The other thing is a lot of young men and women are leaving the ministry. Where in my generation 20 or 30 years ago, you wouldn’t think of leaving the ministry, today young men and women are opting out very early after seminary or Bible college. Yet one of the things that has changed is that we do church now better than we’ve ever done it. Technology has improved. Delivery systems have improved. Just the whole internet systems we can use to enhance ministry. That’s improved greatly. But it’s obvious that the technology is not the answer. I still think that the servant, shepherd, pastor is the one that over time will be the most effective.

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Preaching: One of the realities of the church in America — particularly the mainline churches — is the increasing role of women in ministry. I don’t know how much work you all do with that group through Focus. Have you been dealing with issues that challenge the husbands of those women serving in pastoral roles?

London: All the time. You know Jim Dobson and I come from a Nazarene background. (I’m not sure what I am anymore because I’ve been in some 90 different denominations since I started this ministry!) But our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers were ministers, so our mothers weren’t ordained but they were in the ministry. Our grandmother and great-grandmother were ordained, so we’ve known that all our lives. So we don’t have any trouble with that aspect of it. But the number one criticism we get in our pastoral ministry division is: you’re excluding and ignoring women in ministry.

So Focus on the Family has this little slogan in our ministry: We Minister to Anyone Who Ministers. We’re not going to deal with the theology of it. We can’t. It’s just like if you were running an emergency room and a Baptist came in and you say “OK, I can treat this Baptist but this Methodist over here is much more liberal than you are so I can’t treat them.” Well, we see ourselves and our ministry as an emergency room in many ways, so our role is to minister to anyone who ministers.

When I go to pastor’s conferences there are always – I guarantee you – there are always three or four women pastors that come up and say, “We appreciate the information you gave but it didn’t touch on what I’m going through. My husband feels like he’s just kind of a third arm and he just kind of sits there, and he’s become ‘Reverend Mary’s husband’ and he’s fighting it — he doesn’t want to come to church anymore.” What I say to them is you’ve got to be sensitive to that because your marriage is more important than your ministry. You’ve got to figure out a way to deal with those kinds of things or you’re going to invalidate your effectiveness. But the answer to the question is we are not very good at addressing the needs of women pastors. And I really do think that they are going to have to form a coalition of their own. Not a union. Not like the National Organization of Women. Not a fighting organization but an organization where they have similar needs and similar situations where they can help one another go through these things, because I’m not sure that we’ve got those answers yet.