“NOTHING NEW,” Todd Lake, Ph.D.

Ministry couples are nothing new:  Prisca (known as Priscilla to her friends) and her husband Aquila are mentioned together six times in the New Testament.  Four of those times, she is mentioned first.  But what was their life together in ministry really like?  One ministry couple we know says pastoring together means that you add fighting about church issues to the usual list of things you fight about.  Other couples report only a blissful joint service to Christ, which both strengthens the church and enhances spiritual growth in their marriage.  (My wife and I secretly suspect that these people are lying!)

Why be cynical about how peaceful it will be ministering together?  Primarily, because the New Testament record teaches us that Christian ministry has been enveloped in conflict from the beginning.  The early Church, as portrayed in Acts 2 and 4, was a harmonious place.  But by chapter 6, we have fighting at the church food pantry breaking out among the Christians.  Soon thereafter, Paul and John Mark—real, live missionaries—have so many problems that they must stop working together.  And who can forget the apostles’ pathetic jockeying for position during the last days of Christ’s life; the Corinthian church’s being riven at the fault line between those who had flashy spiritual gifts and those who didn’t; Peter and Paul at each other’s throats in Galatia; and church leaders like Euodia and Synteche needing a public reprimand to get along .

I paint this dismal picture not to counsel couples to steer clear of ministry, but to counsel us not to mistake the honeymoon for the marriage.  If you go into ministry together because it is easy, then you’ll leave it once the going gets tough.  That’s why Scripture is always realistic about the nature of our life together as Christians.  It is better to go into ministry with no rosy illusions than to be crushed by disillusionment later in one’s ministry. 

God has done and will do great things through ministry couples, but it is imperative that we recognize two great pitfalls.  First, there is the sinful nature that we all still possess—even after receiving an M.Div.  Yes, Christ has redeemed us from sin, and the Holy Spirit is in the process of making us holy, but we haven’t arrived yet.  Which means we will hurt each other at times in ministry.  But sin is akin to the Watergate break-in:  it’s not so much the first sin that harms you so much, but the coverup efforts later on.  We must be quick to listen to our spouse’s concerns and quick to seek forgiveness.  The secret is to keep shortening the time between when you realize that you are in the wrong and when you apologize.

The second major pitfall for ministry couples is the gender bias of congregations.  The easiest way to handle this is to ignore the small things and trust that things will get better over time.  They won’t.  Wine gets better over time, but problems like this just fester.  Which means that continual, loving defiance of the sexism rooted in our culture, especially church culture, is necessary.  We know that part of the curse in Genesis is that the man will rule over the woman.  Such dominance is sinful, but in another sense acquiescing to such dominance is also sinful.  Ministry couples must make sure that they are treated as equals, not for the sake of the assertion of their “rights,” but as a witness to the Gospel.  For God made us male and female to display God’s image to the world.  To diminish a woman in any way is to diminish God.

If we can take seriously these dangers, then the advantages of ministering as a couple are tremendous.  For example my wife, Joy Jordan-Lake, did not feel a call to preach.  I seldom feel a call to shut up.  But instead of doggedly striving for “equal time,” we took on the roles in the church to which God had called us.  Joy founded and led our church’s clothes and food pantry, which became a model for the city.  I preached.  Joy created Christianity and the Arts services during the year which used the artistic gifts of our church members.  I preached some more.  And Joy and I together did pre-marital counseling.  The chance to have both a male and female perspective on marriage was greatly appreciated by our church members.  [By the way, at weddings we did preach the sermon together, but let the record show that her skill as a professional writer* gave her an unfair advantage!]

I believe that ministry couples incarnate the idea that each person in ministry is not called to exercise all possible spiritual gifts.  She might do more preaching, he might do more counseling; she might be a wonderful administrator while he is creative and visionary.  While there is no pink or blue list of spiritual gifts, there is no doubt that each person has only some of the gifts needed for ministry.  How good and pleasant it is when we can blend those gifts in the mystery of marriage as an offering to Christ’s bride, the Church.

Todd and his wife, Joy Jordan Lake served as Co-Pastors of the Cambridgeport Baptist Church in Boston, MA for a number of years. He is now the Minister to the University on Baylor University’s campus. Joy is teaching and free-lance writing. *Joy Jordan-Lake’s book of short stories, Grit & Grace:  Portraits of a Woman’s Life, can be ordered from Amazon.com or through any bookseller. You can respond to Todd’s article at: Todd_Lake@baylor.edu.