Survey: Being a Pastor’s Wife Is Good for Faith
Though expectations have shifted, spouses still feel the weight of church drama.
Today’s
generation of pastors’ wives fill a different role than the dressed-up,
casserole-toting caricature that came before them, but they still feel
the pressures of being married to ministry.
About 1 in 4 Protestant pastors’ spouses in the United States works a full-time job outside the church, while about 1 in 5 holds a paid position at church alongside their spouse, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Younger spouses expressed more frustration than older ones over how their position impacts their friendships and finances. About 7 out of 10 pastors’ spouses say they have few people to confide in, LifeWay researchers found. More than half don’t feel enough emotional connection to others, or worry about being betrayed by people at church.
“Over the decades of my ministry, the role of women married to pastors, as well as of women in general, has radically evolved,” wrote Kay Warren, who advised LifeWay on its questionnaire, in the preface to her book on being a pastor’s wife, Sacred Privilege, which came out in May (excerpted here).
“From behind-the-scenes, mostly-in-the-home pastors’ wives of my mother’s generation to women copastoring or serving as the senior pastor—as well as everything in between—the role of the pastor’s wife has not remained static.”
Warren, wife of Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren, dismissed old advice on tuna casserole preparation or demure fashion as laughable compared to the real-world stressors experienced on this side of ministry.
Younger wives (96% of respondents were female) indicated
more challenges in building relationships, facing church conflict, and
dealing with the feeling of “living in a fishbowl,” according to
LifeWay.
Joanna Breault wrote for CT Women about the inevitable distance between pastors’ wives and the rest of the congregation:
When pastors’ wives walk up, the conversation goes quiet. Our remarks are often met with flattering-but-awkward deference. Our relationships still have a degree of distance. It is the pastor’s wife effect.Sometimes these chasms are self-inflicted, the result of having been hurt in the past and keeping ourselves safely aloof. Sometimes they are the result of an unhealthy church culture that puts our husbands and families on pedestals. But sometimes they are the result of congregants not making peace with the fact that their pastor’s wife is just a regular person.
