Ministering To Pastors' Wives: Growing Unbreakable Love With Your Spouse by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The State God Wants Every Pastor's Wife In

Isaiah 58:11 — And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. In the Message translation: you will be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.

Every time people come to that stream, there is water. There is no time you will come and the river is dry. This is the state that God wants every woman, every pastor's wife to be in at all times.

One of the most abused set of human beings on earth is the pastor's wife. Too much expectations on her, but at the same time disdain. Everybody pours attention on the pastor and they forget that he has a wife. Pastor finishes dealing with people's load in the church or in the pulpit and when he comes back home, there's nothing to give. So how does a pastor's wife grow unbreakable love with her spouse — how does she stay in this place of a well-watered garden?

Know Who You Are Before the Title

One of the first things a pastor's wife must do: you must know who you are before you become a pastor's wife. It's so important. And if you didn't know who you were and you married this man and found yourself in the position of a pastor's wife, I want you to now decide — I need to know who I am outside of the title. You are first of all a human being, secondly a wife, thirdly a mother, before you are first lady, before you are mama.

Most pastors' wives want to take on the identity of their husband as pastor because they are the pastor's wife. They want to become an extension of the pastor. And when that doesn't happen or when she's not given the chance to do that, she begins to struggle. It becomes a competition between her and her husband.

I told one pastor's wife: why do you want to be on the pulpit? If your husband says no, I don't want you preaching, why are you fighting to be on the pulpit? There are other places you can serve the Lord so powerfully without ever being on the pulpit. Which ministry is struggling in your church? She said the children's ministry, the youth ministry. Go there. Go there and support your husband there. If you can grow the youth ministry, then your church will never die because those youths will grow up and step into the place of leadership.

Define Your Vision

Being a pastor's wife is different from the man's vision. The man is chasing his church, his ministry, his assignment. You are the wife, the support system. What is your vision for that work? Did you even buy into your husband's vision before you married him? And after you married him, did you buy in?

Play a Key Role in the Home Atmosphere

Play a key role in keeping the home atmosphere loving and healing — not competitive or duty-driven. Don't do anything because of duty — do it because of love. Remember, you are a wife before you are a mama or first lady. Come home and nurture your husband. Take care of him. Be attentive. Play your role. Be supportive. Make the home a conducive place for him.

Prioritize your affection. Prioritize laughter. Prioritize your private friendship with your husband above public role. There are some pastors you suddenly hear that they are divorced, but throughout in the church you were seeing a perfect couple — always holding hands, always hugging, always blowing kisses, always talking about each other from the pulpit. Everything was public. Nothing was happening in private.

Let the public be a reflection of what is happening in private.

Cultivate your friendship, not just function. Do not let ministry tasks replace intimacy. Ask about each other's dreams. Listen to his heart. Plan simple getaways. Take walks just as friends, not as ministry partners. You don't need money to create intimate moments — take a walk.

Guard Your Private Vineyard

Be vigilant against emotional distance. Be vigilant against unresolved conflict. Be vigilant against ministry-induced fatigue. Be vigilant against not talking openly together. Make sure you are praying together and apologize quickly.

If I apologize, this man will think he's right. It's okay. Let him think he's right. What do you want? To be right or to be at peace? To be right or to be in harmony? In the heat of the moment, he may not want to listen. It's okay. Let him be right. You have to lean on the Holy Ghost to find strategies — strategies to reach your husband.

Apolize quickly. Some of us, our mouth is so heavy we cannot say sorry. A man came to me for marriage counseling and said my wife never apologizes. Never. Please pray together. Apologize quickly.

Keep the romance holy and alive. Romance is not carnal alone — romance is very holy. It is sacred. Please flirt with your husband. Take care of yourself. Look good for yourself first, then for your husband. Ask him how he wants you to look.

Be his safe place. As he faces pressures in many directions, his wife should be his rest, not another battlefield. Let love, warmth, and humor make home a sanctuary.

Let your love flow from spiritual overflow — meaning you are feeding your spirit. You are nourishing your spirit, your soul, growing as a person. The more you grow, the better you will become at being a wife, a mother, a helper, a support system.

Draw Your Identity from Christ, Not from the Marriage

All these things I'm saying are on the assumption that pastor is good, pastor is nice, pastor is kind, pastor is in harmony with his wife. I know there are pastors who treat their wives like nothing — those are not the people I'm talking about.

If you have a husband who is a pastor and he doesn't care, you have to find your identity in Christ first. You have to draw your sense of self from Christ. Make Jesus your greatest lover. Read 1 Corinthians 7:17 in the Message translation — God, not your marital status, defines you.

When you are drawing enough from Christ, what a human being is doing will not devastate you so much. Don't let your husband's misbehavior draw you away from doing what is right, from living right, from honoring God. Marriage does not define you. God does.

When you do that, it won't matter what is happening on the outside because inside is controlling the outside.

In the garden of ministry, your marriage is the first vineyard God entrusted to you. Tend it with love, laughter, and prayer, and it will bear fruit that blesses generations.