Leading a church and leading a family at the same time can be extremely difficult – especially for pastors and their wives.
Brandi Wilson—wife to pastor Pete Wilson of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee—and co-author of the book Leading and Loving It, talks about how she manages to be a leader in her church, while maintaining a healthy balance in the family.
“Pete was growing the church and I was growing the family because we had three kids in five years. What we had to watch out for in that season, because he was growing to church and I was growing the family, we started living parallel lives.”
Even though Pete and Brandi were both moving forward side by side, they were not moving forward together.
“We had to really come to a point about 8 or 9 years ago when we said: We love this church that God is called us to, but we love our family more. Let’s make some changes and figure out how can we do both the church thing and the family thing really well. And be able to draw some boundaries and some healthy expectations for what we thought time management looked like between the church and the family – the family obviously coming first.”
It was not only a turning point in their family, but entirely changed the direction of their church.
“Pete never set out to have a huge church; we just set out to have a healthy church, we just set out to really have biblical values and to help people come in to individual relationship with Christ.”
Brandi describes a parallel between their growing children and growth spurts happening in their church.
“It’s kind of like my kids, my kids are healthy and they’re growing; I can’t stop them from growing when they are healthy! We didn’t set out to have a big church is just been part of it. We are very, very honored that God allowed us to be part of his journey that we call Cross Point.”
We learn that the happiness of a pastor’s wife greatly factors into his commitment level in the church.
“The number one reason a pastor leaves his church is because his wife isn’t happy.”
Brandi adds that a healthy wife plays an important role in setting a biblical example for her family and the church.
“If you have a healthy wife, it bleeds over to help create a healthy marriage; which bleeds over into healthy congregation, which is ultimately God’s church.”
Leading in the church and raising a family brings unique challenges, especially for pastors and their wives. Brandi reminds us that it’s important for women in leadership to reach out for help when needed.
“For wives I think if you’re really unhappy, it’s OK to get help. There’s such a stigma attached to counseling and there’s such a stigma attached to counseling when you’re the pastor’s wife and, ‘What if I show up for the counseling and or somebody from our church and in the lobby?’ We’ve all done it. You can’t not get help.”
