Pastoral Leadership for Manhood and Womanhood

1

THE PASTOR’S MARRIAGE

R. Kent Hughes

I was born in March 1942 in Los Angeles—the same month that a Japanese submarine shelled the oil fields of Santa Barbara. That was about two hundred years ago; at least that is how I feel whenever I look through my March 1942 copy of Life Magazine and see the way people dressed and the military technology of another age. I have vivid memories of the 1940s: my father’s death when I was four years old, the 1948 Rose Parade, the 1949 Billy Graham Crusade in a huge tent on the corner of Washington and Hill Streets in Los Angeles. The images of the young, slender evangelist lit by the spotlights and the cowboy Stuart Hamblin singing Just a Closer Walk with Thee are fixed forever in my memory.

I was in high school in the 1950s, but I didn’t find my thrill on Blueberry Hill like many of my suntanned friends, because Christ found me in 1955 just as I was beginning high school. I was a young man, but I knew I had come to Christ; I knew I had been delivered. An event that further shaped my life took place in 1956 and made the cover of national magazines. It was the death of five missionaries in Ecuador at the hands of the primitive Auca Indians. Jim Elliot’s quote, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose, became the ideal for my life. I wanted to serve the Lord. In 1958, at age sixteen, I preached my first sermon. It was on Jonah and the whale—God Has a Whale of a Plan for Your Life—a sermon of dubious wit and doubtful quality. But just the doing of it established my pastoral persona.

Robin Williams’s famous quote about the 1960s, If you remember the sixties you weren’t there, aptly captures it for many of us graybeards, and smiling we nod our assent. But I was there and clearly remember the sixties because I was doing youth ministry instead of drugs. I also happily recall those years because I met and married my lovely wife, Barbara, in 1962, and we spent the next decade in sandals and bell-bottoms and youth ministry. Our four children came during our first seven years together. Definite church growth!

The 1970s were church-planting years. The greatest thrill of my life was establishing a new church. It was also one of the hardest times in my life. Barbara and I have chronicled it in our book Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. I was involved in the new work for about six years, and in 1979 we moved to Chicago. Our twenty-three years of ministry at College Church in Wheaton have been times of immense change. I’ve changed too. My over-the-ears haircut has gone the way of my seventies bell-bottoms. My hair has faded to a Mr. Rogers gray. I need glasses to read my watch. And when I bend over to tie my shoes, I look around for other things to do since I’m already down there!

Barbara and I have been married for more than forty joyous years, with thirty-eight years devoted to ministry. I’ve done it all—junior high, high school, college, assistant pastor, senior pastor, and senior citizen. We’ve had our share of troubles and joys in ministry. I’ve seen it all—the ups and downs; the disappointments and triumphs. And in it all, the joy of the Lord is my strength (cf. Neh. 8:10).

Ministry has been a wild and wonderful ride. I am a happily married man. My four grown children love the Lord, and my eighteen grandchildren are in process. I have a terrific wife whom I love with all my heart. My children love me, and I love them. The bottom line is: Our marriage and family have flourished amidst ministry.

CHALLENGES TO MINISTRY MARRIAGES

Nevertheless, there are pastor-centered challenges to marriage. Ministry is consuming. It’s time-consuming. I’ve always been busy with staff meetings, responding to messages, prayer meetings, business meetings, appointments, counseling, and sermon preparation, not to mention weddings and funerals. Life is busy. That can be difficult on a marriage. But not only is the ministry time-consuming, it is also all-consuming because it is so demanding. Whether you’re in a large or small church, you must learn to go to your left like a good basketball player. You’ll never make the team if you can only dribble and shoot with your right hand. Likewise in ministry, you can’t say, I only do preaching or My gift is administration. You must do it all—and do it well. The pastor must be a Renaissance man. This can be a great thing as you develop into a well-rounded person. But the downside is that it is so demanding.

The ministry can become a mistress. You can become married to the church. In terms of that marriage relationship, you can become a very ugly man—a preoccupied man who may sit down at the table with your children but be somewhere else. Believe me, the ministry can be seductive, especially if you’re deriving your self-worth from what you do.

Early on, when I was both in ministry and seminary, my wife saw that I had become so preoccupied that I often was somewhere else, distracted, as my children sought my attention. Seeing enough she confronted me: I don’t mind you’re being gone so much. I can handle that. But when you’re here, I would really like you to be here. She suggested that I needed some professional help. I was insulted and angry. But after I cooled down, I realized she was right. During the second counseling session, the counselor, a minister himself, observed that I was attempting to establish my self-worth by my performance as a pastor. He assured me that given my mind-set, whatever I achieved, I would never find satisfaction. The answer, he said, was to establish my worth apart from the ministry. That was the best personal advice I’ve ever received. Today I define myself by my relationship with God and with my nearest and dearest—not ministry. Sometimes my ministry is up, and sometimes it is down. But my self-worth is not tied to my professional vicissitudes. And more importantly, I am not for the most part a distracted husband or grandfather.

Ministry can also be authenticating or de-authenticating. Ministry can be authenticating if your life matches your teaching. John Piper likes to say that by preaching he saves both himself and his congregation every week. How so? Listen to Paul’s words to Timothy: Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers (1 Tim. 4:16, NIV). When the preacher’s lifestyle and his teaching match, a deep authentication takes place. But if you’re not measuring up to the things you say, you can become like the train conductor who after years of announcing All aboard to Albany. All aboard to Chicago. All aboard to St. Louis began to imagine that he had actually been to those places. The ministry has huge potential for dissonance, disjunction, and hypocrisy, and for turning you into an ecclesiastical buffoon if you don’t appropriate the truths you preach. And this can wreak havoc on the ministerial marriage.

The pastoral ministry can be a lonely occupation. You may be a gregarious soul, but there are probably very few people in your congregation who understand what your life is like. There’s a sense of loneliness in that. You carry the responsibility and burden, but it’s not like that for your congregation. You’re vulnerable. My outgoing wife admits that with the children grown she sometimes feels lonely when she comes to church and has to look for someone to sit with. It is possible to have a sense of isolation and alienation in a busy ministry that darkens your most intimate relationship.

Financial challenges are endemic to ministry. The March/April 2000 issue of Your Church reports that less than half (39 percent) of churches surveyed conduct an annual salary review for their pastors. Statistics indicate that though seven in ten pastors feel they are fairly paid, 30 percent feel underpaid. Of that 30 percent, 6 percent consider themselves severely underpaid. On average, churches with annual budgets of more than $500,000 give their senior pastors more than twice the total compensation that churches with budgets under $100,000 do. There’s a huge disparity in ministerial income. The report went on to say that those who opted out of Social Security are saving less for retirement than pastors in the Social Security system.¹ Early in my ministry I used to claim that the car wasn’t mine unless you could see the road through the floorboards! It was difficult in those early years. Finances often do bring severe stress to ministerial marriages.

Along with this, the ministry can be exhausting, and exhaustion often leads to depression. A telling sentence from Paul presents exhaustion at the heart of ministerial depression: For when we came into Macedonia, this body of ours had no rest, but we were harassed at every turn—conflict on the outside, fears within (2 Cor. 7:5, NIV). The context of Paul’s admonition was pressure-induced exhaustion. The same syndrome had earlier afflicted the worn-out Elijah after his victory over the prophets of Baal (cf. 1 Kings 19:4-8). Exhaustion due to ministerial pressures can make a depressive out of anyone. Sometimes it happens to the most sanguine of us. Notwithstanding the solutions that the stories of Paul and Elijah provide, depression is endemic to our people-intensive professions. And the consequences can be very hard on ministerial marriages.

Along with pastor-centered pressures there has come a rise of spouse-centered challenges due to the intrusive values of popular culture. Of late, many pastors’ wives view their husbands’ ministry as separate from their lives—It’s his job. I have my own interests and goals. Others do not view the ministry as a call but merely as a profession like that of a lawyer or schoolteacher and thus reason He has his profession, and I have mine. They are equally important. And, of course, there is now the culturally required obligation of a woman to pursue her complete, better self as her primary responsibility. Hardly the foundation for a strong ministerial marriage.

And, of course, there are churches that are man-eaters, ecclesiastical orcas. If the pastor is inexperienced or naive, he can be eaten alive and in the process see his most precious relationships devoured. According to a survey by the Hartford Seminary Foundation in the early nineties, one in five pastors is divorced, which nearly accords with the 24 percent average of the general population. The divorce rate was only slightly higher in liberal churches than in conservative churches.

ENHANCING MINISTRY MARRIAGES

I am fond of quoting these lines from Shakespeare both to my wife and to others—about her:

For she is wise, if I can judge of her,

And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,

And true she is, as she hath prov’d herself,

And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,

Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, II.VI

This is reflective not only of how I feel about Barbara, but of the creational bedrock of our marriage covenant. When Adam first saw Eve he cried aloud in astonished ecstasy:

"This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of man."

GENESIS 2:23, NIV

Adam’s joyous shout echoes down to the present day, proclaiming the joy and intimacy of marriage. There in Genesis Adam’s cry subsided, and the voice of Moses concludes, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (v. 24, NIV). Moses’ words were divine revelation, and Jesus Himself would quote them as the very Word of God (cf. Matt. 19:5). These words, this Word of God, became the deep well for the Bible’s teaching on the covenant of marriage. Here is the theological rationale for my wife being my constant soul.

Married Hearts

To place my wife in my constant soul is another way of saying that she is in my heart and I in hers—perpetually. And here I must suggest some ways to enhance this covenantal oneness.

To begin with, we must have cherishing hearts that publicly treasure The Pastor’s Marriage one another increasingly with the years, as Winston Churchill did his Clementine. On one memorable occasion Churchill attended a formal banquet in London, where the dignitaries were asked the question, If you could not be who you are, who would you like to be? Naturally everyone was curious as to what Churchill, who was seated next to his beloved Clemmie, would say. After all, Churchill could not be expected to say Julius Caesar or Napoleon. When it finally came Churchill’s turn, the old man, the last respondent to the question, rose and gave his answer. If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be—and here he paused to take his wife’s hand—Lady Churchill’s second husband.²

A delightful corollary is honoring hearts, hearts that esteem each other. This can be seen in the unspoken beauty of a couple’s glance toward each other or the gentle touch as they pass between rooms. We hear it in the respectful tone of their voices—words that caress. Honoring hearts always speak well of one another to others. There are times when my wife honors me with frank, true, needed words that she would never share with others. As her husband, and pastor of a flock, I know that I am safe in her words, and she in mine.

Healthy ministry marriages demand interceding hearts. The demand for mutual intercession is, of course, heightened by the commonplaces of ministry and because we are public figures who minister God’s holy Word and counsel and lead the church. These realities bring unique stresses and heighten our vulnerability. We each need the other’s prayers. How heartening it is for your spouse to know that she is prayed for in sensitive detail. There can be few things more elevating than the knowledge that your mate, who loves you as no other does, prays for you as for himself or herself. This kind of prayer will steel a ministry marriage against its uncommon assaults.

The ministry is a serving profession. We serve God and His people. But it is also a call to care for each other with grand serving hearts. Here Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, former president of Columbia International University, has set the standard for all of us who serve God. Dr. McQuilkin is an accomplished preacher, leader, theologian, and writer. But the title that defines him as a leader and husband is servant. At the height of his influence and power, McQuilkin resigned his presidency to take care of his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife Muriel, as his God-given duty. And this is what he said in his letter of resignation:

Perhaps it would help you to understand if I shared with you what I shared at the time of the announcement of my resignation in chapel. The decision was made, in a way, 42 years ago when I promised to care for Muriel in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part. So, as I told the students and faculty, as a man of my word, integrity has something to do with it. But so does fairness. She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years; if I cared for her for the next 40 years I would not be out of debt. Duty, however, can be grim and stoic. But there is more; I love Muriel. She is a delight to me—her childlike dependence and confidence in me, her warm love, occasional flashes of that wit I used to relish so, her happy spirit and tough resilience in the face of her continual distressing frustration. I do not have to care for her, I get to! It is a high honor to care for so wonderful a person.³

Such care, such sacrifice, such nurture ought to especially be at the heart of ministry marriages, so that our lives not only sustain each other but bear witness to the church and to the world of the reality of Christ.

All husbands and wives need to talk, but this is especially essential in ministry marriages—communicating hearts. As longtime pastor and writer Eugene Peterson has so poignantly written, there are men who wall themselves at breakfast behind a newspaper

rather than listen to the voice of the person who has just shared his bed, poured his coffee, fried his eggs, even though listening to that live voice promises love and hope, emotional depth and intellectual exploration far in excess of what he can gather informationally from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor put together.⁴

Certainly both men and women need quiet (especially those in ministry), but if such isolation becomes expected as a right, marriage is impoverished. Enjoy the newspaper? Certainly. But we must always engage each other’s souls about what’s happening right now, about family, about ministry, about the Word. Indeed this exchange of soul that Barbara and I have developed in our forty years of marriage and ministry is deeper and more exciting than anything else in our full lives.

Learn to listen to each other. Talk, really talk—about everything. Communicate more than facts. Use metaphors and similes and phrases that describe what’s inside. You’ll find that the best parts of each day are when you get to talk to your constant soul.

Romancing hearts have a Beatitude-like effect on all, as my wife and I experienced while strolling by the Ferris wheel on Chicago’s Navy Pier late one summer night with our visiting friends, Church of England Bishop Wallace Benn, his wife Lindsay, and their two high schoolers. Unknown to Lindsay, Wallace had obtained a glowing fluorescent rose from a vendor, which he then grandly presented on bended knee, with a speech to his blushing wife as he was cheered on by us and the laughter of passersby.

Such great fun! But also a gift. Wallace’s romancing heart heightened my love for my own wife and instructed his children in ways beyond words. When a man cherishes his wife, all are elevated.

Romance has its grand gestures and hidden intimacies. But it’s the small things that enhance or diminish it.

'Tis not love's going hurt my days,

But that it went in little ways.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

We must never allow the frantic, other-directed pace of ministry to detract us from our most significant other in ways big or small. As the years go by, affection, loving notes, endearing compliments, praise private and public (I would like to be Barbara’s second husband), flowers, and poetry must flow to your constant soul.

You Two!

The retrospect of four decades insures that the proverb time flies is hard fact. I am young, beholding my dazzling teenaged bride. I blink and I’m holding our firstborn, Holly, like a star fallen from heaven. I blink again and I’m gently holding another hot star, her firstborn, Brian. Another blink and it may well be his firstborn! One more and both Barbara and I will be with Jesus. There is no other time but now—no other time to be married and enjoy the wife of your youth. Thus I have some advice for every ministry couple that will enhance your time between the blinks.

You two—take your day off. As Barbara and I get around the country to pastors’ conferences, we are appalled at how many ministers and their wives don’t take a regular day off. The we’re so busy pleas don’t carry much weight with us. We’ve served in every size of church (with no staff and multiple staff) and have written over thirty books while doing it. We’ve been busy, but we’ve always managed a day off.

We’ve come to understand that those who go without a day off are not taking their work too seriously as some might imagine, but rather are taking themselves too seriously. Admittedly, the work is always there, and there is always too much to do. And true, we can often do it better than others. But we also know that workaholism is often rooted in self, be it insecurity or the need to be needed or subtle selfidolatry—God won’t work unless I’m there.

Believe us—it’s your moral responsibility to God and each other to take a day off. Even more, it’s your moral responsibility to forget your work—to mentally dismiss your ministerial preoccupations and not allow your professional concerns to dominate your time away.

Make your day off inviolate. What about emergencies? Of course, you must drop everything and see emergencies as graces. But you must also hedge your day off well. Your day off may be the most convenient time for others to get your counsel, but their convenience is not the dominant concern. People will make time to meet with you if it’s important to them. Also refrain from making doctor’s appointments on your day off. Squeeze them into your busy schedule, just as you squeeze others’ appointments into yours. Of course the structure of your day off will vary in the seasons of life. But give it some weekly forethought.

You two—date. Years ago, in the Midwest, a farmer and his wife were lying in bed during a storm when the funnel of a tornado suddenly lifted the roof right off the house and sucked their bed away with them still in it. The wife began to cry, and the farmer called to her that it was no time to cry. She called back that she was so happy, she could not help it—it was the first time they had been out together in twenty years! We chuckle because funny things are regularly the flip side of the tragic. We must not let the perpetual social requirements of ministry, the endemic nights out, rob us of the couple-delights we so treasured when our romance began. Wise ministerial couples will date, as Barbara and I do to our special eateries in Chicago or to a movie at the Fine Arts Theater or to the opera or on a simple walk on Michigan Avenue, the Magnificent Mile. What can be better than a night out with the love of your life?

In 1986 Psychology Today surveyed three hundred couples, asking them what keeps them together. One of the major staying factors was time spent together.⁵ Make sure you maintain this priority. Your calendar reveals what is important to you; so write her calendar into yours. Schedule weekly times together—they do not just happen. Be creative. Surprise each other. Sometimes be extravagant.

You two—vacation. We once loaned our vacation cabin to a couple for whom I had performed the wedding ceremony twenty years ear-lier—and later learned from them that it was their first weekend together since having had children! Neither busyness nor lack of money can excuse this. What is lacking is domestic vision and creativity and, frankly, common sense. Those in ministry especially need time away by themselves to restore their souls and explore their God-given relationship.

One of Barbara’s and my favorite serendipities came in the midst of the triple stress of seminary, ministry, and four children all under ten when, at Barbara’s wise insistence, we borrowed fifty dollars and spent a night and morning at Laguna Beach. Our heads and hearts cleared, and we returned with renewed perspective. Now as gray-headed preacher and wife we still understand (and practice!) this well-worn wisdom.

You two—go to bed together! Many couples never go to bed together—that is, go to bed at the same time—because one is an earlyto-bed person and the other is a night owl. This is a substantial mistake because it effectively diminishes confidential exchanges and prayers and intimacy before sleep.

Scripture views the marriage bed as a place of divinely ordained privacy and intimacy where one’s wife is a walled garden, a refreshing fountain, and a garden of choicest fruits (cf. Song of Songs 4:13-16). The sensual delights of the garden are mutually fulfilling and sanctifying. And because the ministry couple loves Christ, they will cherish the bed all through life. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31-32, NIV).

Your Family

Some years ago in preparation for an interview with Christianity Today about pastors’ families, we took our four children, then ages twenty to twenty-five, out to dinner to ask them together how they felt about being raised as PKs (pastor’s kids). We really wanted to know, so we could answer our interviewers with confident integrity.

Happily, they all were positive. They loved being raised in the manse with the church at the center at their lives. The only negative was voiced by one of my sons who felt that the church had asked too much of me. Actually it wasn’t the church—it was me, as I explained. He understood that.

There were times when I was over the top in my devotion to ministry. Here I must credit my dear, strong, wise wife for not letting me succumb to it, and therefore ultimately for our children’s positiveness and continuing memories of the manse. Here’s some family-raising wisdom (Barbara’s wisdom) from the manse that is rooted in attitude and perspective toward ministry.

Barbara always spoke about our being in ministry in joyous terms. When the children were small she said, for example, Aren’t we lucky that our dad’s not a truck driver like Mr. Pope? Mr. Pope has to be gone overnight on deliveries. But our dad is always here for dinner. Significantly, this was when I was doing both seminary and ministry— a very busy time in our lives. Bottom line: Mom was positive, and therefore the kids were positive!

Barbara’s wisdom still amazes me. She discerned that instead of saying Dad’s at church, it would be better to say Dad’s at work. Her reasoning? The former could build resentment toward the church. But the latter merely lumped me together with everyone else’s fathers who all worked. Very subtle. Very wise!

Similarly, we never spoke ill of the church or its people. This was particularly important because when our kids were in grades four to ten we experienced great hurt and conflict that eventuated in our resignation. But to this day our grown children only have positive memories of those years.

The other area of wisdom has to do with time—leveraging our flexible schedules to best invest in our children. Ministers work a lot. I have regularly put in about fifty hours a week plus virtually all of Sunday beginning at 4:00 A.M. But because I didn’t punch a time clock or have to travel to work, we could strategically invest our time. Sometimes we got up early and cooked breakfast in the park before school. We also would gather the kids after school, don backpacks, and take a hike in the hills before dinner. Other times I called their schools and got permission to take one of them out for lunch. Few dads can do that. And, oh, did my son or daughter feel special! And over the years I rarely had to miss an after-school athletic event or a school concert or a play in which my children had a part. And more, my office was always open and well-supplied with M&Ms. My children and their friends knew that they could come any time. Sometimes their friends came without them! Best of all, I was always home for din-ner—an event that Barbara always worked at making special.

Yes, the ministry does have its challenges. But as I look back over almost forty years from the sixties through the nineties and now into the new millennium, I am so grateful to have followed God’s call.

1. John C. La Rue, Seven Findings About Pastor Pay, Your Church, March/April 2001, 88.

2. James Humes, Churchill, Speaker of the Century (Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day, Scarborough House, 1980), 291.

3. From Dr. Robertson McQuilkin’s March 1990 letter of resignation as president of Columbia Bible College.

4. Eugene H. Peterson, Working the Angles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 62.

5. Jeanette Lauer and Robert Lauer, Marriages Made to Last, Psychology Today, June 1985, 26.

2

THE PASTOR’S RESPONSIBILITY

FOR ROMANCE IN HIS

CONGREGATION AND MARRIAGE

Dennis Rainey

For centuries sailors have avoided a section of ocean located just above the equator. In this area of the ocean, winds will lie calm for days, weeks, even months. Storms will skirt the edge of this quiet expanse, and at times ships have sailed into such a patch of ocean, stalled out,