Another outstanding piece from Lauren Winner at Leadership Journal's Out of Ur blog. 
Married to the Ministry: has the pastor’s wife’s role changed for better or worse?
She says that some women who were not allowed to pastor themselves, married pastors and thus found some fulfillment by engaging in the limited amount of pastoral work expected of a pastor's wife.
I have also seen extremely competent pastorally gifted women who have found their way into roles as "administrative assistant" or church secretary. In another setting, these competent gifted women may have considered seminary and become outstanding pastors themselves. Interestingly, according to 2005-2006 report by the Association of Theological Schools, there are almost as many "Black" women pursuing their Masters of Divinity degree these days as men (2,366 Men and 2,330 Women). However, for "White", the numbers are still quite far apart: 16,268 Men and 6,791 Women.
Other pastorally gifted women have gone into "Christian Education," chaplaincy, or counseling as the acceptable approximations for church ministry. And others struggle wondering what to do with their pastoral gifting when they haven't met the right man and what to do with their time when they are struggling with infertility. (See the journeys of Carolyn Custis James and Gretchen Gaebelein Hull as told in their books).
Sadly for many of our young women growing up in evangelical churches, becoming the pastor's wife still seems like their best shot at being involved in church ministry. The number one nonfiction book on the Christian Bestsellers List for September 2006 is Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. As a professor at Taylor University, an evangelical Christian college, I can tell you that young Christian women are reading it in droves. Unfortunately as Agnieszka Tennant points out in her Christianity Today article "What (Not All) Women Want: The finicky femininity of Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge", the Eldredge's advocate a "tame idea of beauty" – one exemplified by "Pioneer women [who] brought china teacups into the wilderness." There are other ways of being beautiful. I know because I have a pastor's wife who has her MDiv just like me. I'm thrilled to be a pastor's husband.
Lauren Winner is great. My wife Amy uses her book Real Sex in the Personal Foundations for Ministry course. Lauren came to Taylor this spring to speak as well. She is married to a friend of ours from Regent College.
See my post about Captivating here.
3 replies on “Being a pastor’s wife is sometimes the only way a woman can be involved in church leadership”
Some churches and indeed many men and women are not going to be accepting of the idea of a woman pastor. That is just a fact of life. Women in those churches who feel called to ministry will generally have to either find a new church or find other ways of ministry. My own mother was a pastor’s wife who found many ways to serve. It was in some ways a difficult role though as there was a fine balance between doing too much in a church and not doing “enough.”
My step mother (my dad remarried years after my mother died) went the ordination route and while she served as a pastor for a number of years I think she was more comfortable as a chaplain and in other forms of ministry. I would not suggest that those were lessor forms of service though.
Hi Andy– hey I just read your post on Hearts and Minds website. I’ve been feeding the Hearts and Minds columns to Roger Phillips at the TU library, and to Dr. Neuhouser, my beloved friend. I’m a Taylor grad (1984) and friend of Byron.
Have you heard Byron speak? If you haven’t, he is truly AMAZING, and I think he could do a world of exciting good, speaking in chapel and in classes. I tell you, the man can speak on “calling,” on a Christian perspective in ANY subject, on true evangelism in a pop culture context. I’ve seen him address 2000 people. World Outreach Week, social justice, the possibilities are endless. He would present such good challenges. I LOVED Taylor, but it seemed then to be a bit insulated. I found I had a lot to learn, when I graduated, about “the outside world.”
Seems like you are doing great work– good writing on your blog– I will read some more. Thanks for letting me shamelessly market my good friend.
Denise
Oh, and I wrote about being recruited by the CCO college ministry during World Outreach Week in an article titled “I just wanted a fresh Diet Coke.” I think if you google that quote, you will find it.
Denise
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TITLE: Captivating Women
URL: http://42.blogs.warnock.me.uk/2006/10/captivating_wom.html
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BLOG NAME: 42
DATE: 10/13/2006 06:26:36 PM
A number of related posts which caught my eye. Basically it starts with a few reviews of a book that I can see would wind me up.