‘Living In A Fishbowl’: Southern Baptist Pastors’ Wives Share Their Burdens
(ANALYSIS) The Orange County Convention Center in Orlando will be buzzing when 20,000 Southern Baptists gather for their annual national meeting, rushing between forums, worship, reunions, business sessions and politicking about their elections and resolutions.
But there will be an upstairs room set aside June 8 and 9, divided into spaces for one-on-one encounters, while a white-noise machine creates as much privacy as possible. For the second time, leaders connected to a network of Southern Baptist women will meet with pastors' wives who applied, in advance, for counseling.
One 2025 participant offered confidential feedback: “On top of church ministry concerns, I was broken over my relationship with our prodigal daughter and burdened by the time-consuming caregiving responsibilities with my aging mother. Though I had never gone to counseling, I knew its value. ... I was given the freedom to be completely honest, without fear of damaging our family or my testimony.”
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Counselors later discussed the most common concerns, said Cheryl Bell, a former nurse who has a doctorate in biblical counseling. She teaches at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and also helps women who are pursuing doctoral degrees.
Many pastors’ wives say they “live in fishbowls.” Others describe being on the “front lines” of ministry, striving to help husbands who seem to have targets on their backs. In these sessions, participants often expressed anxiety, anger, loneliness and discouragement.
“They are always being observed,” said Bell, reached by Zoom. “It’s a critical gaze. ... I think church members expect their pastors and their wives to be unique — spiritually. ... When they show that they have a sin nature, they feel like they are immediately under judgment.”
Can families hide in a fishbowl?
Bell laughed and added: “That would take a lot of energy. Period.”
To be blunt, many laypeople are not looking for shepherds who are human, and this standard also applies to pastors' wives. Some expect “a professional, someone who is perfect, instead of a fellow sinner — a fellow struggler who has been raised up to lead others because of God's call on their lives.”
The Southern Baptist Convention does not maintain a roster of ministers, since ordinations occur at the local-church level. However, surveys show that America's largest Protestant body has more than 46,000 congregations, some with multiple ministers. In a recent report, the median congregation had 233 members, while 70% had fewer than 400 members, with 44% under 200. However, 8% of Southern Baptist churches have 1,000-plus members.
Membership numbers matter because in many smaller SBC churches, pastors and their wives often need to hold other jobs, said Bell. The sobering reality is that, while some churches allow pastors’ wives to find their own niches, others expect them to function as unpaid employees who are constantly on call, whether that fits into their personal lives and skills or not.
In some smaller churches, the laity seem to “feel they are getting two ministers for the price of one,” she added.
That is a big mistake, since pastors' wives often feel "that they have to be everything to everyone — not being able to say, ‘No, this is not what God has called me to do.’ They need to be willing to say that, even if that invites criticism.”
Counseling sessions at the convention are 90 minutes long, and the leaders all have graduate degrees in counseling. The first half of a session is dedicated to allowing the women to tell their own stories, which is crucial, said Bell, since “we live in a cultural context where people do not listen.”
The rest of the time focuses on dialogue, advice and prayer. On-site follow-up sessions are available for those facing intense challenges.
“The circumstances these women are facing can vary, obviously, but the heart behind it is often experiencing pain in the same kind of way,” said Bell. “Ultimately, we all feel pain in the same way. ... I explain that God is sovereign over suffering and pain and, in his hand, it is a tool that he uses for good.
“We do not have to say that what is happening is good. ... Instead of seeing it as a failure, we have to recognize that God, in his goodness, has allowed trials in our lives to show us where heart work is needed.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.