Do you have another woman in your life teaching you how to be a good pastor’s wife? Have you ever been mentored in your role or are you having to figure it out by yourself as you go along?
1 Thessalonians 5:11 tells us to encourage and build one another up, and that’s what we want to think about today—encouraging each other in our role as ministry wives.
I recently talked with Jeana Floyd, wife of Dr. Ronnie Floyd, about how ministry wives can encourage each other. Greg served on Dr. Floyd’s staff a few years ago, and Jeana quickly became one of my favorite people. In addition to being fun and tenderhearted, Jeana is passionate about encouraging women who serve alongside their husbands in ministry. She’s intentional about connecting with other pastor wives, praying for them, listening to them, and supporting them. Jeana has been a pastor’s daughter, a pastor’s wife, and a pastor’s mother, so she understands our role and has lots of wisdom to share. Here is some of our conversation…I hope you’ll be blessed by Jeana’s sweet heart and words of encouragement.
Janet:
Welcome to Married to the Ministry! Jeana is married to Dr. Ronnie Floyd and y’all have been in ministry how long? Your whole married life, I guess, haven’t you?
Jeana Floyd:
Our entire married life, yes. 46 years.
Janet:
46 years! Wow! So you knew going in that you were going to be a pastor’s wife, I guess.
Jeana Floyd:
Well, I was actually raised in a pastor’s home and I grew up saying, I’ll never marry a pastor, but I did and I have no regrets. And I said that more in jest than anything because I wouldn’t want to have done any other thing.
Janet:
And so tell us a little bit about where y’all have served, a little bit about your family. I know you’ve got two great boys.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes. We spent most of our younger life in Texas, both born and raised there. We met at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, we married, and then we served in several smaller churches. God called us to Arkansas and now 33 years later at this same church we served, never intending to think that God would keep us here that long, but he did. And he had a great and masterful plan for us, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed being here. This is home to us, for sure. We have two sons, Josh and Nick, and Josh is married to Kate, and they have three wonderful teenage boys now. Nick is married to Meredith, and they have four children ranging from eight to 16. They are really, really busy, both families are. Josh is a head football coach in Alabama right outside of Birmingham.
Janet:
And y’all are a football family.
Jeana Floyd:
We are a football family and all of our grandsons play, which are four. Three of Josh’s play, and one of Nick and Meredith’s, their only son plays football. So yes, football season is getting started and we could not be more happy about it. We’ll be spending a lot of time on the road going back and forth to Alabama and watching back home here. But upon our departure and calling to go and do something else, our son Nick, who was already on our staff, became the senior pastor.
Janet:
Now this is Cross Church here in northwest Arkansas. But, y’all started at First Baptist Springdale then I guess as this whole area exploded, and your church exploded and grew and y’all have multiple campuses now.
Jeana Floyd:
That’s the reason for the name change. It started out as First Baptist Church Springdale, and then as we continued to add campuses, it became just a challenge in publication and everything. Now it’s just Cross Church at whatever location they’re at. So it’s a lot clearer, and then people just choose the location that’s closest to them usually.
Janet:
So when y’all stepped out of the pastorate to do another arm of ministry, Nick took over, so now your son is your pastor?
Jeana Floyd:
My son is my pastor, yes. That is correct.
Janet:
Wow. That’s pretty unusual to not only be raised in a pastor’s home, to be a pastor’s wife, and now to be your pastor’s mother. There’s probably not a whole lot of ladies out there wearing all those hats.
Jeana Floyd:
No, it’s highly unusual. Also the transition of the church from Ronnie’s leadership to Nick’s leadership has really been a huge blessing. The church is thriving. We could not be more pleased. It is a joy to be back in Arkansas with Nick and Meredith, and to be able to worship in a church that we loved for so many years, and love so many of the people, and have so much history here. So it’s truly been a joy, and we are grateful for the way the Lord has made that transition in the church just very seamless and just thriving.
Janet:
It is. We have enjoyed watching Nick do a great job too, with y’all’s great church. Maybe that’s another topic sometime–how to transition out of not being the pastor’s wife anymore–another whole topic… because that’s quite an adjustment. I’ve been there and done that too. People aren’t always quite sure what to do with you when you’re not the pastor and wife anymore.
Jeana Floyd:
Exactly. We’ll save that for another time, another podcast.
Janet:
One of the things that I love about you is how encouraging you are and how joyful you are. So here’s my first question:
What brings you joy as a pastor’s wife?
Jeana Floyd:
I think one of my favorite things through the years was watching young staff wives blossom in their role as whatever ministry their husband specifically felt called to, is seeing them grow into who they are as women, and most of them are mothers. We would have newly marrieds on our staff that did not have children, and just watching them grow and develop and gain confidence to learn how to walk by their husband’s side and yet not lose their own personal identity.
One thing that I saw, because we served for so many years, is that as the church has changed so much, so radically in the last few years. Many years ago, it was assumed that a pastor’s wife or a minister’s wife had been raised in church and knew all about church and church life and spiritual things. But what we found is there are many wives who come into ministry, some of them didn’t even think they were going to marry a minister, but find themselves as minister’s wives, and may not have even been raised in a Christian home, may have been saved in college or in high school, and did not have that bringing in the kind of relationship with a local church that some other women have had. And I’ve seen that a lot more…
Janet:
So they’re having to learn church in addition to ministry.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes. So they’ve got church going on, marriage going on, life going on, and it can be really overwhelming and intimidating. I think there’s a certain image that church members place on staff wives, and I would think most of it is good. But sometimes as staff wives, they try to measure up to something and they don’t even really know what that is. They’re under a lot of pressure. I try to help those wives find their true calling. Most of the time they walk alongside their husband in ministry, particularly like a youth pastor. His wife would be very involved in the youth ministry.
Janet:
Or she’d never see him!
Jeana Floyd:
Exactly! But they also can have a personal calling to another area. I’ll give myself a quick example, Ronnie was the senior pastor and I walked by his side in everything I could, but I also felt called to just, I’ll just mention a couple of things. One was our local jail ministry through our church, and I loved serving in our jail ministry, and that had nothing to do with Ronnie, but that was a call on my life for a season. I also led the cancer support group in our church for nine years. That was a significant call on my life separate from Ronnie being called as a pastor.
And so giving these young minister’s wives the freedom to grow and bloom and blossom and get comfortable, and see them succeed in what God’s called them to do, that’s a huge blessing. Because our staff was so young, and always has been young, we have a lot of turnover on our staff. They go to serve in different positions. Seeing that timid little young woman who could hardly stand to lead in silent prayer, to become the pastor’s wife where they leave and go, and to see her blossom and use her giftedness, that’s a real joy. And I’ve seen that over and over again. I feel like I have a lot of daughters, a lot of spiritual ministry wives all over the country, because I just loved investing in them.
Janet:
Our husbands served together for a short time, and I was able to see your heart for encouraging pastor’s wives and ministry wives. I’ve heard it said there’s not really a job description for being a ministry wife. And I guess that’s going to look different wherever you are and whoever you happen to be married to. But we all share some common insecurities and fears and just all that, so it’s always good to have somebody cheering us on. You’re a really good cheerleader.
Jeana Floyd:
Thank you. I want to be. I do want to be that.
Janet:
Well, you said y’all have been married for 46 years, and most of that’s been seminary and ministry pastoring. So I would imagine over the years you’ve encountered some struggles or challenges. Sometimes we don’t get to overcome them, sometimes the Lord just does sustain us through it.
Can you share about a difficult season in ministry that you experienced?
Jeana Floyd:
A couple of things come to mind. One is very personal and the other would be more general, but relating, I would think, to almost every ministry wife. The first thing would be a difficult season for us personally. And I was diagnosed with breast cancer cancer in 1990, and I was 35 and our boys were young, and it was a complete shock. There was no breast cancer in our family, and yet I found myself, as a very young woman, with that diagnosis. But what that did was amazing. In our church, of course everybody knew, but our church really became our family at that time. We did not live close to our family. All of our families were in Texas, still…
Janet:
How long had y’all been at the church when this occurred?
Jeana Floyd:
We moved to the church in ’86.
Janet:
So y’all were still in the growing and building phase.
Jeana Floyd:
Yeah, we still, we would say, fairly new. And so it was a real bonding between pastor and people. I would say that. So in spite of the fact that it was extremely difficult for us during that time to walk through that, the surgery, the chemotherapy, the radiation, but our church was wonderful. And usually the pastor and wife are the ones who are giving and ministering, and we found ourselves being ministered to.
As hard as that was, it was life changing and I wouldn’t change it now on this side. The Lord gives me opportunities even to this day to minister to women with breast cancer. And so I’m highly grateful for that and grateful for the number of years that he spared my life. That’s been 33 years. I have much to be thankful for.
I think the other thing that probably every minister’s wife can relate to, I’m just like 99% sure that they’re all going to be nodding their heads when they hear this, and that was the personal struggle of people leaving the church.
Janet:
Greg and I were talking about that yesterday.
Jeana Floyd:
Yeah, it is so, so hard. And I realized, and I talk about this in my book, I realized that sometimes people leave the church because of conflict with you or the leadership or whatever, but there are times when people leave the church and it has nothing to do with you or that the church failed them in some way. It just is dependent on the circumstances in their life. So I think as I grew to understand that it wasn’t always a failure on either our part or the part of the church, it helped me to understand. It’s more difficult, I think, to bear when they leave angry and unhappy. But when Ronnie was the pastor, he would always try to meet with them personally and see if they could come to resolve or solution. And sometimes…
Janet:
Sometimes they just sneak out the back door, mad.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes, they they do.
Janet:
And you hear about it later.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes, that is true too. Yes. And so you have to deal with it, I think, every time somebody leaves, you’re going to have to deal with it differently. And I took it really hard personally, emotionally, and it would beat me down and I just had to learn and grow through that. And you know what else? Sometimes God removes people and there is a purging, and you look back and you think, that was really good that they left. Sometimes people who want to create problems do need to leave and go somewhere else. Just trusting God in the midst of it all, coming back to that daily quiet time with him, trusting him, just walking through it, there’s not really any way to walk through it easily. You just get in the mud and you just keep on trudging through it.
Janet:
And we’ve learned, too, that you can’t continue to grieve the people who are no longer part of your church family. You just have to love the ones that are there. But you can’t help but take it personally sometimes.
Jeana Floyd:
I have told ministry wives, though, through the years, if someone’s mad in their particular ministry or whatever, I just encourage them, don’t let those few ruin the joy and the experience of working with the others, the majority who are for you and are working hard alongside with you. Don’t let those few taint what you think about the church overall, because then you become bitter and resentful and ineffective, which is ultimately what the enemy wants. And so we don’t want him to win. We’re going to press on and work with those who God leaves us. And that’s a good word. You cannot grieve forever those who have left your church.
On kind of a funny side note, when you stay as long as we did, you see some leave and you see them come back. You just never know! Ronnie has always said, never let anyone outside your circle of love. Never let anyone outside your circle of love. That’s the way we’ve tried to live. How you respond to those people may determine whether or not they feel the freedom to come back at a later time. So just leaving the door open, it’s easier said than done, but just leaving that door open and forgiving and moving on.
Janet:
That’s a good word. Jeana, you mentioned a minute ago your book, and I do want to highlight that your book is called 10 Things Every Minister’s Wife Needs to Know. I want to refer to, to start off with, something that I read in your book that I thought was really good. For many ministers’ wives, it can be hard to separate the issue of who you are in Christ, and who you’re married to and what he does for a living. And since I’ve been married to a man who was not a pastor before he became a pastor, I guess my perspective is a little different because I was always just Greg’s wife, and Greg went off to his job and I did whatever I was doing as a wife and a mother and a Christ follower.
But then when he became a minister, nobody really told me that, okay, now your role has got to change. I was real nervous about that because I didn’t really know any pastor’s wives and I didn’t know what that was supposed to look like. But I know women do struggle with who they are. You alluded to that a minute ago, the things that you have done just as a believer and in your giftings and your passions that God had put on your heart, that had nothing to do with what your husband was doing in his job.
How would you encourage a new minister’s wife who may be grappling with concerns like…
What does my husband’s call to ministry mean for me? Is that going to change the way I have to parent or change what I have to do at church?
Jeana Floyd:
Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say I truly believe that it is a great time to be a minister’s wife. My mother was a pastor’s wife and there were a lot more expectations and just demands on her that I never felt as a pastor’s wife. And I saw her serve faithfully for over 50 years and do well. But the world has changed, and it’s changed in a good way. And pastor’s wives, better than ever before, I think can be who they are in Christ, and yet 100% support their husbands. And so I want to encourage any minister’s wife that you can be who God called you to be. And that’s based on your personal walk with Christ and His calling. Now, if you don’t have that on a regular basis, you may really flounder about your identity, but when you base your identity in Christ, then He will show you.
I remember specifically when God called me to our jail ministry. It was through a video on a Sunday morning as we had a fall preview of ministries in our church. And I looked at that video, and God quickened my heart and said, “I want you to be a part of that.” And I knew immediately, but our hearts have to be sensitive to what God might be calling us to do. And the only way we get to do that is when we walk with Christ. We can’t depend on our husband’s walk. And so at the same time, I think you can be so committed to your husband, to his ministry, that you don’t have to make it be a loss to you, but it’s an addition to you.
Look at it as a positive. Most people really admire their pastor’s wife or their minister’s wives, their youth minister’s wife. You’re in such an influential position in such a positive way. And you’ve got eyes looking at you, and it’s not in condemnation. They’re just looking to you. God has gifted you and placed you in positions where you can use that for his glory. What a wonderful thing. And especially when you find out your true giftedness, individually. You have the influence as a minister’s wife, as some other people don’t do.
One thing that I feel, and I talk about this in the book, is about just being visible by your husband’s side. You don’t have to be that person that’s always at a microphone or always leading a ministry or always doing this or that. Minister’s wives can get busy about nothing and be miserable. But I really feel like when you find what God’s called you to do, then you’ll be fulfilled because He’s gifted you in that way.
But at the same time, walk alongside of your husband. Sometimes that may be just visually being there. Just let people see you with your husband. Don’t be two separate people that they never see together. Visual. It’s visual. That will decrease, I think, the demands of Who is she? What is she? Where is she? Why isn’t she around? Just being visible will go a long way, and supporting him. I just think it’s a great time, but you got to walk with Jesus to find out what that needs to look like for you.
Janet:
Well, and the whole “visible” you’re talking about, my mind immediately goes to two separate occasions where somebody came up to me and said, I watched how y’all were sitting together in the pew, and I was blessed by seeing the affection between you. And my first thought was, well, shoot. I don’t want people looking at me during church and seeing, are we holding hands? Has he got his arm around me? Are we sitting too far apart? But on the other hand, that really did impress on my heart that I don’t have to be in front of the microphone, in front of the room, for people to be watching. How does the pastor and his wife do marriage? How did they interact with their kids? That kind of stuff.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes, what a blessing. God’s allowed you and Greg to be in that position of leadership, and leadership demands responsibility, but it’s not a burden of responsibility. It’s a blessing to be able to show the world what a Christian marriage should look like. Not perfection, but what does a Christian marriage look like? The world is crying out, inside the church and outside the church, to see true marriage. So yes, sometimes we feel a little in the fishbowl, but yet what an opportunity to be transparent in those ways that we’re honest to ourselves. You and Greg weren’t putting on a show.
Janet:
No, we were just being us.
Jeana Floyd:
You’re just sitting there being y’all. And so God used that, just being visible, being present, being together. I love it. Some of the most influential couples in our lives have been pastor and wife, and where it’s both of their names, not just one. And I know that doesn’t always happen.
Janet:
Well, I know that in some denominations, the pastor and his wife are called. They’re both up there on the billboard as you pass the church. A lot of them do serve, because we are serving together, whether we’ve got a business card saying it or not.
Jeana Floyd:
I would just say, take every advantage of that, and then deal with the disadvantages. Being a minister’s wife is no different than other professions. I watch my daughter-in-law as a coach’s wife.
Janet:
Talk about hours and hours and hours away from home, away from the family!
Jeana Floyd:
I have a close friend who’s a doctor’s wife. Let’s don’t think that ministry life is the only vocation that has challenges.
Janet:
Or that your husband is distracted by work a lot.
Jeana Floyd:
Yes. Because they are, but so are other husbands in different professions.
Janet:
Yes, you’re exactly right. You’re exactly right. You mentioned you grew up in a pastor’s home, and I know you had a sweet, good mama. What did you see your mother do that you do emulate in your ministry?
How did growing up in a pastor’s home impact your role as a pastor’s wife?
Jeana Floyd:
I did have a sweet mama who’s in heaven now, and my parents were wonderful. My brother and I did not go through a rebellion against the church or anything like that. I’ve always loved the church. There’s never been a time in my life when I did not love the local church. But many decades ago, as I said, the pastor’s wife, everybody thought she should do everything. And I saw my mother play the piano, teach the mission friends, do vacation Bible school, lead the WMU.
My mother, what I know now, later, is that my mother was an extreme introvert. And so it took a toll on her because she was expected to do more than she could really handle. My mother was a quiet person. She was faithful for all those years. And she did walk by my father’s side faithfully and with joy. But when I saw her not have to carry all of that, it was good for her. That’s why I say, it’s much better today than it used to be. The expectations are totally different.
Janet:
Well, I know there are a lot of women… I wouldn’t call myself an introvert, but I’m more of an introvert than an extrovert. I have learned how to be an extrovert, especially watching Greg, who is a natural-born extrovert, but a lot of pastor’s wives that I’ve encountered over the years, they’re very much like that. And they don’t ever want to be in front of the room. They don’t want to teach. They don’t want anybody… They’re more private. And so that’s a line they walk. Your mom obviously didn’t always feel the freedom to say, yeah, I’m not going to do that.
Jeana Floyd:
No, she didn’t know how to say no.
Janet:
Right. But I think in today’s world, I know I feel the freedom. I don’t work VBS because, well… I just don’t, for several reasons. And I no longer feel like I have to apologize for that, because there are other things, other ways that God does use me. So it’s okay to be shy and quiet. You can sit in the back of the room and just talk to somebody who’s also feeling overlooked or…
Jeana Floyd:
I am an introvert by nature. Most people would not believe that. But I am an introvert. But being an introvert, or an extrovert, doesn’t give you a privilege to not love people. And you can love people, which I dearly love people, and be an introvert. Being an introvert just means that you recharge a different way than an extrovert. And you enjoy quiet, alone times, and that’s how you refresh and recharge, so that you can go out and be that extrovert that you need to be with your people. And I love the church, I love people, but when I’ve had enough, I need to go home and replenish and refresh and renew.
Janet:
I do like what you said about, just because we’re an introvert doesn’t give us a license to ignore people or not participate in things or to always be in the sidelines. Often, when you’re the new pastor’s wife coming in, church people compare you to the previous pastor’s wife.
Jeana Floyd:
Really?
Janet:
Oh my goodness, yes. And you sometimes hear things about, yeah, she didn’t ever talk to me, or she never came. We didn’t even see her in the building ever. And that’s not really…
Jeana Floyd:
No, that’s not good. That’s where I go back to that visibility. Just being visible.
Most people would be shocked at this, but for all the years that we were here, I never led women’s ministry. And many times it seems to fall into the hands and the lap of senior pastor’s wife to lead the women’s ministry. I never felt called to lead the women’s ministry, but was I there? You better bet I was supporting it, I would be at the planning meetings. I would give input. I definitely showed up for every event. I was involved in Bible studies. I did my best to be as supportive, but that didn’t mean that I had to be the leader.
This church gave me the freedom to do that. We had people who were much better than I ever would’ve been. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t a part of it. It just meant that I didn’t do all the planning, organization, all the work. I was never a paid staff member. It just means that I let somebody else who is really gifted, lead our women’s ministry. But I was 100% supportive and always there.
Janet:
At our church now we have a women’s team in place and the last thing I want to do is come in and disrespect what they’ve already been doing and say, well, I’ve got a better way to do things and take over. Because we don’t have to be in charge of it to still be able to support it. You can support it without being in charge of it.
Uh oh!
Our conversation ran longer than usual, so we split it into two parts. Next week I’ll drop a bonus episode of the podcast with the rest of my chat with Jeana, and I’ll post it here, too. She shares some wisdom on managing church conflict and building a healthy staff culture, so please come back for more good stuff from Jeana!
Click here for the Amazon link for Jeana’s book 10 Things Every Minister’s Wife Needs to Know.
Thanks for reading, friend! As we enter this holiday season, my prayer for you is that you will draw closer to the God of peace and let Him fill your hearts with joy.
