I enjoyed your perspective on this Marc. You are fortunate to have the lived experience where your wife is able to be her own person, and have her own career aspirations and goals. My own, and my family's experience is not the same. The spiritual abuse and judgment heaped on the spouse and children of pastors is shameful and reflects a patriarchal view that the "wife and children" are part of the package, albeit, an unpaid one. Much of this has changed, thankfully, but it still exists, and the damage done to families has never been acknowledged. Honestly, I had no idea what I was "signing up for" when I married a pastor 36 years ago. The only thing that has saved me from complete despair, is reminding myself that even ordained pastors are still only fallible human beings, that I must daily surrender self, and focus solely on scripture and Christ, and that God knows the heart and intention behind every action or inaction.
Wow Gail, I appreciate your sharing. Grateful for your sustained efforts to keep connected to Christ, through those various ups & downs (and if your leadership of Super Kids was more of an expectation than a voluntary gift, well… I’m still quite grateful for that)!
I guarantee that volunteering to lead Super Kids, being a youth leader etc., were done with a passion and desire to feed into the lives of kids and youth and build them up. It probably sounds like I've resented every aspect of being a pastors wife, but I haven't. But it's been a journey of pushing back against unfair expectations and creating healthy necessary boundaries. I'd like to think that some of us "opinionated old timers" have helped to smooth the path for present generations of pastoral families. ❤️
The argument that we've elected one woman in our 57 years as TWC (with hundreds of years of history prior) is based on a hasty generalization or false equivalence fallacy. That we didn't discriminate once ≠ we aren't biased toward male leadership and we always consider women for leadership roles, and it wreaks of DEI Woke Tokenism, even though that woman was the most qualified person for the job.
"This is by no means my personal experience, nor does it appear to be normative..." It is the lived experience of so many women. Female students have been harassed on our college campus, mockingly asked why they're studying preaching or pastoral leadership when they can't be pastors. A married couple finishing a residency where the male is offered a full-time pastoral role and the female is offered a part-time clerical role. Being told a church will not accept your application to candidate because you are female. Being asked in DBMD interviews if you are going to be a children's pastor or what if you get married or how will you handle being a pastor with 3 young children (someone with a masters from Asbury can probably figure out what to do with littles while she ministers). Dr. Keith Drury wondered why so many female Wesleyan students who excelled in ministry courses got engaged in their senior year and became pastors wives.
This is a fair reply, Priscilla… I’ll stand by my “not my experience” comment while I’d consider equivocating on the “by no means normative” one… clearly, this is your experience, and I appreciate you bringing it to bear. 🙏
I enjoyed your perspective on this Marc. You are fortunate to have the lived experience where your wife is able to be her own person, and have her own career aspirations and goals. My own, and my family's experience is not the same. The spiritual abuse and judgment heaped on the spouse and children of pastors is shameful and reflects a patriarchal view that the "wife and children" are part of the package, albeit, an unpaid one. Much of this has changed, thankfully, but it still exists, and the damage done to families has never been acknowledged. Honestly, I had no idea what I was "signing up for" when I married a pastor 36 years ago. The only thing that has saved me from complete despair, is reminding myself that even ordained pastors are still only fallible human beings, that I must daily surrender self, and focus solely on scripture and Christ, and that God knows the heart and intention behind every action or inaction.
Wow Gail, I appreciate your sharing. Grateful for your sustained efforts to keep connected to Christ, through those various ups & downs (and if your leadership of Super Kids was more of an expectation than a voluntary gift, well… I’m still quite grateful for that)!
I guarantee that volunteering to lead Super Kids, being a youth leader etc., were done with a passion and desire to feed into the lives of kids and youth and build them up. It probably sounds like I've resented every aspect of being a pastors wife, but I haven't. But it's been a journey of pushing back against unfair expectations and creating healthy necessary boundaries. I'd like to think that some of us "opinionated old timers" have helped to smooth the path for present generations of pastoral families. ❤️
I wholeheartedly believe that’s true, and thank you for it!
Just two areas I'd push against in your essay:
The argument that we've elected one woman in our 57 years as TWC (with hundreds of years of history prior) is based on a hasty generalization or false equivalence fallacy. That we didn't discriminate once ≠ we aren't biased toward male leadership and we always consider women for leadership roles, and it wreaks of DEI Woke Tokenism, even though that woman was the most qualified person for the job.
"This is by no means my personal experience, nor does it appear to be normative..." It is the lived experience of so many women. Female students have been harassed on our college campus, mockingly asked why they're studying preaching or pastoral leadership when they can't be pastors. A married couple finishing a residency where the male is offered a full-time pastoral role and the female is offered a part-time clerical role. Being told a church will not accept your application to candidate because you are female. Being asked in DBMD interviews if you are going to be a children's pastor or what if you get married or how will you handle being a pastor with 3 young children (someone with a masters from Asbury can probably figure out what to do with littles while she ministers). Dr. Keith Drury wondered why so many female Wesleyan students who excelled in ministry courses got engaged in their senior year and became pastors wives.
This is a fair reply, Priscilla… I’ll stand by my “not my experience” comment while I’d consider equivocating on the “by no means normative” one… clearly, this is your experience, and I appreciate you bringing it to bear. 🙏