“Pastor’s Wives”
By Amanda on May 13, 2009 in Featured
Post by Ashley Christian
Let’s talk about “the Senior Pastor’s Wife,” or any other pastor’s wives at your church. How are all you doing in your relationships with them? Do you love them, having nothing but drama, not really know them?
I was so blessed to sit in a Q and A session with two amazing and experienced pastor’s wives, Kay Warren and Kathy Fields. They talked about the importance of taking care of the staff wives, because if they are taken care of, they are less likely to feel territorial over their husband’s ministry when things get messy. Unity serves everyone in the church.
So do you have that unity among pastor’s, elder’s, staff, or youth leader’s wives? What does that look like for you? I want to start meeting with our Pastor’s and Elder’s wives at our church but I’m not sure what direction to go in. Certainly we don’t all need another small group, Bible study, or ministry since we are all so involved already.
If it were you, what would YOU want most out of time spent with these significant women’s in your husband’s ministry? What would bless YOU the most and make you feel taken care of and supported?
I really enjoy all the pastor’s wives at our church. One thing we have done that I have really liked is to get together for brunch and to pray for one another every few months. That way it is not a huge time commitment, but we stay connected, and get a little break at the same time. Back when funds were better, the ministry wives would get to come on the vision casting retreat the pastors went on every year. We would shop all day while the men and women worked, and then we would have good time of fellowship in the evening. That doesn’t happen anymore
Erica | May 14, 2009 | Reply
i am close to the pastor’s wife but mostly because she is my mother-in-law! haha
the church we were at before the pastor’s wife made an effort to get to know me, take me out to eat, send gifts for no reason – all to let me know that she was there, she cared & loved me.
i totally think that there needs to be union between the wives, not just the men on the staff team. the wives need to get together for fellowship. you could suggest reading a book on your own & then maybe meeting to talk about it once a month.??? sorry i’m not much help
misty | May 14, 2009 | Reply
I have come to the realization that I will never be good friends with the senior pastor’s wife. The tensions between our husbands keep us from getting close. It’s sad because the wives of the senior leadership pastors are amazing women and I think we could help each other a lot, but we always get tripped up by our husbands’ not-so-great relationships.
Anon | May 14, 2009 | Reply
The other pastor’s wives?! They are the people that cause my heart to sink when another church asks my husband to send his resume. I love these ladies. My children know them better than their grandparents. I have given them their own ring on my cell phone. My kids recognize the ring and will go tearing through the house or my purse to find the phone.
We have 6 full time pastors at our church. We have a few traditions of officially gathering together. Once a year we all (all 12 of us) eat dinner together. That is always one of the highlights of the year. There are other times when the wives are together, but usually our interactions are not scheduled. We just live life together. We have sat in hospital rooms with other pk’s to give mom a break for an hour. (As you all know, dad is always gone when a hospitialization is in order.) We help plant each other’s gardens. We always call each other to see if anyone needs anything before leaving town (We live in a small town).
We are a tight group and I can’t imagine leaving any of these dear friends. We have one rule: no talking about your husband’s ministry. The senior pastor’s wife established that early on. It is a great concept. Our friendships can continue to flourish even if the guys don’t agree on ministry ideas. I think the fact that we keep ministry topics as off limits also frees the guys up to work through their disagreements and then move forward.
There is one other “rule”, although this one is unspoken. It is “I have got your back.” We are quick to protect each other from gossip or criticism. We are not employees of the church. We have children, extended family, and friends to care for. We can not all be at every church event. Five of the 6 pastors have been working together for 5 years now. We all hope that we will have 20 more years together.
Ashley, I would encourage you to increase casual interactions with the other pastor’s wives. If this is something that is on your heart, I would really go for it. Invite them to dinner/lunch, the park, for a walk, or whatever is a part of your daily routine. Just keep ramping up the amount of time that you spend together. The first church my husband was at had one other pastor. His wife and I had very little in common. One of the few things that we shared was a love for fresh produce, so I would invite her to come to the farmer’s market with me. We would ride together, grab some homemade treat at the market, and have a few uninterrupted minutes to chat. We were not best friends, but it was time well spent. I absolutely agree that positive relationships between the wives has a huge impact on the overall ministry of the church.
Ann | May 14, 2009 | Reply
Reading some of the responses made me hurt inside. I long for a close relationship with our Sr. Pastor’s wife, but I feel totally left to find my way through this alone. I keep telling my husband that when we are Sr. Pastor’s (if we ever are, I swear he will be a youth pastor forever if he could) that I want to be sure to lift up our associate’s wives. I tried to talk to her about it, but she just said that she doesn’t have enough to give me and that she is tired, it just strained the relationship more. If you have a unified team, rejoice in it and protect your unity with a vengeance.
Charla | May 14, 2009 | Reply
I wish that that had happened at my last church. The senior pastor’s family seemed to show open arms for everyone in the church except for us, despite the fact that they were constantly expressing publicly how grateful they were that we were there. Missionaries were invited over for dinner, new families in the church were invited over for dinner… In the 3 years that we were there, we were never invited over for dinner.
I heard tales of before we were there that the senior pastor’s wife would plan occasional staff and spouse lunches, and that there would always be a staff and spouse christmas party, but it never happened after we got there. She was really close to the previous youth pastor and his wife, as they grew up with her kids, and I guess that was why. I just wish that the other pastor’s wives ever reached out to me the way I wanted to connect with them. I feel like I tried but got the cold shoulder.
Niki | May 14, 2009 | Reply
I don’t know the pastor’s wife well, she knows my husband well and his family because he grew up in the church we are at currently. So, maybe she feels she knows me by association. We are very different in a lot of ways, so maybe that’s why. I don’t know. In the ministry we were at prior to moving here, I connected with the wife of his boss SO well, it’s just a very different type of relationship.
I feel as though the cold shoulder happens a lot in this relationship as well–don’t know what to do to get past it. We once went out to dinner with them and another couple in leadership at the church, and I felt like I was a kid at dinner with my parents. They’re only about 10 years older than us, but seems that may be an issue for her. Weird. Sad. Wish it was different.
The women working in the Youth Ministry, now that’s a different story. We all have good camaraderie and similar types of humor–which allows us to be real. Although we all are very different, and are at completely different stages of life, we connect well. We try to get together once a month–although the three of them get together more than I am able due to my young family and my husband’s schedule. We seem to just understand each other–which happens when you serve together, I suppose.
Diana | May 14, 2009 | Reply
We’ve been at our current church for a year now. The staff spouses are always invited on the staff retreat each year, but I didn’t get to go since I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time. They are very friendly, but we certainly aren’t close. I wish I knew those ladies better than I do, but I’m not really sure how to go about doing that. With a two week old baby, I’m not in a position to initiate that sort of thing right now!
Mollie | May 15, 2009 | Reply
I have experienced a little bit of everything: being close with another pastor’s wife, feeling supported and protected by the pastor’s wife but still kind of distant, being friendly but not close at all, and trying and trying to find common ground but constantly getting the cold shoulder.
We’re new to our current church, and I feel SO blessed and relieved to be friends with the other youth pastor and his wife. We live close to each other so we can walk up to borrow things or they can bring their kids over if needed, etc. We walked over this Thursday evening to watch The Office together- so fun! But I sometimes think about how it would have been if we stayed at our old church, where the other yp’s wife was very closed-off and cold to me. I honestly think I would have given up, but I’m sure that would have translated into the ministry in some way… probably very subtly, but still- not healthy. Hopefully I would have read something like this and gotten back some of the passion to keep trying, but I don’t know; it was really discouraging and it became very easy to push it onto the back burner.
Right now with out senior pastor’s wife I feel like we get along well, participate in a lot of the same ministries, and have a similar sense of humor, but also like there is a “senior pastor’s wife wall” she puts up. I think my solution will be to invite her to a casual ladies’ get-together that the other yp’s wife and I coordinate that ranges in ages and seasons of life. It’s a place where we feel like we can be ourselves, and hopefully the SP’s wife would feel comfortable there, too. This post has given me the nudge I needed to talk to her about this. And also that we need to start planning our next evening out. Thank you!
Kristen | May 16, 2009 | Reply
In the 20 years we have been in the ministry I haven’t had any really bad episodes in the area. The women I have had the priviledge knowing have been very supportive and protective. I soaked up all their good advice and love like a sponge. Now I also have the priviledge of passing that love on to other women. I am truly grateful for such blessings from God.
Thank You:
Mattie Chandler
Donna Bennett
Betty Lewis
Nancy Olah
Sandy Emmerling
Marilyn Arnold
Jan Foltz
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
Jennifer | May 16, 2009 | Reply
At our last church which was where my husband and I met, the senior pastor’s wive was my best friend. We were the same age and had many things in common. We were always doing things together and were really learning the ministry together, this was their first full-time ministry. After about 3 years they left the church and ministry for a while for a variety of reasons, but we have still tried to stay in contact as much as possible being 5 hours apart. About two years ago my husband and I left that same church and moved 7 hours away to a place where we knew no one. I’m so grateful for our senior pastor’s wife because she was the one person that I felt comfortable with after moving here (we also left my family behind at the previous church). She has been great about trying to coordinate things with me. At the moment we are the only spouse’s but the third associate minister is getting ready to get married in July and we plan to work together as a team to help ease her into the position of being a “ministry wive”. This is her home church, it’s not his, so all of her family and friends are here. So I see it being a bigger challenge for her than she actually realizes. But myself and the senior ministers wife will be by her side to help her make the adjustment.
Andrea | May 17, 2009 | Reply
I am not very. CLose to the Sr.pastors wife. My husband is very close to the Sr. Pastor. I fell like there is hard feelings because we kind of replaced her sister and brother-in-law in a not so good situation. They were there for the first six months. I don’t know , but I just get the feeling we can’t be close. We have faced many struggles over this being a small family church. The head decon in the pastors wifes parents . Any suggestions?
Mary | May 17, 2009 | Reply
Over the past few months our senior pastor’s wife has begun to reach out to the pastor’s wives more. Actually I think it started when I broke down on her one evening because of stress in not knowing how to deal with different situations. She saw that that the strong front I was putting up was not real, and began to come to my aid. And even though we connect, and she would drop everything to make herself available to me, I still find myself as the one who keeps the distance. I guess because of the position she holds, I do fear of getting hurt. But she is definitely my role model for a ministry wife. She is an amazing women of God.
Destiny | May 18, 2009 | Reply
I love our pastor’s wife! She is so cool and we totally get each other. I feel like when we talk she totally understands my heart and where I am coming from, she makes me feel validated and valuable, but not because she has too, but because she wants to and she is truly my friend! I am so very thankful for her and our friendship and our times together. My husband is the student pastor and I love the wives of the pastor’s on his team and I am enjoying getting to know them and creating community with them. I am blessed!
Trudy | May 19, 2009 | Reply
I read about these close-knit relationships that some of you have with your sr pastor’s wives and am so envious. Things between me and our pastor’s wife are fine, but just fine. We have done lunch once or twice, but for some reason things just don’t click. I think part of the reason is that I am good friends with her daughter, who is closer to my age, so to be close friends with both might be a little ackward as I know some of the family dynamics already. My husband is not that close with the the pastor either though–our pastor kinda takes a “you do your thing and I’ll do mine” approach to ministry which is not ideal, but when you’re the newbie couple we don’t really feel like we can rock the boat. We trust that one day we will be in a ministry that takes a bit more of a collaborative, vision-casting teamwork approach towards ministry, but for now we know that this is where God wants us.
Michelle | May 27, 2009 | Reply
It may be my mood today, but this post made me laugh out loud. We’ve been here three years and the pastor’s wife is my age, we have kids the same age and seem to have a lot in common. So I couldn’t figure out why, for the first couple of years we were here, I kept running into an invisible wall every time I tried to ask her to do something with me like lunch, etc. Which wasn’t that often — I wasn’t harrassing her. I finally concluded that I had done something to make her dislike me because it just didn’t make sense any other way. FINALLY, after almost three years of this, someone very close to her told me that she has the one or two friends she wants and is pretty much annoyed by everyone else. Would have been nice to know that coming in. I wasn’t trying to be her new best friend or anything, I was just trying to be friendly. Now I never call or drop by (they live in our neighborhood) like I used to — I’m sure she is relieved! Now I just have the awkwardness of working with her on school/church projects but not being friends. Weirdest relationship (or non-relationship? I don’t even know what to call it) I’ve had since high school.
Keri | May 29, 2009 | Reply
At our church, the youth group has 2 pastors even though everything is done pretty much altogether. My husband is the high school pastor and a lady is the junior high pastor. They switch off for Sunday sermons and Friday night Bible Studies. I feel tension with her b/c instead of being her friend, I categorize her as my husband’s co-worker. I do a lot of comparing b/c we both have 2 kids under the age of 3 and she seems to “get away” with doing less than my husband because of her mothering situation. I go to the “adult” service and am not involved much with my peers nor with the youth group. She preaches and does Bible studies but she is very very involved with the adults. I could go on and on but I think I already sound confusing. Basically, I do have a hard time connecting with pastor’s wives, or female pastors. I guess with most of the congregation b/c I’m with my 2.5 year old and 1.25 year old kids. Any thoughts anyone?
soo | Jun 22, 2009 | Reply