The pastors wife
My husband is a worship leader. A "worship guy" a "muscician" but I don't feel the freedom to call him a "worship pastor" or a "pastor". I tell people we moved here because my husband took a job with a local church doing the music. It just so happens my co workers think of him as a pastor and I don't know what to say to it.
I mean yes he is, he teaches, he leads, he partners with the other co pastors to prepare sundays messages and he's totally involved with pastoral type stuff. But I don't look at him and think of him as a pastor. He's my husband. Maybe that's part of it though that I didn't realize he was a worship leader until after we were married and he wasn't working at a church either before we met. He was a computer guy whose hobby was being a musician.
As I was spending quiet time today pondering things going on in my heart the thought came to me that as a teenager I had told myself I would never want to be a pastor's wife. What a crummy role that was I thought. Up till that point I had never met a pastor's wife who looked like they had fun, who I found interesting, who the congregation didn't look at like there was a magic divide between us and her. I think of "pastor's wives" only wearing skirts, always having their hair done nicely, sitting in the front row while their husbands preached, kinda church ladyish looking. They have come across to me as reserved, not letting too many people inside, no strong opinions about things that did not concern the decor of the church or the upkeep of the bathrooms. Just someone who I never wanted to be like.
So, when they call him a pastor and I am his wife guess what I happen to be?
Thankfully I have since met a slew of women who happen to be married to pastors who are pastors themselves or have totally smashed my earlier view of what I had seen modelled. It doesn't make it any easier to understand my new role. And maybe I don't have any role to fill or play besides Rhonda the person who married Jon, who loves Jesus and doesn't wear skirts every sunday. But I was amazed at how I subconsciously have been fighting a box that God isn't even asking me to fit into.
I mean yes he is, he teaches, he leads, he partners with the other co pastors to prepare sundays messages and he's totally involved with pastoral type stuff. But I don't look at him and think of him as a pastor. He's my husband. Maybe that's part of it though that I didn't realize he was a worship leader until after we were married and he wasn't working at a church either before we met. He was a computer guy whose hobby was being a musician.
As I was spending quiet time today pondering things going on in my heart the thought came to me that as a teenager I had told myself I would never want to be a pastor's wife. What a crummy role that was I thought. Up till that point I had never met a pastor's wife who looked like they had fun, who I found interesting, who the congregation didn't look at like there was a magic divide between us and her. I think of "pastor's wives" only wearing skirts, always having their hair done nicely, sitting in the front row while their husbands preached, kinda church ladyish looking. They have come across to me as reserved, not letting too many people inside, no strong opinions about things that did not concern the decor of the church or the upkeep of the bathrooms. Just someone who I never wanted to be like.
So, when they call him a pastor and I am his wife guess what I happen to be?
Thankfully I have since met a slew of women who happen to be married to pastors who are pastors themselves or have totally smashed my earlier view of what I had seen modelled. It doesn't make it any easier to understand my new role. And maybe I don't have any role to fill or play besides Rhonda the person who married Jon, who loves Jesus and doesn't wear skirts every sunday. But I was amazed at how I subconsciously have been fighting a box that God isn't even asking me to fit into.
2 Comments:
I'm so there!
I made a vow when I was 10 that I'd never be a "Pastor's Wife" The pastor's wife I saw at that age always looked perfect....but suicidal. I thought she must have had the worst life in the world. (What's wierd, is that her last name was Parks. Imagine God's giggleing with THAT one!) haha
Like you, I then met women who were not only non-suicidal, but funny, goofy, alive, annointed, and friendly. (And who weren't perfectly coiffed)
What I appreciate about the Vineyard is that I'm not Jason's wife. We're Jason and Yvonne. No "pastor's wife", but a pastoral couple. I like that. I'm not forced to be someone's spiritual sidekick, but instead I can stand shoulder to shoulder in the muck, with my shovel, and dig along side my husband (and the other men)
Wow....THREE posts today! Amazing!
Strangely, I actually wanted to be a pastor's wife while growing up!
It sure is nice though to work along side a husband! It is nice to be Kristi and Shane too....still very much a couple, yet still very individual.
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