The Millennial Pastor’s Wife

If I have not said it before, my name is Rachelle, I am twenty-eight years old. I have a son who is four weeks away from turning two years old. I am a full time pediatric physical therapist at a children’s hospital in the valley. I have been married for three years to a pastor; we have been together for a total of five years. We met when we were fourteen years old, that is a story for another time.  

 

I was twenty-six years old, had recently graduated from grad school,and had been working for about nine months at a community pediatric clinic when Trevor and I got married. I was raised by a high school math teacher and a date palm rancher, who were both raised in the church in the sixties and seventies, who both discipled me from a young age. I tell you this because I walked into dating a pastor, then marrying a pastor with eyes wide open, aware of the fact that I was stepping into a completely different culture with expectations that I did not grow up with being a “layperson” (church language for not being a pastor or staff). When I started dating Trevor, I quickly became aware that there are expectations, standards, and a culture to how you should be, act, think, dress, talk, and role you are presumed to play. I had an absolute blast dating Trevor! I had so many fun trips and stories. I met and made so many good friends. Dating also came with a learning curve.

 

I dated and married a youth pastor. We did up to five to six trips a year including trips to California and Mexico. We organized, cooked, packed, stayed up way too late to prep and run camping trips. In tents. Do you know how much it takes to prep food and supplies for fifty youth and leaders to camp in tents? You do not even want to know. Early into dating Trevor, he did a trip to Six Flags in California. I was still living in Miami, my last year of course work. I bought a round trip ticket to LA, landed, rented a car, and drove to the hotel in Valencia at eleven o’clock at night to meet up with the group after getting out of class on Thursday at three in the afternoon. I did the whole thing in reverse on Sunday to get back for class on Monday. Do not give me the crazy eyes, Trevor and I took ten teens from our youth group to Rocky Point for a Mission trip. We all made it back, even the teen who brought their school ID and NOT THEIR PASSPORT. I tried to be as involved as I could in the youth group when I dated him for a few reasons. 1. I wanted Trevor’s, and in the future our, church to trust me and see that I was committed; I was not here for some fun trips, I was in it for the long run. 2. It was the way to really see who Trevor was and be a part of his world. Also, how else was I going to spend time with him? 3. If this was my future and my path, I wanted to be invested and not just jump in because I married the youth pastor. 4. I started developing lasting relationships with the teens in the youth group and I wanted to keep being around for them. 

 

Have you ever seen an Instagram account of a women in her mid-twenties? Mine had to be “above reproach” to the point no one would ever guess my integrity or intent. I stopped posting my trips to Key Biscayne with friends because of what others connected to Trevor could interpret from it; those who did not even know me. I went even further because I had heard the horror stories, you know the stories where a church leader posts about their vacations? It is not an “acceptable” post and their thrown off the board or out of church. Those stories. Up to the point of graduating and moving back to Gilbert, I was nervous and over cautious about being on social media to the point where I tried to make posts so neutral, no one could say anything or get offended. I did this because I respected Trevor. I had heard ministry-ending stories with so much personal damage I did not want us to have. I love Trevor, and I love the church. I did not want to be remembered for a post.

 

We got married in 2018 and I was a full-fledged pastor’s wife at twenty-seven years old. I broke every stereotypical mold of a “typical” pastor’s wife from prior generations: I had not touched a piano since junior high, I made so much more money than Trevor, I worked full-time, I cannot sing, I am not crafty, I am an ok-ish baker, and above all I did not want to be a stay-at-home mom. I had no idea what I was doing, but knew I had to stay in a certain boundary. Did I know what the boundary was? It was never explicitly told to me so I made an educated guess. I fell into an imposter syndrome at church the first year I was married. I never faked who I was, because I despise faking, but I caught myself editing how I presented myself, how I talked about myself, and downplaying my talents when I was with people from the congregation. I had been warned by some close people in my life,who were involved in ministry for decades, to never let anyone from the congregation get to know me too close because, yet again, I was told so many stories about being burned, used, and lied to. This was against my personality, I am honest, I make friends easily, I am genuine to a fault, and extroverted. I kept my life at a distance from everyone at church that year because I did not want to be scrutinized or have my husband talked about.

 

For the next three years I tried to do my best to pour into our young ladies in the youth group; coffee dates, group sleep overs at our house, girl nights, and meals. I poured my time, my resources, my money, my car, and my heart to the best of my ability with having no youth experience or mentors. I was also attending continuing educations courses on weekends, learning how to be a quality PT, and a wife on top of it all. I was balancing my PT career, being an unpaid full time youth leader, going to countless church events, and being a wife to a “public” leader.

 

We bought a four-year-old SUV when I was five months pregnant. We traded my Chevy Colorado for it. We got it so the teens that we picked up for church would fit and we could do local youth trips with it. We also got it for our growing family. It is exciting to buy a new car. That new care smell is my favorite. We drove it to church on a Sunday. Trevor parked it away from all the other cars at church; off to the side where people do not usually park. I asked him why we were parked here. He told me something along the lines of we did not want people thinking we can afford nice things because part of the congregation’s tithe pays his salary. I was taken back by that. Come to find out, some people in church think they “own” you because it is their money they give. That turned into a bigger conversation about my salary, how I dress, how we would dress our son, and how we will handle big events like vacations (like we took any). I got a little heated on the inside. I am pretty independent, I work hard at my job, and earn a paycheck. I do not like guessing what is expected from me, I do not do gossip, I like honesty and vulnerability, and I do not like feeling controlled or manipulated.

 

I hope you are reading this and not thinking I do not like church. I love church. I am passionate about church, Jesus, and all people. There is too much good that can come from a community that collectively genuinely loves others and lives life collectively. Is there issues and problems with all churches and places of worship? Of course, no institution is perfect. I am writing this, just a tad of my personal story, to shed a light on an integral group of people in a church that sometimes get glossed over. I am writing this to give you some insight that goes unspoken. Pastor’s spouses are never hired, never involved in church decision making, not invited to church meetings, not put on the pay roll, and not considered staff. But yet, these spouses work close to full time job hours volunteering their time at church, work in their own careers, raise families, have to be alright with sharing their pastor spouse to a demanding job, lead ministries, pour into their congregation, and juggle the politics of a church. A spouse does not simply go to church on Sundays, they help run the church. What some of the congregation does not see is how much the spouse does in the church out of love and kindness. They do not do it for some reward, they do it because they deeply care and are even called to this role. There is a reason why a church announces a new pastor and his wife as a unit, a united front. A pastor’s spouse is the backbone and personal support system of a church’s pastor. A pastor’s spouse can make or break a ministry. They can speak life into that pastor or completely break the spirit and vision of a church. 

 

Did you know fifteen hundred pastors leave ministry permanently each month in America? Four thousand new churches start each year in America. Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages end in divorce. Seventy percent of pastors continually battle depression. Eighty percent of pastors and eighty five percent of this spouses feel discouraged in their rolls. Eighty percent of pastor’s’ wives feel their husbands are overworked. Eighty percent of pastors’ wives feel pressured to be someone they are not and do things that are not called to do in the church. Again, pastors’ spouses are the support system to help battle and face depression, discouragement, and disappointment from those they serve and work with. (source: tumi.org)

 

I loved our past church. For being so “young”, I was treated with respect as if I had been doing this pastor’s wife thing for years. I was treated as an equal. My husband was incredibly good at protecting our time so that we could have quality time outside of his job. He never guilted me into being highly involved. I was loved by so many people and still am. I was given a lot of grace. My husband, son, and I were always cared for. On the flip side, I have had under handed things said to me, I got looks when I talked about my full-time career and day care while holding a baby, I had a passively vicious prayer spoke over me by someone who I thought I could have trusted. I heard loving things said about my husband. I have heard horrible criticism said about my husband. Good times, bad times, everything in between. This is not me stirring the pot, this is not me being mad or holding a grudge. It is quite the opposite. This is a subjective, personal point of view stating: We can do better, we need to do better. Congregations, the people of the church, those who make the church a church, need to do better. If we want to see churches not just survive, but healthfully thrive, we need to do better and be better for our pastors and their families. We need to go out of our way to encourage leadership and their families. It is all too easy to criticize, tear down, disagree, point fingers, and knit pick a leader. It is so much more impactful to give grace, show kindness, and show a little genuine love to our leaders. The mission of the church has been and will always be to love unconditionally and make disciples of all nations. How can we do that well if we cannot even love, respect, and give grace to those trying to lead the mission?

Pastor’s spouses are uniquely special. You are right, I am a little biased. I know a lot of pastor spouses, and I am calling it as I see it. They go through things unseen that no one will ever know, they make sacrifices for others that will go unseen and unsung. Personally, I would never trade being married to a pastor for anything; I have gained too much from it to ever let go of it. My hope is that the church recognizes how much a pastor and their spouse take on and how hard they work, even if it is behind the scenes, in the not so obvious, away from the pulpit. However cliche it is, pastor’s spouses are humans too, with feelings, thoughts, families, messy lives, and worries outside of church walls. They are individuals who are trying their best to love and serve those within and outside the church walls. 

 

Shalom,

Rachelle