And then — I talk about this a lot — a pastor’s got to take care of himself physically. I see so many people whom God has invested in but have short changed God’s investment because they don’t take care of themselves physically. My big thing is: just check the gauges. I’ve got four gauges and an indicator on the spiritual dashboard for pastors that I talk about. If you don’t check the gauges, if you run out of gas, if you’ve become eccentric, then your ministry’s going to suffer and so will the body of Christ.

Preaching: One thing that keeps on reoccurring in our conversation is the issue of time. Time is one of the real battlegrounds for pastors, isn’t it?

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London: Yeah it is. Time is important, and my belief is pastors are terribly poor time managers. If we had assigned to us a 9 to 6 or 8 to 5 day we could probably get more done than we do. But because we have free time — and because in many ways pastors are terribly slow self-starters or because we travel so much — I think that we are our own worst enemy. We make it almost impossible to be good time managers because we allow so many things to come in.

Preaching: Several years ago we started a magazine for ministry wives that was edited by Jill Briscoe, Just Between Us. [It’s now published by Jill and Elmbrook Church; www.justbetweenus.org] One of things I recall is some of the letters that we would get from pastor’s wives — letters coming out of broken hearts because of some of the issues we’ve talked about. How can we help those pastors’ wives who are dealing with such issues?

London: The thing that breaks my heart more than any is to receive those kind of letters and know that in many ways that lady is almost a slave to the church and the unrealistic expectations of the congregation. For some reason, so many pastors’ wives have been sold a bill of goods that says, “Your husband’s success is going to be validated by your behavior or your performance, or your involvement,” to the point where so many of these ladies have lost their identity.

I wrote a book one time entitled Married to a Pastor’s Wife — a little play on words. The theme of that book was: be yourself. Ever pastor’s wife has got to find her own identity. They’ve got to find how they want to use their gifts and their graces. They’ve got to find how they re going to relate to the community. Are they going to find their identity in the community or the church, or are they going to sit at the piano and bat their eyelashes at their husband, or are they going to involve themselves in ministry in some other way? There’s a scripture in 2 Timothy 1:7 where Paul was talking to Timothy and said, “I’m reminded of the sincere faith that first I saw in your grandmother then in your mother and then in you.” And I really do believe that regardless of whether or not that pastor’s wife is involved in the church, that she becomes in many ways the anchor in that family to live consistently before children, to love her husband, to encourage others about the church — not to disparage the church but to set a tone in that pastors home, parsonage, or whatever, that is like a sanctuary.