A Thriving Pastor’s Wife

by Jan L. Eide

My husband, Dan, and I have been in the ministry for more than three decades now–enough time to experience and also study this unique, rewarding, and sometimes exasperating life-role called “pastor’s wife.” We’ve talked to plenty of other such women across the country about what they do, how they navigate the tough times, and where they find encouragement. Out of all this has come what I’d like to call “the Ten Suggestions for pastors who want their wives to thrive” not just to survive.

1. Remember that your wife is the only one you have. She is your biggest cheerleader. God intends for you to love her as he loves his church–in other words, love her to death. A wife is your helpmate. When you love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you love her as you love yourself, you will experience that helpmate in action.
You are the primary influence on her, whether you believe it or not. Your voice and encouragement–or discouragement–will build her up or tear her down more than anything a surly deacon (or deacon’s wife) says about her.

It’s a paradox that your wife can be used of God to bring you great wisdom…but is also capable of branching off into her own wisdom and falling into rebellion, as she trusts her own way more that the direction of her husband or of God. Eve did that. So did Sarah. In both cases, it was a disaster. Women need their husbands to provide a godly covering for them. Your faithfulness to God and his words and wisdom allow her to hear God through you as well as situating her to hear God more clearly for herself.

2. Don’t allow other things to take the place of relationship with your wife. She is the one person you will have with you to the end of your days. Those days will be much more fun if your relationship together stays fresh and alive.
Your kids will grow up and leave home. Your time at the head of this church will come to an end. You can make an idol out of your ministry; the men’s group; a discipleship group; sports; TV; idle time; even rest. Everyone talks about women wanting time with their spouse; it’s on most wives’ wish lists. According to one poll, the vast majority of women in happy relationships get 30 minutes of uninterrupted time with their husbands each day. On the other end, 24 percent of women who claim to be in unhappy relationships spend fewer than five minutes a day with their spouses.

So ask yourself, “How much time do I spend with my spouse?”  Uninterrupted time, by the way, means time spent without iPhones, iPads, smartphones–just a conversation with nothing else going on.

3. Don’t take your wife for granted; don’t abuse her respect and love for you. This is easy to do in the midst of busy ministry life. If you give more grace for the failures of church people or those you are training or teaching than you give to your wife and kids when they fail, then you need to sit down with God and examine your heart. This type of selective grace will certainly cause a rift.
The pressure is great for your wife to conform to the needs or desires of the congregation you serve. She often speaks only what others want to hear from her. You are the one person who can free her to discover what God wants her to do, rather than trying to perform what a congregation may expect, want, or seemingly need.

Let her know that her opinion is valuable to you, and listen to her advice willingly. Take time to show others your respect and love for her–especially if her ministry tends to be in the shadows, where many in the congregation don’t know all she is doing.

Encouragement is a foreign language to many men. They, after all, have not been trained to encourage. Many people focus instead on weaknesses in order to correct them. In the workplace we put more attention on failure and how to “turn it around.” But this method rarely disciples our strengths. Speaking words of life means speaking more of what you want more of, not continually harping on the things you don’t want. Words can tear down the personality or giftings or spirit of a person, even when meant to “correct.” In our culture we often assume that when we offer “constructive criticism,” we will help the person become better by changing the wrong things. But too often we end up reinforcing the negative feelings the enemy of our souls has been feeding. Like Peter, we unwittingly speak the words of Satan to those we love. On the other hand, words of life find the good and feed it.

4. Take time with your wife to rest and have fun. This kind of thing often goes out the window, especially after the first child is born. And if children are time consumers, you know that a church is an even greater time consumer. So take time together every week–without kids–to talk about everything EXCEPT work, money and children. Envision one another; share dreams; share what God has been saying to you.
Make time for vacations. Don’t neglect fun. But don’t worship it, either. How the pastoral family “rests” sets an important example. If rest and fun are done on “God’s time,” people learn that recreation is more important than church and God. Are sports that are scheduled on the nights of midweek services or on Sundays giving your children an “out”? Is your soccer-mom wife so busy running around delivering kids to different sports and classes that she’s too exhausted for ministry? Sometimes saying No in order to be true to God is a positive lesson to teach our kids and those in our congregation.

5. Honor your wife. Show her that you appreciate her part in your life, not just in your ministry together. Many wives work part-time or full-time jobs, leaving little time to be involved in ministry life–but she is still a vital part of your ministry. Be sure she knows her part is important to you.
If you are an associate pastor, you may be working an outside job as well–plus, you may have young children. Be realistic about what you expect your wife and family to attend. She will appreciate your understanding.

6. Don’t kill her dreams. We all have different ideas of what makes us feel appreciated. Women need to share these ideas and be specific. After all, husbands are not mind readers! Men, pay attention when she shares this, and then follow through.
Women should tune in when their husbands are appreciative. If your husband made dinner or does the dishes or changes the baby’s diaper, he’s showing appreciation! He’s probably not trying out to replace Guy Fieri on the Food Network, but he is showing you he feels blessed by you.

Guys, your culture trains you to push each other to succeed, often with smack talk. Girls, however, are not trained that way. What will motivate another man will crush a woman. Take into account the girliness of your wife and love her for that-she’ll appreciate the effort, and you’ll appreciate her growing confidence.

A confident pastor’s wife is a force that Satan doesn’t like to see. I like the picture going around on Facebook that says, “I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan says, ‘Oh, no! She’s UP!'” Do you want a helpmate to fight spiritual battles alongside you? Then feed her dreams and encourage her ministry.

7. Don’t fall for Satan’s schemes of sexual temptation. Adultery, even of the mind, will crush your wife. Keep your hugs, kisses and love for your wife alone, and give them often. Unexpected telephone calls to say, “I love you,” are always appreciated. And they keep your focus on her.
Don’t put yourself in situations that compromise or can be seen by others as compromising. Talk to your wife about the counseling you do with women, so she knows how things are going. In fact, include her whenever possible in these counseling sessions. Don’t hold on to secret sins. The law of unintended consequences follows hard after secret sins, and God is watching.

8. Don’t steal her joy and confidence. It’s important for women to have men who understand them. It’s also important for women to help men understand how to listen to them. We are all unique and communicate with different styles. Learn the style of your spouse.
“Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage” is a marvelous seminar by Pastor Mark Gungor. He describes a woman’s mind as a bowl of cooked spaghetti, with swirling lines of thought that connect with every other thought and create seamless lines of “logic.” We can start a conversation on babies that makes us think of Uncle Joe and brings us to a question of whether the Wednesday evening discipleship class should have a potluck get-together–and this makes complete sense!

Men, on the other hand, have orderly boxes for their thoughts. They think about things one box at a time, and they don’t like to mix the thoughts from one box with the thoughts from another. And a man’s favorite box is his “nothing” box; men enjoy thinking about nothing. It’s restful.

These differences in how the brain works lead to many misunderstandings. A man and wife can feel as if the other person is on Mars while the discussion is going on.

Is your wife somewhat assertive and strong? If she feels put down and “kept in a box,” she may easily become discouraged and stop trying to make her voice heard. When a pastor becomes more and more frustrated with his vocal wife, the result may be that she keeps quiet so she doesn’t “rock the boat.” God, however, may be more concerned with whether you (or your church) are willing to step out of the boat. Let your wife know you appreciate the gift God has given you in her voice. God has amazing things for you and the church in the “wife package.” Don’t ignore that gift in your life and ministry.

The reality is that across church bodies, female voices can be strikingly absent. Too often, the established power brokers don’t even think to ask for a female perspective, to seek out a healthy counter-balance in areas that have traditionally been the domain of men. And that’s too bad. Because when the feminine voice is muted, intentionally or unintentionally, the Body of Christ misses out on a lot of what God is trying to communicate to the world through his female image-bearers.

9. Don’t think evil of your wife; don’t allow Satan to perpetrate lies about her in your mind. Anger is a funny thing–it blinds the eyes and deafens the ears. We all get angry at each other. The trick is to not forget who the other person really is in the midst of the anger. (Now wives are actually far worse with this than husbands; they tend to wonder “what they really meant by that” far more than men.) But our battle is not with flesh and blood. Satan will throw fiery darts of accusation into your mind against your wife whenever he can, trying to tear a rift in your relationship. Don’t allow the enemy to win.
Satan’s favorite rift time is Saturday (and Sunday morning). Be on guard and don’t take on offenses. Don’t let the enemy steal your joy just before it’s time to bring God’s heart to his people.

10. Don’t be jealous of her gifts or ministry in the church. I have seen that many pastors are larger than life in the pulpit but quite introverted in private. And these are the very men who tend to marry outgoing, outspoken women, because they complement their shyness, making the two into one. Perhaps your wife has gifts in ministry that are different from yours. It is important that you nurture those gifts and ministries rather than choke them out.
Is your wife the prophetic side of your ministry? Encourage that–your congregation will appreciate and grow when they see the gifts of the Holy Spirit in action in your services. Is she the administrator who puts plans in motion and creates cohesion in your ministry? Rejoice that you’ve got one so close to the seat of authority. Let your wife be the part of the Body of Christ that God has made her to be so, that Romans 12 is realized in your church. Let her be alongside you in fulfilling your Ephesians 4 role of equipping the saints in your care.

Jesus told us to go and make disciples; that is one of the primary jobs of a pastor. May I suggest that your wife and children are the most important disciples you will ever pour your life into? If you have discipled church planters and missionaries and seen great successes in ministry, but your wife is languishing in a void, and your children are not following hard after God, you have not done the most important discipling work God asked you to do. Your family reflects your ministry more than many care to admit.

Timothy and Titus were advised that if a man does not know how to manage his own household, he would not be able to manage the church. Discipling your family is one of the markers to show you are worthy in God’s sight to be a discipler of your church.

In closing, let me say: Don’t leave your wife behind. When my husband was attending college, he talked freely with me about the books he was reading; he let me read all of his papers and give input into what he wrote. We had discussions about theology, ministry and biblical truth. He has kept that up through the years, recognizing that if he leaves me behind as he grows in ministry and understanding, he would be handicapping himself and the church. God has given us great freedom to work and minister together, and we are both better for this freedom.

Are you reading a book that is informing your ideas of ministry or theology? Read portions of it aloud to your wife and talk about it. Are you struggling with an issue and need prayer? Pray out loud together, ask her to pray for you, and then ask her to share what God tells her as she does.

Encourage your wife to hear from God what ministry he has for her, and then encourage her to move into that ministry. Don’t try to make her fit the mold of others; she is unique to God with special giftings that he desires to put into play in your church and your life.

Jan Eide takes an active role in the church led by her husband, Dan–Sisco Heights Community Church in Arlington, Washington. You can also find her sharing her thoughts over on her blog.