by: Ruth Vander Zee
11/30/2006

I just finished reading Private Lives of Pastors’ Wives by Ruth A. Tucker. To my surprise I found out that as much as I may think the challenges of ministry in 2006 are very different than they were in the past, in reality, not much has changed. Ruth Tucker has researched the lives of women such as Katie Luther, Idelette Calvin, Susannah Spurgeon, Emma Moody, and Catherine Marshall to name a few. Subtitles reveal some of the issues these women and others dealt with; Managing a Manse with Marital Problems, Reaping the Rancor of Petty Complaints, Struggling With Scandal, Enjoying a Career in Nonparish Ministry, Deflecting Discouragement, Standing in the Shadow of a Superstar. Further reading suggests these women were all daughters of the King of kings living their lives, serving the church in the strange co-mingling of joy and pain we call ministry. Some of their issues go back as far as the sixteenth century and yet are relevant for today.

When my husband and I were beginning ministry in the Christian Reformed Church almost 40 years ago, I remember attending a conference in which there was one break-out session for the pastor’s spouse. At that time, all the spouses were women. It was a chance for those in attendance, who were brave enough, to say what was on their heart and to be ministered to by those who had walked in similar shoes. These women were all living their lives, serving the church in one way or another, in that same strange co-mingling of joy and pain called ministry.

That was forty years ago. I was young then and naively arrogant. I thought that although these women seemed to have a weedy garden to live in, I was by some miracle going to blithely minister with my husband in a field of flowers. No co-mingling of joy and pain for me.

I am a little older and a little wiser now and my field of flowers has considerable weedy patches.

Just as the witness of my sister spouses (sixteenth century and on) confirms, there are many varieties of husbands. There are many varieties of congregations. There are many varieties of cultures in which the congregations exist. Expectations abound from all of them. No one has ever very clearly defined what these expectations are, and that is what often causes a lot of the joy and pain.

The pastor may have a clear calling to ministry, have hands laid on him, and be blessed to be a blessing. That’s great. That’s a good thing. That’s affirming.

The pastor’s spouse, meanwhile, looks on from a distance in the pew at the blessed and blessers. She will have one person who is her pastor (and that is also a bit of a complicated expectation) and preacher for the rest of her life. She will have a role whose job description is as varying and unclear as the number of churches her husband may serve. And if she has children she will attempt to keep those children reasonably quiet during every church service—alone.

She will be loved. But she will be loved more if she measures up to various expectations—even though no one will explain what those expectations are. If she doesn’t, she may be quietly or not so quietly discussed “in love” and in prayer requests. That’s not so great. That’s not such a good thing. That’s not terribly affirming.

I remember when my husband was candidating and I was still in my field of flowers mode, we went to a certain church one morning. After the service, a lovely woman came up to me, took me by the arm and asked me to come with her to the foyer. I was thrilled to be so warmly welcomed until she told me to stand in the center of a circle of women so that they could all “look at me.” My husband did not receive a call to that church. I guess I did not measure up to the expectations. Or maybe he didn’t. But, at the time, I felt my first twinge of failed expectations.

Just recently, I “Googled” pastor’s wives and pastor’s spouses. I found over 95,000 available websites. One website stated that 80% of the spouses of pastors hav