Pastors’ wives overall are happy with their roles, but it’s imperative that they build a support network outside the church, a study of pastors’ wives found.
Amy Stumpf, professor of religion and society at California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif., and a pastor’s wife herself, was stirred to study Southern Baptist pastors’ wives after she read a Time magazine article lamenting the unique struggles of being married to a pastor.
“Overall there was a notably negative tone to the ‘lot’ of most pastors’ wives,” Stumpf said of the Time article.
Personal interviews
Eager to compile her own data, Stumpf took an audio recorder to an annual retreat for pastors’ wives in the California Southern Baptist Convention during summer 2013. Her husband, Paul, is pastor of Colton Community Church, Colton, Calif.
One of the main takeaways from the interviews, Stumpf said, was that pastors’ wives who worked outside the home, either part time or full time, had higher levels of satisfaction with their role, “partly because they had a broader sense of their own life and connections outside of the church.”
“Particularly when there were seasons of conflict, that provided some helpful resources to them,” she said.
The Alabama Baptist spoke with three Alabama Baptist pastors’ wives about Stumpf’s findings.
Julie Terry, wife of Pastor Zach Terry who serves at Capshaw Baptist Church in Limestone Baptist Association, said she agreed with Stumpf’s findings.
Terry runs a business out of her home, homeschools her three children and tutors other students and said having those other outlets outside of church ministries has made her healthier and a better wife.
“For a pastor’s wife, I think anything that is not hinging on her husband’s calling can help her to be less dependent on a church’s opinion of her and can bring joy,” Terry said.
A main concern of the pastors’ wives who were interviewed by Stumpf — about 35 in all — was that so many of their family’s eggs were in the basket of the church, Stumpf said. Their husband’s job, their friendships, their children’s friendships and more were centered in the church.
“While that’s wonderful, they all had experiences of conflict where they realized how very vulnerable their whole life is,” Stumpf said. “If something goes bad at the church, it’s not just that their husband lost his job but they lost their entire community.
“So even those that were very happy with their church realized that there’s an extra burden of having your work and your ministry and your primary community all in the same place,” she said.
But Virginia Thomas, wife of Pastor Herb Thomas who has served at Circlewood Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, for 36 years, wouldn’t have it any other way.
She has been on both sides of the workforce — having a job outside of the home and having a role solely in the churches where her husband has served.
“I’ve found that our church (Circlewood Baptist) is very loving and … they’re just our family and we love them that way too,” Thomas said, noting that she disagreed with the idea that pastors’ wives needed outside community.
Tracy Walsh, wife of Pastor Dave Walsh who serves at Ariton Baptist Church in Dale Baptist Association, said she agreed with Stumpf’s findings.
“It (has been) much easier for our family as a whole to have me bringing my work culture or my social culture into our family,” Walsh said, who works as a third grade teacher at Newton Elementary School in Dale County. “It relieved us at times of always living ‘in the goldfish bowl’ that is church life. … Church leaders’ lives are vulnerable. … Without a strong commitment and God’s wisdom and protection, ministry can be a minefield.”
Terry also agreed with Stumpf’s findings and said neither she nor her husband shies away from developing friendships in their own church family.
Real life
“For one thing it’s important that (church members) see us in real life. And see that we’re living what we believe,” Terry said.
Women who worked outside the home, even just part-time, had a sense that they had eggs in other baskets, Stumpf said.
Terry agreed.
“I think it’s healthy for a wife to have other interests so your marriage relationship is not only about ministry. … It gives your husband an emotional and mental break when you have other things to talk about. … We have seen that it’s more beneficial for (Zach) to come home and not have to unload everything (about his day),” Terry said.
Stumpf’s study also included written surveys from about 100 women at the retreat, and she found that pastors’ wives at churches where there was more than one staff member — and pastors’ wives at larger churches — perceived that their churches were healthier. “That makes sense because the conflict is spread out,” she said.
At the church where Stumpf’s husband is the only pastor, she said it “doesn’t matter if it’s about the water fountain, the toilet, the paint on the wall or some theological issue, 100 percent of that conflict comes to my husband.”
Sharing the burden
Thomas agreed with Stumpf’s findings. She and her husband have been part of a church where her husband was the pastor, youth pastor, music minister and more and now they serve at a church where there are different ministers for each position. She agreed that church conflict and church life was more manageable when “all the burden is not just on the pastor’s shoulders.”
Another surprising finding, Stumpf said, was that the longer a woman was married to a pastor, the more she perceived negative effects of the ministry on her marriage.
Despite the challenges, most of the women did not regret being pastors’ wives.
Stumpf recalled a woman who told her a terrible story about being run off by a church.
“At the end, I said, ‘If you could do the whole thing over, would you do it?’ She was one of my highest on (the scale of) ‘I love being a pastor’s wife. That’s what God has called me to do. I wouldn’t change it for anything.’”
Specific experiences
Stumpf found it interesting, she said, that the women differentiated between their feelings about being a pastor’s wife in general and their feelings about their specific experience with a specific church.
“They didn’t globalize or generalize that specific experience,” she said. “They still liked the role. They just thought that church had a problem.”
Women who claimed to have experienced a call to the role of pastor’s wife had higher perceptions of their own influence in the pastoral ministry of their husbands, Stumpf said, and they were more content.
“A lot of the ones who didn’t mention a call tended to be the ones who said, ‘That’s what my husband does and that’s a hat I wear, but it is not who I am and it’s not my primary identity,’” Stumpf said.
Walsh said studies could describe the role of a pastor’s wife “however they want, but it is a calling.”
In regards to women not finding their “primary identity” in their husband’s role in the church, Walsh said, “People categorize us by what they see so, like it or not, we are identified by the roles our spouses take in life. … Dave and I and our children make one divine statement as a family and that statement is based upon how God knits us together and our willingness to work as a unit. Dave’s job is not, nor has it ever been, just a job. It is a lifestyle as well.”
Terry said, “I cannot say that I was called to be a pastor’s wife but I know God called me to marry Zach. … God has shown me many times in my life that my biggest ministry is to my husband. I’m Zach’s wife first and then a pastor’s wife. So whatever vocation, I’m with him.”
Thomas said she and her husband married six years before he was called to preach, so she doesn’t think a woman has to be called to be a pastor’s wife.
“I feel like God called me to be a helpmate to (my husband) with whatever he does.”
The women who mentioned a call tended to be older, whereas the younger wives tended to say, “I married a guy who is a pastor,” Stumpf said.
“Our church culture is increasingly aware that many of the pastors’ wives will work outside of the home and won’t make their primary place of vocation the church.”
Churches that hired younger pastors tended not to have expectations of pastors’ wives focusing on
the church, Stumpf said.
Regarding what the pastors’ wives in Stumpf’s interviews said they wanted their churches to know, “Mostly it was, ‘Just be a loving, kind church. Don’t get bogged down in conflict. Be kind to my husband,’” she said.
When asked what Terry may want to say to the Church as a whole, she said, “Pastors and their wives like talking about things other than church decisions in casual settings. They want real relationships and friendships just like anyone else.”
Overall happy
Stumpf concluded, “Most of the pastors’ wives really were very happy. So contrary to the article that started me questioning, they did experience isolation, they did experience stress, but overall they were quite happy,” Stumpf said.
“They loved their churches. They were proud of their husbands and very fulfilled.”
The study underscored for Stumpf the importance of pastors’ wives developing relationships outside the church “because conflict will come, and when your primary support people are also the people who are in conflict with your husband then it makes it really hard.”
“So they need to be very intentional about developing a good support network outside of the church.”
(BP, Neisha Roberts)
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