Ministry wives carry unseen pressures and influence. It’s the role no one defines but everyone watches. Cathie Heard talks about what ministry wives are really carrying, and why support can’t wait.
We cover:
- The ambiguity of a pastor’s wife’s role and the hidden pressures it creates
- What gospel coaching really is (and what it’s not)
- The strange tension of being influential but unseen
- What churches risk by ignoring this group
- How coaching helps women ask better questions — of themselves and others
TOOL BOX:
Wives Network – Reach Australia
CREDITS:
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:21:04 – 00:00:34:08
Pete Hughes
G’day I’m Peter Hughes and welcome to the one thing. It’s a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry every week.
00:00:34:10 – 00:00:50:11
Pete Hughes
The one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see more and more churches planted all over our country. So make sure you jump on the website. You may want to have a look, at our resource page and have a look at the church planting podcast. That’s a limited series that is great about planting churches.
00:00:50:13 – 00:01:00:09
Pete Hughes
But we’re not just about planting churches. We’re about caring for leaders and caring for their wives. That’s what we’re talking about today. That special guest, Kathy Hood. Welcome, Kathy.
00:01:00:09 – 00:01:02:00
Cathie Heard
Hello. Hello.
00:01:02:02 – 00:01:07:14
Pete Hughes
I was going to say Kathy is married to Andrew, but Andrew’s married to Kathy. Let’s put it that way. Around the room.
00:01:07:16 – 00:01:08:08
Cathie Heard
What?
00:01:08:10 – 00:01:19:09
Pete Hughes
Kathy, what’s what’s your, Well, before we get into the episode, but what is what’s something you’ve been doing that is fun, relaxing that you you get into? You like the water?
00:01:19:11 – 00:01:33:24
Cathie Heard
Yes. And I actually did have a swim this morning. It was very cold. I feel like the waters just dropped a few degrees this last week, but yeah, nice to do. So yeah, I’ll do a swim. It’s a nice way to start the day. Yeah.
00:01:34:01 – 00:01:44:04
Pete Hughes
And just super impressed. And in case you’re missing this, that when we’re recording this, it is right in the middle of winter and it is freezing cold. So the fact that Kathy’s done that, I’m. Yeah. Respect.
00:01:44:06 – 00:01:47:18
Cathie Heard
They wear a wetsuit and booties just added.
00:01:47:20 – 00:01:48:22
Pete Hughes
You ruined it all.
00:01:48:22 – 00:01:54:20
Cathie Heard
Now it Thanksgiving is a very critical fate. Well.
00:01:54:22 – 00:02:19:10
Pete Hughes
Yes, I wear booties a lot when I’m diving. And, yes, they’re my non-negotiable. But, we’re going to be talking to Kathy about, ministry wives, particularly with coaching. So you have press play on another episode of the one thing. Why don’t ministry wives need coaching room? So let’s let’s just ask the question. Kathy, does a ministry wife have a job description?
00:02:19:12 – 00:02:24:04
Pete Hughes
If she doesn’t, why does she need a coach?
00:02:24:06 – 00:02:50:05
Cathie Heard
I think one of the things most ministry wives would agree on is that their role is very ambiguous. There isn’t a role description, and that’s actually part of the reason why you might want to coach, even biblically is, descriptions for an overseer for ladies. There is one Timothy three that talks about so the women, but most likely that’s the deaconess.
00:02:50:07 – 00:03:18:23
Cathie Heard
So really there’s not a sort of a job description which can make it feel a bit like, you know, unless you have Venn diagrams, you’ve got this empty set. And if you have this empty set, it can feel like other people will fill it with all the expectations and demands on you. You might be rebellious and throw that out and then just think, oh, fill it with just whatever I want to do.
00:03:19:00 – 00:03:59:00
Cathie Heard
But the thing coaching wants to bring is we live in a certain time that we it’s a unique time between the two comings of Christ. And so really, none of us know Christian has an empty set that we just fill with whatever it is we want to do. So for the ministry, wife coaching is really about reminding her of God’s plans, his purposes, his, heart to save people, to build his church, but help her think about what are her opportunities, what of her perhaps also limitation.
00:03:59:02 – 00:04:06:01
Cathie Heard
What is it that she can do that she can be part of, to be part of what God’s doing? That’s what coaching is seeking to do.
00:04:06:03 – 00:04:17:22
Pete Hughes
And so it’s it’s looking at the expectations that other people might put on the expectation that she might put on, but aligning those with what what God is doing in the world, what Christ is doing in the world.
00:04:17:24 – 00:04:52:06
Cathie Heard
Yeah, it’s almost clearing away the others and going back to actually, let’s start with God. Right. What’s what’s his call and, and thinking through that. And then he’s made you a certain way. How do those two things, wrestle together to be sort of your unique plan, your unique part in the whole thing? But I must also say, coaching is not just about a role that you have in church or a role that you play in your family, workplace, whatever.
00:04:52:08 – 00:05:14:21
Cathie Heard
It’s it’s all of life. So we use the acronym up here. Coaching is exploring your relationships, your personal your spiritual life. It’s all of life. There are things in each of those fields where we get stuck, where we don’t know how to move forward, and coaching will explore that with her.
00:05:14:23 – 00:05:30:17
Pete Hughes
So let me just dig into that a little bit. But so what exactly is coaching is it how is it different to say, being a friend or a mentor or, you know, you just have that your voice on the end of the phone yelling, let me let me talk through this. What what exactly do you mean by coaching?
00:05:30:19 – 00:05:51:24
Cathie Heard
That’s a good question. I think I put it this way. This is this is the saying I like to give. Coaching is the art. It’s an art form. It’s the art of asking. Good question. And so it’s not just a it’s not a telling thing. It’s not a giving advice. It’s not necessarily sharing experience, although it can be those things that that core.
00:05:52:01 – 00:06:15:19
Cathie Heard
It’s the art of asking good questions that help you think through what you want to do. Think through what you know from God’s Word. Think through what? What you might already know but haven’t had time to bring out. Just think through in order to process and come to, a point. It.
00:06:15:21 – 00:06:16:08
Pete Hughes
Isn’t that.
00:06:16:13 – 00:06:21:07
Cathie Heard
The change agent? Actually, I think is about change. Yep. Yeah.
00:06:21:09 – 00:06:42:02
Pete Hughes
I was gonna say, isn’t the skill of asking a great question an important thing? I mean, I know you do a lot of charity with the coaches and, and that skill of asking the right question. But I was sitting down with someone yesterday. I was going through a problem, and he just asked this incredibly insightful question about the relationships that I was dealing with, and I went, that’s why this isn’t working.
00:06:42:02 – 00:06:46:08
Pete Hughes
It was just the right question. Your time is it’s a skill. There, isn’t there?
00:06:46:10 – 00:07:14:04
Cathie Heard
There is. I’ve picked up questions from other people that just do that. That work where you think, wow, the way you’ve said that has just unlocked something. And yeah, I think, we kind of like squirrels kind of gathered these questions and keep them in their back pocket. And there’s the right time to bring them out. So you can learn those from from other people.
00:07:14:06 – 00:07:38:10
Cathie Heard
And they do make a huge difference. I should also say the coaching we’re doing, it’s not like secular coaching either, which is a little bit what you call we’ll just help you sort of work out what you want to do, fulfill your potential. You choose your own adventure and will support you in it. It’s not that it’s gospel coaching, which means we’re working with this framework of God’s purposes and intentions.
00:07:38:10 – 00:07:50:07
Cathie Heard
And so we want to coach my all female to be shaped by that. So gospel coaching, brings another element as well into it.
00:07:50:09 – 00:07:57:17
Pete Hughes
And that’s why I guess those, those things that was relationship, marriage, spiritual. Sorry.
00:07:57:19 – 00:08:11:07
Cathie Heard
Relational, personal. And is missional mission. Sorry. Yep. Thinking ministry life and and s is spiritual. Your personal relationship with the Lord God? Yeah.
00:08:11:13 – 00:08:14:13
Pete Hughes
That’s really helpful little framework that’s there.
00:08:14:15 – 00:08:15:10
Cathie Heard
Yeah.
00:08:15:12 – 00:08:34:08
Pete Hughes
Just a bit about the the unique pressures that ministry wives face. Like, are there silent pressures that because often the, the, the husbands up the front, people can see what’s going on, but they don’t necessarily always see what’s happening with the wife. What are some of the silent pressures that other people may not be aware of?
00:08:34:10 – 00:09:04:24
Cathie Heard
Yeah. Look, I think loneliness can be one, a common one. There’s a sense in which, you can’t necessarily confide in with a friend. You can’t, that friend, maybe in your congregation, you might even have things that you can’t really talk through with your own husband. So if you’re in church and you’re a little unsure of his leadership, that’s a terrible, difficult place for a wife to be.
00:09:05:01 – 00:09:24:06
Cathie Heard
So there are some pressures, you can have a role in church, but no training for it. You have not had the chance to go to college necessarily. A lot of wives support their husbands to go through college. And so although they they may, you know, be keen to be in ministry, they may feel they haven’t had the training for it.
00:09:24:08 – 00:10:09:23
Cathie Heard
I think the pressure to have not necessarily having a clear role, that ambiguity can be quite frustrating. I think we do need clarity. You can be juggling, church life, family life and work life that’s, you know, spread quite thin. I think another, pressure that she faces, like everyone else is, it can be hard to keep that gospel focus in your life or as much, you know, ministry wise or as much open to the pressures and distractions of the world and sometimes harder because maybe you’re not in church sitting on the sermons regularly because maybe you’re involved in kids work, or maybe you’re coming to church very distracted because you’re, aware
00:10:09:23 – 00:10:30:07
Cathie Heard
of things that you need to do or people that you want to see. And so sometimes it can be that you miss that weekly, you know, recalibration and reset that church and sermons can give you, there’s another weird pressure, I think, is that you are both powerful and powerless at the same time.
00:10:30:07 – 00:10:33:10
Pete Hughes
Yeah. So that’s a really interesting dynamic, isn’t it? Yeah.
00:10:33:13 – 00:10:57:04
Cathie Heard
Let me explain. Yeah. I think you’re powerless in the sense that, you know, lots, but you’re not involved in things enough to fix it or. Yeah, sort it out or to have a say. You also may know a lot of criticism, but aren’t in a place to go and talk to the right people. In fact, it would be very unhelpful if you did.
00:10:57:06 – 00:11:21:09
Cathie Heard
So there’s a sense in which you can feel quite powerless. At the same time, you are a person that, others are influenced by, and so you have a power that you might not like, which is people are watching you, learning from you, maybe criticizing things that you’re doing now. That’s a power you can use for good.
00:11:21:14 – 00:11:53:08
Cathie Heard
You know, modeling in the right direction can have a really helpful impact. On the church and on women, particularly in church. But it’s a power that I think it’s hard to, get used to that, and it can feel annoying. So, for instance, if you say something, maybe to another staff member that can carry a weight that another person, if they were to say that it wouldn’t and, and you have to then gauge yourself perhaps more than another person would need to think about.
00:11:53:10 – 00:12:12:06
Cathie Heard
And I think that’s just, you know, it’s just that awareness, having to have that awareness is quite tiring. And I think women sometimes in this role kind of like, oh, why can’t I just be a normal person? I hope that you are. But the reality is you are in some senses, but in other senses you’re not.
00:12:12:06 – 00:12:14:04
Cathie Heard
And you have to be aware of that.
00:12:14:06 – 00:12:40:08
Pete Hughes
Okay. Can I go off script a little bit and ask a question about that powerless, powerful, kind of dynamic isn’t useful for the wife to be a part of the staff meeting in that she she does have a close she’s in that inner circle really, because she has a close relationship with her husband, hopefully. And yeah, but and she does have those connections, but she’s not aware of what’s going on if she’s not in the staff.
00:12:40:08 – 00:12:42:11
Pete Hughes
A what do you think?
00:12:42:13 – 00:13:01:08
Cathie Heard
Wow, you’ve really gone off script. What’s your good talking about? You know, let me let me do my best. As a person who is in stuff, I think I think it can be done if there’s care taken. Right. Because you have a husband and wife in the same room, that can be a little bit of a power block.
00:13:01:11 – 00:13:28:11
Cathie Heard
It can make it hard for staff to speak up. Unless you are very careful about your role in the room you defer to, you know, the the right leadership. You stick to your line. I think that’s important. And there, you know, part of contributing without dominating. Okay. And I think if you can work on having good relationships with other staff, yeah.
00:13:28:11 – 00:14:01:02
Cathie Heard
So there’s a general feeling of liking each other. That’s, that’s pretty important. Yeah. I don’t think the wife has to be in staff meetings. And I think for some wives they would find it unhelpful. So there’s a uniqueness. We’re not all the same. You can come back to this job description. Yeah. And this is where coaching can help is to, to be able for the, the, the woman, the wife to be real and have good questions asked of her so she can honestly say what’s possible or not possible.
00:14:01:06 – 00:14:12:18
Cathie Heard
And the coach can help her shape something that’s going to be more helpful for her than just copying what some other minister’s wife has done somewhere else.
00:14:12:20 – 00:14:33:09
Pete Hughes
I love how you’ve got us back on track with coaching, which is what we were meant to be talking about. So thank you Kathy, but let let me let me ask the question though. Does she really need a coach to I mean, I can see some some people going, well, she’s got a husband to do that. Why does she need an outside voice to help her ask those questions?
00:14:33:11 – 00:15:01:21
Cathie Heard
Well, here’s what coaching does. It gives you time. Time list to listen to you an hour to an hour and a half. The coach listens and doesn’t come in with assumptions, doesn’t try to jump in with solutions, lets you process your thinking. And it’s a place, a safe place where you can be completely honest and not in your church.
00:15:01:23 – 00:15:28:05
Cathie Heard
You can sometimes just show your ungodly side as you wrestle with, or you can always show your ungodly side as you wrestle with, how to change how how to think in certain places. I actually think a lot of husbands would find it hard to give all those things to their wives all the time. Like sometimes I can, but they’re all often busy.
00:15:28:07 – 00:15:48:10
Cathie Heard
The wife may feel she doesn’t want to burden her husband with a particular thing she’s wrestling with. She may also feel that, yeah, there can be a sense in which he wants to fix it for her. He doesn’t like to see her in that place where a coach will just hold back and give her the time and space.
00:15:48:12 – 00:16:21:23
Cathie Heard
And I form her solutions with a little bit of help, not jump in quickly. So, yeah, I think coaching is a real gift and it’s a real investment. I’ve got some quotes from some of our coaches who talk about how much they love it because it’s it is intentional, and they feel like they come away with genuine resolutions to things.
00:16:22:00 – 00:16:34:14
Cathie Heard
They can have a real plan for themselves that they own and that they, they want to do, like some of they even said it’s better than counseling because counseling for them wasn’t quite doing that. Yeah.
00:16:34:14 – 00:16:55:21
Pete Hughes
So coaching hybrid I actually I just want to pick up on that one thing about the husband because, I, I’ve spoken to another number of husbands over the last little while. The tendency that when we see our wives in distress, we want to fix the problem. And that’s not what coaching is. Coaching is helping them to address the problem.
00:16:55:21 – 00:16:57:13
Pete Hughes
Have I got that right?
00:16:57:15 – 00:17:06:21
Cathie Heard
Yeah. Coaching. Fixing the problem means that you can you can jump into quickly and not have heard the full issue.
00:17:06:24 – 00:17:07:12
Pete Hughes
Yep.
00:17:07:14 – 00:17:29:19
Cathie Heard
And you can hear sometimes when the wife is talking, she’s not even aware of what the exact issue is. And it’s the talking it out slowly, bit by bit, with good questions to bring it all out. That actually helps her understand what it is, what’s going on. So husbands, you can not like the uncomfortableness, so you jump into it quickly.
00:17:29:22 – 00:17:50:00
Cathie Heard
There’s more to it being said. But it’s also annoying when someone fixes something so quickly that you’re wrestling with forever. You know what I mean? Like, it almost feels disrespectful. It is. It’s, you know, it’s almost like, if it’s so hard, how come he just fixed it? Who am I like this? Oh, feel like an idiot.
00:17:50:02 – 00:18:03:00
Pete Hughes
I never thought of it that way. That is so helpful. Yeah. So that’s. I do this all the time. I just rushing to try. And I’m sure lots of husbands do this to here. Actually, that can be disrespectful. Wow. That’s that’s a thing.
00:18:03:06 – 00:18:26:07
Cathie Heard
And you don’t need to be, an understanding in the listener that if it was that easy, they would have come up with. Yes, exactly. So they must be more and to give them the time to, to dig. And it can be more in the sense that it’s personal emotional blockages which the husband doesn’t have. But then again, you’ve got to work with that.
00:18:26:07 – 00:18:36:17
Cathie Heard
It’s her having to do this, not him. If it was, he’s like, he could just do it, but it’s her life and it’s different. So yeah, coaching gives that respect, I think.
00:18:36:19 – 00:18:53:17
Pete Hughes
Wow, that is such a great helpful insights. So thank you so much for that. But Kathy, this is the one thing. Let me ask what’s the one thing you think church leaders particularly need to know about their wives being coached?
00:18:53:19 – 00:19:21:22
Cathie Heard
Coaching is a great investment in your wife. That I think will make a real gospel difference to her. And then through her to all that have the privilege to know her. So to you, to your family, to your church, and also the non-Christian community around her. So it’s a gift and an investment in her for the gospel.
00:19:21:24 – 00:19:39:12
Pete Hughes
Thank you so much, Cathy. Like I said, thank you for, helping me with my own marriage, issues. And, I appreciate that, but thank you. Also, just for the work that you invest in, wives around the country and, the great gospel benefit that that brings to. But.
00:19:39:14 – 00:20:02:11
Cathie Heard
Yeah. Well, let me let me just thank you. That’s that’s very con and and it is a bit of a team. So we’ve got. Yeah Sarah Lynch and Steph twos and Nikki and Catherine. So together we’re, we’re sort of hopefully investing in many wives across our country and would love to invest in many more if anyone’s listening and would like to be part of it.
00:20:02:13 – 00:20:23:23
Pete Hughes
Absolutely. And if, in the toolbox, if you are interested, jump on the website, have a look at the coaching thing or, send us an email resources at Reach Australia accommodate you all fall with that. On to Cathy. And to make sure that you’ve got all the information that you need about coaching. And if you if you’re married, go and listen to this with your wife and, see what she thinks.
00:20:23:23 – 00:20:34:06
Pete Hughes
And perhaps you too will have the great insights that I had as we worked through this episode. So, make sure you listen to that around Cathy, once again, thank you so much for joining us.
00:20:34:08 – 00:20:35:21
Cathie Heard
It’s a pleasure. Thank you.
00:20:35:23 – 00:20:43:12
Pete Hughes
I’m Pete Hughes, chat soon.
