The Pastor's Wife

No one in the church family is more vulnerable than the pastor’s wife. She is the key figure in the life of the pastor and plays the biggest role in his success or failure. I am fully aware that in some churches the pastor is a woman. In such cases, what follows would also pertain to her household. Many churches treat her as an unpaid employee, an uncalled assistant pastor, an always-available office volunteer, a biblical expert and a psychological whiz. She is almost always a reliable helper as well as an under-appreciated servant.

You might not think so, but she is the most vulnerable person in the building. That is to say, she is the single most likely person to become the victim of malicious gossip, sneaky innuendo, impossible expectations and pastoral frustrations.

The pastor’s wife can be hurt in a hundred ways—through attacks on her husband, her children, herself. Her pain is magnified by one great reality: She cannot fight back. She cannot give a certain member a piece of her mind for criticizing the pastor’s children, cannot straighten out the person who is making life miserable for her husband, cannot stand up and say the finances are not sufficient to meet the family's needs, or try to get the repair work done on the parsonage on the meger budget she was given. She has to take it in silence, most of the time.

It takes the best Christian in the church to be a pastor’s wife and pull it off. And that’s the problem: In most cases, she’s pretty much the same kind of Christian as everyone else. When the enemy attacks, she bleeds. The pastor’s wife has no say-so in how the church is run and receives no pay, yet she has a lot to do with whether her husband gets called to that church and succeeds once he arrives.

The pastor’s wife occupies no official position, was not the object of a church vote, and gives no regular reports to the congregation on anything. And yet, no one person in the church is more influential in making the pastor a success—or a resounding failure—than she.

What do we owe to the pastor’s wife?

1. We owe her the right to be herself and not what we think she should be.

2. We owe her our love and gratitude for all that she does.

3. We owe her our love and prayers because she needs strength from God just like the pastor.

4. We owe her our responsible care to make sure the needs of her family are met.

5. We owe it to the pastor and his wife to speak up. Sometimes they just need somebody to stand by their side.

6.  We owe them the same thing we owe the Lord: faithful obedience to Christ.