Spouses of Pastors

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about my husband and his role in my career(s). What follows are miscellaneous ramblings on the topic of career, marriage and ministry in no particular order.

Sunday, one of my churches had a potluck in my honor, and one of the trustees rose and made a speech in which he was very good about acknowledging not only me, but my family as well. He recognized that even though I was called to ministry, chances were good that my family had not been, and therefore, he was certain that there were a lot of adjustments that had to be made because the family had just gotten a lot bigger with many more demands on Mom’s time. He thanked them for sharing me with the church and for supporting me in my work.

Then, this morning I read a couple of blogs written by pastor’s husbands: http://marriedtothechurch.blogspot.com/
and http://www.mitchross.com/blog/.

My husband is a manufacturing engineer. Ministry is my second career, having been a civil engineer for 20+ years. Throughout my career, I have held positions of some authority. We often attended functions related to my job where people would speak to him first (because he was male) and then become very confused when his employer didn't match up with anyone they knew. Most significant was when I worked for a major public works consulting firm, and we were attending a retirement party for one of the higher-ups of the municipal wastewater utility. During the mingling and mixing, someone began speaking with my husband, and eventually asked, “Where do you work?” He said, “I’m with [insert name of major aircraft manufacturing conglomerate well-known in the area].” The person who asked got a puzzled look on his face and said, “Oh…why are you here?” My wonderful husband then replied, “I’m with her. She works for [insert name of well-known local consulting firm].” And I said, “Hi, I’m Kim.” Following some initial awkwardness and continued conversation the person apologetically excused himself and walked away (presumably to remove the egg from his face). We still chuckle over it.

My husband has often played the role of “spouse.” He always seemed to enjoy himself. He’s somewhat introverted, but always enjoyed the free food and drinks. He’ll speak if spoken to, and of course he can always talk about guy things. Most of the professional activities in engineering are “guy things” so he holds his own in conversation. I’ve done less of the corporate spouse thing because his coworkers don’t seem to socialize all that much. Frankly, it’s a role that feels a little weird to me. Sure, I can talk about my children ad nauseum with the other wives, but I do other things, too, like attend seminary, work part-time as a consulting engineer, pastor two churches, and occasionally teach knitting. I’ve never done submissive, shy, diminutive, and retreating very well. I’m pretty WYSIWYG and sometimes a little in-your-face, but in a nice way, and I’ve always worked around men, and am often more comfortable around men than around women. It’s really been only in the last five years or so, since I started seminary and have become more involved in knitting, that I’ve really had many women friends.

And what does the church call the husband of the pastor (other than his name)? At my former church, they called the pastor wives “first ladies.” I found that rather offensive. It seems to give the pastor an authority, that, I’m sorry, I find rather inappropriate in this denomination. I also felted it was very dismissive (is that where “dis” comes from?) and disrespectful (or is that?) of my husband because he was still a member there after I began pastoring elsewhere. Not all of the women who were called "first ladies" were married to pastors at that church. One was a widow of pastor from another denomination, one is the wife of a pastor in another denomination who does interim gigs, so the family remains there for stability. So what should the pastor’s husband be called? One of the bloggers mentioned above suggested “first husband,” but that won’t work for mine because he is really my second husband.

One of my friends has an even more unique situation (though probably less so than we realize). Her spouse is female. It’s not likely that she’ll be ordained in our denomination anytime soon for just that reason, and I guess “first lady” would work, but even so, her challenges will probably be even greater when that time comes. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be called “first lady” if my spouse were the pastor.

So let’s put on our highly creative thinking caps and come up with a name for the spouses of pastors that works in a generic, gender-neutral way.

GO!