Eldership and Wives

The qualification in I Timothy 3 states that an Elder candidate “Must be the husband of one wife”. Usually there is a reason behind qualifications and one reason is that the man must be a family man and demonstrate good leadership qualities in his own family so that the congregation can predict his ability to lead God’s family. Not a bad reason but probably not the only reason.

Julie and I were married in 1973 one week out of high school. She remains some 43 years later the only girl I ever dated. When I became an Elder at Parkway she fully supported me in that… of course. Over the course of time I have seen her excel as a Bible class teacher. To this day I can still say she is stronger in the Old Testament than I am. Gradually I saw her taking on other tasks. Tasks that I never asked or hinted that she do. As you know I send out via email my “Church News”. She started copying that and handing it out to people who don’t have email… primarily older people. Her weekly “Church News” is different than mine. Hers includes a prayer list, plus all the emails that I have sent out to the rest of the congregation during the week. In addition, she’ll add anything encouraging that she might find.

Speaking of the “Prayer List” she is the one who maintains and updates that. I just forward it on. She also keeps up the “Membership Roster” which includes email addresses, birthdays and anniversaries. Every once in a while someone will thank me for an anniversary or birthday card. Everyone in the congregation receives those but they are not from me… they are from her signed “Rob and Julie Perkins”. BTW, she doesn’t get as many thanks as the number of cards she sends out but she has never complained about that.

She sees needs and encourages me to do something about it.

A while back I closed my fist and told her jokingly she was “quenching my spirit”. She said “I have been trying for 40 years to quench your spirit and so far have been unsuccessful”. And yet a while back I had 3-4 members who were kind of down on me and said (for the first time), “sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it”. A few days later she told me some things about what a fine Elder she thought I was and some other kind things and a light came on and I said, “this is about what I said the other day?”

She is vital in organizing church Pot lucks like the one we just had.

She’s a quiet person and some people don’t understand her. Several years ago one of our Hispanic members asked me if she was prejudiced. No she’s just quiet and not as extroverted as I am. She doesn’t like attention drawn to herself and I’m sure I’ll be in trouble for this but I wanted to illustrate what an Elders wife can do working behind the scenes and not seeking the limelight and how she has helped transform me.

I’ll never forget the day when a light clicked on for me and I thought…. She believes in me.And that has made all the difference.