In your pastors’ wives’ group, discuss the implications of each situation:

1. Your church has moved into ‘renewal’ and people are becoming freer to hug one another. Your husband is freer than most, and you have become more and more apprehensive about his willingness to touch women. One day a fairly close woman friend – Jane – confides in you that your husband seems to be seeing Brenda a bit more than she seems to require for pastoral counseling. ‘I once knew a pastor we called the “bum-patter”,’ Jane said, ‘and, seriously, your husband seems to be acting like that man towards women. I’d be careful.’ You confront your husband one night one both the general issue, and the doubts you have about his seeing Brenda so often, and he vehemently denies any wrongdoing. ‘Brenda has had problems in her marriage and needs intensive and regular counseling at the moment…’ Where do you go from there?

2. Your pastor has had difficulty getting the ‘right’ call, and has had to go to an old church in an inner suburb. The people have regarded their church as a sort of ‘club’ for their benefit, and after a while it is clear that your husband-pastor is simply their ‘chaplain’, and little more. They don’t want to change anything, certainly not to open the building for the use of local young people (‘they’ll certainly deface the buildings’) nor reach out to the local predominantly southern European immigrant population. You and your husband are beoming increasingly disillusioned and resentful about the church’s ethos… What courses of action are open to you both?

3. You are a young mum, with three pre-school children, and your husband’s first pastorate is a rural church where every previous pastor’s wife has ‘of course’ been president of the Women’s Fellowship. The WF has a long history of money-raising for missions, and those projects occupy most of the discussion at their meetings. The average age of the members is about mid-60’s, and there are no younger women interested in joining. In fact younger women wouldn’t go near the WF because it’s ‘dead’, but they have been too ‘busy’ to form a cell group of their own (and many of them have to go into the town to work to pay the bills). The WF’ers are resentful about the ‘worldliness’ of the younger women, and they give you no choice about being involved, and being president. What will you do?

4. One night you and your pastor-husband have a long, deep talk. You tell him that your professional career needs a move to another city, and that in any case you have never felt ‘called’ to be ‘married to the church.’ You married Bill when he had no thought of a pastoral calling, but went along with his vocation for his sake, and in those early years raising children occupied most of your time anyway. Your husband has little chance of getting a call to the city you want to move to, partly because his pastoral career has been marred with trouble in three out of the four churches he’s pastored, and ‘word has got around.’ He has not had an approach for three years from anywhere, and the denominational Advisory Board can’t help, as there are more pastors looking for churches than churches looking for pastors… Where to from there?