What do you think a pastor's spouse should be doing?

[elliejjtiny]

Just wondering as there are some mixed views in our church about the role of the pastor's spouse. As we are a small church I thought it would be helpful to ask a bigger group of people.

I say spouse but in case it's relevant, both spouses are wives. One pastor is retired but still fairly young, the other is middle aged with dc and a job as well as pastoring (not sure if that's a word). I am the wife of the younger pastor.

I think it's easy to expect a pastor's wife to be almost a deputy pastor, to run women's work, children's work and who knows what else.

Realistically they're their own person. You would hope they would be an active part of the church community.

I don’t think there’s any “should” about it. You’d hope they were an active member of the congregation and supporting their spouse, but many pastors’ spouses have their own jobs (it’s not like pastors get paid well so a second income is often necessary) so to expect them to be effectively free labour for the church is unfair.

Just to add that whatever the “mixed views” are on the role of the pastor’s wife, the only view that matters is the one of that pastor’s wife and her husband.

I would hope that they are a believer, committed to the church, and serving in line with their gifts.

I think it's entirely unreasonable to assume that a wife is functionally a second employee. However, I also think it can be a problem when church leadership expects both members of most couples to serve in ministry, but says that the pastor's wife's is just required to support her husband to minister.

Firstly, that could be unfairly limiting on the wife. Secondly, (and what I've seen happen) it can lead to resentment of "church expects me and my husband to serve, even when we have busy lives and children, and to support each other to serve, but doesn't ask the same of the pastor's wife."

I guess it is down to the couple and their marital dynamic, together with the expectations of the church where one is the leader, plus, their journey with the Lord. The marriage needs to be solid (and if not, then a temporary stepping away is needed whilst it is supportively sorted).

In a nutshell: The churches where I have worshipped, the pastors' wives are part of the team, ie pastors in their own right, even if not entitled to use the title 'Reverend'. They are in full partnership with their husbands and the wider ministry team in shepherding the flock. If the ordained pastor is a woman, the husband is not necessarily a pastor too, but is certainly a church member.

Vicars' wives, I've noticed, do not necessarily have to be a believer, and often lead a 'separate' life away from church.

Thank you. DH always says that a pastor's wife is not an official role but we should be supporting each other as all married couples do. Which we both agree we do.

The other pastor's wife has a lot of opinions on what a pastor's wife should be doing. And to be fair she does do more than me (but not huge amounts more). But she and her DH are retired and we are not. Also we still have all our dc living at home.

1 or 2 members of the congregation think that the pastors and their wives should do everything that needs doing in the church and that everyone else should just turn up on Sundays if they feel like it.

That's not my view of church! It certainly doesn't fit with the new testament either.

I’m sorry you’re feeling pressurized like this and it sounds as though the other pastor’s wife is judging you rather than supporting you. Do you have a network of pastor’s wives that you can tap into for support? I’m a pastor’s wife with 4 very young children and a busy job, but I still get people in the congregation making assumptions about how much I can do. One thing that really grates with me is when people are super grateful to other volunteers for giving up their time, and if I do the same job no one even says thank you - it’s just assumed that I’ll do it!

We are in touch with a few other pastors and their wives but most are quite a bit older than us and have grown up dc. There is one couple that are only a bit older than us so I will have a chat with them.

One of my best friends is a vicar. Her husband is a staunch atheist and he will not allow her to speak about any aspect of her work at home. Won't support her at any church events. We have seen him once and that was an exception.
I will never forget last year, she got so run down in the run up to Christmas and came down with an awful fluey virus. I gave her a hug after the Christmas morning service and she burst into tears, and told me she had walked home from midnight mass on her own and had felt scared, was hungry but too tired to make anything, and woken up in an empty house as he had 'gone ahead to his brother's as he wouldn't see her much anyway - you can come and join us in the afternoon yeah'. I felt so sorry for her. We sent a curt text saying she was too unwell to be driving 30 miles to her brother in law's piss up, took her home with us, gave her medicine for her bad throat and made her rest on our sofa by the fire with my owl hot water bottle and our cat sleeping on her lap. My then 4 year old was so kind. He brought her his teddy and said she could hold him, and told me 'I know I have to be a bit quiet as Aunty XXX is poorly'. We were all crying at that!

In reality- it shouldn't be like that. This is an extreme case. Pastors burn out. They are bearing the load of many people on their shoulders and need support. In the past the spouse (usually a female as women have only been ordained since 1993), was very heavily involved, organising raffles, Mother's Union meetings etc. Now perhaps not so much so, but some presence, and support, goes a long way.

That's so sad @HereintheloveofChristIstand

I guess it's harder too in churches with one paid pastor. We have an eldership team and a lot of really active people in the congregation, and a few people employed by the church. I think even then our lead elder carries a lot. It's so important for them to have a team around them.

There may be a generational difference. Pastor and vicar’s wives were expected to not work and to be an unpaid second pair of hands in the parish. This often involved children’s work, flowers and making the tea. These days have long gone although you do still see husband and wife leadership couples where he is ordained and she is both unlicensed and untrained. The last diocese I worked at was trying to redress this and licence the wives. I once sat through three hours of dreadful teaching by the wife of a celebrity minister. She would have benefited from some basic study in theology, public speaking and biblical scholarship. It’s a sore point for those of us who train….

That said, the only expectation of any minister’s spouse is that they support their spouse as they would in any stressful profession. Mine leant to cook Sunday lunch and pour a stiff gin after a long day of services. Any offering to the church is between the spouses and God. I’m single so my churches have learnt that there is no plus one to help out. I’m a dreadful baker so they don’t expect cakes.

Managing the expectations of others is a key skill in ministry and just as important for spouses. Say no. Say it often. Practice in front of the mirror. It will get through.

That's terrible, your poor friend. One of the things I do as pastor's wife is to tell people a polite "no" if dh is ill and they want to speak to him/get him to do stuff. Followed by "can I help instead" if I am feeling generous.

I'm with you on the baking. I am usually in charge of the buying frozen party food and heating it up in the oven while the other pastor's wife does the baking and the sandwiches. Dh and the other pastor have divided their jobs between them so they know where they stand and it works well. As the pastor's wife there seems to be a lot of unwritten "rules" that mostly involve "setting a good example" to everyone else in the church, and jobs that need to be split between everyone in the church but the pastors and their wives should be making sure everything gets done and doing all the things that nobody else wants to do, like cleaning the barbeque, washing/ironing the table cloths (the other pastor's wife), lugging chairs/tables around, printing out the notice sheet and washing up the coffee mugs (me). We have a rule in the church that if you see a job that needs doing then you should do it but it still ends up being the 4 of us doing most of the jobs.

The idea that one person or one person & his wife “do everything” is so utterly unbiblical. The church (ekklēsia) is a Body functioning under the Head. Biblically the Head is Christ, who directs His church as He sees fit by His Spirit.

Much of the confusion would evaporate if the church could get away from this worldly idea of an artificial pyramid structure of church leadership, with a sole pastor / minister at the top, and back to the Bible with a interconnected, interdependent Body / Head concept.

To you, dear pastor’s wife, I would just do as the Lord leads you, with your husband, and not worry about false expectations or pressures from other people who have a unbiblical view of the church to begin with.

God bless you as you seek to serve Him 🙏🏻

The call from God to be a pastor or vicar is your husband's, not yours. It's not a 2-for-1 deal where the church get the spouse (unpaid) as well. Unless they're going to pay you for your ministry to the church, I don't think there should be any expectation or pressure on you as to what you should or shouldn't be doing in and for the church.
It's quite interesting that if the vicar is male, there seem to be expectations around the wife as to what she will do in the church, but if the vicar is female, the husband doesn't have any of those expectations. We've had both male and female clergy at my church and none of the spouses have been particularly involved in 'church stuff' (for various reasons), and there's no expectation for them to be so.