When Pastors Need A Pastor: An Interview With H.B. London
I
think that the other thing that she taught me was to be honest with her. At
Focus on the Family, I deal with so many crisis situations where the pastor
and his wife were not honest with each other about absenteeism or about intimacy
or about pornography or about gambling or about emotional affairs, and because
they weren’t honest it escalated into something that almost became too broken
to mend. I believe that pastor’s wives — they have antennas that just go to
the sky. They can pick up every little bleep and bloop and everything, and we
need to listen to them. Pastors need to listen to their wives because we are
kind of like gladiators in the arena. We’re battling it out in there and our
wives are sitting in the grandstand watching. They see the dangers coming but
we’re so busy fighting this battle that we don’t see the dangers coming up behind
us. Wives can really help us with that.
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The
other thing she did for me was she helped me choose my battle. She helped me
realize that I didn’t have to win all the time. In fact it was good if I lost
some. I remember one day she just said to me, “You know, you’ve got blood everywhere.
You just picked two hills you’re willing to die on, and at least if something
happened to you I’d know where to find you.” In my mindset I was an athlete.
I wanted to win. I loved the game. The final score was important to me. Finally
one day she just said: it doesn’t matter who wins.
And
then the other thing she said is: I’ll follow you wherever God leads you. I’m
not sure I’m called to be a pastor’s wife — and she was one for 31 years — but
she said, “I’ll promise you that I’ll follow you wherever God leads you.” We
did a survey at Focus on the Family before I spoke at a large conference of
women several months ago and found that it’s pretty well split. Fifty percent
of the pastor’s wives feel called, fifty percent of them though osmosis or whatever
just became a pastor’s wife.
Preaching:
What can churches do to help pastors and their families?
London:
I think the first thing is – this sounds trite – I think every church needs
to have a pastoral care committee. I’m not talking about deacons, or elders,
or trustees. I’m talking about a pastor’s concern committee whose sole responsibility
is to look after the needs of the pastor, their families and their staff. That
has to do with compensation. That has to do with if the church owns the home
what kind of condition the home is in. It has to do with the kind of car the
pastor drives, is he safe? It has to do with insurance, medical insurance, retirement.
It has to do with that whole thing that some churches — especially smaller churches
– we kind of dominate them; they’re like the hired hand. And they’re not. They’re
called-out servants of God. Every church needs a pastoral concern committee.