The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Pastor’s Spouse Works Here Too… We Just Don’t Pay Them
Churches often employ someone who isn't on the payroll – the pastor's spouse who carries emotional weight, hidden expectations, and unpaid ministry hours without recognition or compensation. This "invisible job description" creates unfair burdens that lead to burnout not just for pastors, but for their spouses as well.
• The "twofer" mentality expects spouses to serve without formal recognition
• Pastor's spouses become emotional sponges for ministry stress without training
• Churches blur the lines between supportive spouse and unpaid co-pastor
• Many pastors leave ministry because their spouse is exhausted or hurt
• Healthy church cultures name expectations explicitly during hiring
• Stop spiritualizing support and recognize boundaries aren't spiritual weakness
• Consider providing counseling for spouses even when they're not on payroll
• Ask: "Are we honoring both people or just using them?"
If this resonates with you, especially if you're a pastor's spouse struggling with these issues, please reach out to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com. We have team members ready to hear your story and help.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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some churches say that they only hire one person, but really behind the scenes in reality it's unspoken they really expect two. Behind every pastor is a spouse that's carrying emotional weight, hidden expectations, unpaid ministry hours that nobody talks about Until now. We're doing it in this podcast. Yes, we're going to tackle that here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host right here on the podcast every Monday through Friday. So glad that you are here. What if I said and yes, we're going to go there today? What if I told you that a lot of churches employ someone who's not even on the payroll? You didn't hire them, you didn't onboard them, but you expect them to be at every event. You expect them to lead the women's group, to smile through conflict and to host people in their living room three nights a week, all while never getting a paycheck. And I'm talking about the pastor's spouse, and for this podcast we're going to say this pastor's wife, okay, and it's time that we talk about what that really costs, okay. So I like to call it the invisible job description. I also call it a twofer right. When a church figures hey, we're going to get two for the price of one. It's the invisible job description and most church staff roles come with a job description. We all know that, but the pastor's spouse not so much. But the expectations in many churches are loud and clear Will they join the worship team? Will they be present and smiling on Sundays? We won't tell that story. I had a story I was going to tell, but I'm going to keep that. I'm going to keep that. You can email me podcastingchemistrystaffingcom if you want to hear that story, but I'll use my filter today. How's that? But the spouse of the pastor doesn't have a job description, but a lot of times they have a lot of expectations. None of it's necessarily written down, but it's there and failing to meet those expectations gets noticed really quickly. Churches may not say it out loud, but they often hire the spouse, whether they admit it or not. Okay Now spouses.
Speaker 1:Often, if you've been in ministry, the spouses often become the emotional sponge for everything that you as a pastor can't say out loud, from all that late night venting to the early morning stress spirals. They carry the secondhand trauma of ministry. But here's the problem Most of them aren't trained for it and they didn't ask for it and they often don't have a space really to talk about it themselves or anybody that they can talk about, all of this stuff that you're bringing to them. So when you expect emotional labor without support, you're setting somebody up for burnout. And when you assume that somebody is called just because they're married to somebody who is, you're probably spiritualizing some really unfair expectations. So what do you do about the time and the boundaries and the blur, the hosting the small groups, the attending the elders retreats, the managing the kids solo, while their pastor or husband is at another counseling session on a Tuesday night late? The pastor spouse often gives hours to the church not because they signed up for it, not because they even want to sometimes, but because they feel like they have to. And this happens because churches very easily can blur the lines between a supportive spouse and an unpaid co-pastor really fast. And if the spouse ever pulls back, if they ever just miss a Sunday, their flags start going up everywhere, right, they're seen as unsupportive or worse, they're seen as maybe hurting the pastor's ministry.
Speaker 1:All right. So why does all this matter, tom? Why are you talking about this? Why are you making a big deal about this? Because burnout just doesn't happen to pastors, it happens to their spouses too.
Speaker 1:And what happens when the spouse burns out? Just having a hard time, man, that has a ripple effect on everything. It affects you and your job as a pastor. Recruitment suffers, retention drops, staff morale crumbles. But here's the kicker Some pastors have even left their roles, not because they were done, but because their spouse was exhausted or their spouse was hurt or their spouse was unseen. I just had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a pastor who's man I'm raring to go, let's go, let's go, todd, find me something. But when we dug down to it, man, his wife was just absolutely burned out, exhausted and bitter, and it's dude. We can't send you to another church when your wife is unhealthy. And it very well could have been. I don't remember in that case whether it was because of this, but it very well could have been because of some of these expectations that many churches put on this pastor's spouse.
Speaker 1:So how do you build a healthier culture? You start by naming the expectations, and when we talk to candidates that come to us at Chemistry Staffing, we can tell by the questions that they ask us whether or not this has been an issue in their current or a previous ministry. So start by naming those expectations. What do you actually expect out of the spouse? Say it out loud. If you're hiring a new pastor, that's a question you need to have, and it's a question that we ask every church that we're hiring for. What are your expectations when it comes to this person's spouse?
Speaker 1:Another thing you really need to stop doing is stop spiritualizing support. They're not less healthy or less holy if they need to have boundaries, and maybe you need to provide access to counseling or support for spouses, even if they're not on the payroll, and stop evaluating a pastor's fit based on their spouse's involvement. Above all, here's one thing If you walk away, I want you to think about this. Ask the question are we honoring both people? Are we honoring our new pastor? Are we honoring our new pastor's spouse, or are we just using them? We don't think that we use people, but sometimes we actually do, and it's either intentional or unintentional. But ask the question are we honoring both people? It's really important. Look, if you're a pastor, if you're a church board member, if you're part of a staff team. This is really something you can't ignore, because invisible labor always leads to visible breakdowns. So that's what we're all about at Chemistry Staffing. That's what I've given my life in ministry to is helping churches like yours build really healthy teams. So let's get out there and build church cultures where spouses are honored, not obligated, and where support is offered and not assumed.
Speaker 1:All right, if this hit home today, drop me a comment. I'd love to hear from you. You can reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Maybe you're in the midst of this right now. Maybe you're a pastor spouse that just happens to be listening today and you're like Todd, I really need to talk to somebody. We've got a couple of people on our team that would love to reach out and talk to you and hear your story and see if there's any way that they can help. Again, you can reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffcom. All right, that's it for today. Thank you so much. Hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
