s behaviors. When we face family issues, I want you to love us, pray for us, and offer to help us. But I don’t want you to assume that you need to know details. Sometimes we just need your love and support.
We will all function better if you give me and our family the space to be normal. The same thing is true for our children. I already know that they aren’t perfect and that my husband and I are not perfect parents. If there is a significant issue, I would want you to meet with us privately and redemptively. Otherwise, I would ask that you not feel called to identify all our children’s weaknesses to me or others in the congregation.
If you don’t know already, you will soon learn that my husband has a fw faults as well. Similarly, when my husband disappoints you — as he inevitably will because he is human — I would hope that you will speak with him directly rather than attempt to register your disappointment through me or anyone else. I have noticed that you take all your compliments straight to him, but you are often more comfortable pointing out his flaws to me in hopes that I will relay them to him. Please don’t put me in that position.
Before you speak critically of my husband, our family, or our church, I would ask you to think about your concern. Sometimes, if you think about your criticism, pray about it, write it in a private journal, tell it to your pillow and to God, you may decide that it doesn’t warrant any further action on your part.
At other times, when you come to the conclusion that your concern is justified and that my husband needs to hear it, please go to him directly and privately. Please be mindful that others will always overhear things you say in passing and that the damage done to my children should they hear you belittle their father may be immeasurable. When you decide that you need to speak to him or us, please do so kindly and with agape love.
When we arrive, I will bring with me the grace gifts that God has given me. Therefore, I will need the freedom to develop those gifts in ministries that support and uplift the church. A problem may arise if you believe that I have certain gifts because I am married to your pastor, or that I use them in the same way as a previous pastor’s wife. Sometimes those expectations can be harmful to all of us. Your allowing me to participate in church ministries according to my giftedness will enable all of us to thrive.
On the other hand, if you project your attitudes about what the “perfect” pastor’s wife should do and be onto me, we will all suffer. You will be disappointed in me, and I will think I can’t succeed. If, however, we mutually respect and affirm each other, the work will benefit and we become more mature Christians.
When you have information that my husband needs to know, I would like for you to just leave a message for him to call you. I will covenant to relay messages and follow-up to make sure he has returned calls. However, I have children to tend and a home to manage, and I don’t need the pressure of remembering specific details of conversations and I don’t want to get it wrong.
I would want the church to reach out to us in simple ways. For instance, it would help me if you offer to care for our children when both of us need to be away for church-related events or responsibilities. During a cycle of crises when several people are facing critical situations and my husband is being pulled in every direction, your showing up with a home-cooked meal or a batch of fresh cookies would mean more than you can possibly know.
My deepest hope is that all of us can foster an inclusive environment that mirrors God’s redemptive love as we develop the kind of faith community that draws a lost and dying world into the fold. To that end, I would challenge us to remember Paul’s admonition in Eph. 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ has forgiven you.” And Peter’s words in 1 Peter 4:8 “Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.