The Role of the Wife of the Pastor

The wife of the pastor of the Calvary Chapel has a lot of expectations. Someone noted that she is expected to:

Where does this expectation come from?

It seems to me that this is an unrealistic expectation placed on the wife of the pastor in the Calvary Chapel system. Perhaps the historical root is Chuck Smith's own experience in the Foursquare Church. Fifty years ago, Pastor's wives were expected to be able to play the piano and lead the Sunday School. Their husbands were planting new churches and the wives had to be there to support them in that role.

My guess is that this expectation carried over into Calvary Chapel. Chuck Smith's wife Kaye taught a weekly Bible Study at Costa Mesa. Pastors that were trained by Chuck learned this model from Chuck. Most churches have retreated from this level of expectation but Calvary Chapel is a sort of time warp from Chuck's experiences in the FourSquare Church 50 years ago.

An Unofficial Associate Pastor

An example of this is Calvary of Albuquerque where Skip's wife, Lenya, functioned almost as a pastor for women. Her "9-11 bracelet" idea ended up costing the church hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory write-offs.

Freedom for the captives

It would be good to free Calvary pastor's wives from this expectation. They need to follow their own giftings.

Learning from Moses

Perhaps Calvary and other churhes can learn something from Moses. Just because God calls a man does not mean he calls his wife. Moses' wife was not called to be the co-deliverer from Egypt. She opposed his ministry and was sent back to her father's house. Today in most churches that would disqualify a man for ministry. Rather than look at the wife's choices as rebellion, they would fire the pastor.