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“Let's Hear It for Preacher's Wives!”
Categories: Meditations
In the Lord’s church, there are many workers who toil in obscurity, never getting the recognition they deserve for their efforts and faithfulness. Of them all, though, the wives of preachers may well be the most neglected and overlooked.
This begins with the higher standard to which preachers’ wives are held. In theory, they are no different from any other sister in the congregation. In practice, there are as many expectations for their conduct as there are for the conduct of their husbands.
These expectations first appear during the preacher-interview process. I’ve never had a discussion with a congregation in which my wife didn’t come up. In the secular world, questions about a prospective employee’s spouse are irrelevant and possibly illegal. In the church, they’re central to a congregation’s assessment of a man.
Additionally, an eldership or men’s meeting may well want to interview the preacher’s wife before they make a decision (the elders at Jackson Heights certainly interviewed Lauren before hiring me). At the least, the women of the congregation will want to get to know her before the church brings her husband on.
During a preacher’s tenure with a congregation, the relationship between the church and the preacher’s wife is as much employer-employee as it is familial. Other women can get away with not teaching Bible classes and otherwise being active in the work. Just let the preacher’s wife try that! The other members of the congregation often feel at liberty to comment on the way the preacher’s wife spends her money, styles her hair, and trains her children. What’s she going to do, get mad and leave?
Outside the assembly, she is expected to be warm, hospitable, and everybody’s best friend on demand. Woe betide the preacher whose wife gets the reputation of being stuck up! Frankly, in a lot of ways, the work of the evangelist’s wife is more difficult than the work of the evangelist.
Some women have the right blend of gifts and determination to meet the demands of this quasi-job with cheerfulness and grace. Both Shawn and I are blessed with wives who fit naturally into this challenging situation. We freely acknowledge that Genesia and Lauren make us twice as effective as we would otherwise be.
Other women, though, find that they have married into a position that they neither desired nor are suited for. Some of them become embittered by the expectations. I can think of more than a few preachers’ wives who, as the saying goes, look like they were weaned on a sour pickle. Though I don’t think that bitterness is appropriate for any Christian, I can certainly understand how they got there.
Perhaps more common are the preachers’ wives who gamely soldier on, who play the part of the bubbly extrovert at tremendous emotional cost. They love their husbands and love the Lord, but each passing week adds to their burden of psychological stress. In many instances, this stress eventually manifests itself in serious illness. Such women deserve our sympathies and prayers.
Indeed, all preachers’ wives deserve our consideration. It certainly would help if we remembered to treat them as sisters rather than employees. If we wouldn’t make a comment to another woman in the congregation, we probably shouldn’t make it to her either. What’s more, we don’t have the right to expect more from her than we do from anyone else. If she’s an employee, give her a job description and put her on the payroll. If not, don’t treat her like one!
Honestly, I don’t have a lot of optimism on this score. I think the double standard for preachers’ wives in the church is so deeply rooted that a stick of dynamite wouldn’t blast it out. However, it will help if we at least acknowledge the double standard and extend grace to women who don’t live up to it.
Let’s hear it for preachers’ wives, then, who bear up nobly under the burdens of a thankless and demanding work! Whether they excel or struggle, we ought to pray for them. For that matter, we ought to pause to encourage and thank them. They’re human beings too, and they universally appreciate a kind word. I’m certain that on the day of judgment, their sacrifices will be remembered and honored. The least we can do is to remember and honor them too.
