Anonymous Asks (321)

“I just graduated Bible college without finding a partner. Would taking a pastorate improve my prospects?”

Having only just graduated, and being presumably somewhere in your mid-twenties, if your primary concern is attracting women, I recommend starting a rock band. That’s a sure-fire profession for wannabe chick magnets. A pastorate, not so much.

Of course, if you can’t sing or write music, that’s a bit of a problem. Let’s work with your original suggestion a little.

Finding a wife is a good thing, or at least it can be if you find the right sort of wife and treat her the right way. The responsibility of oversight among God’s people is also a noble task. So both your goals are good ones, depending on how you go about them. For example, taking a pastorate to improve your marriage prospects (assuming you can find one fresh out of Bible college, of which there is no guarantee) is very much the tail wagging the dog. Caring for God’s people should never be merely a means to some other end. It is a worthy undertaking in itself, and needs to be approached in a worthy manner, recognizing the importance of the task.

As you worded it, I can see several potential problems you will almost surely encounter along the way.

Improving Your Prospects

First, to answer your question directly, it’s certainly possible taking a pastorate may improve your prospects of attracting a wife. Some women will always be drawn to men in the public eye, and standing on a platform on Sunday morning will certainly get you more attention than reorganizing the church library or cleaning the toilets. The question is whether you will attract the right kind of woman that way. The answer to that depends on both you and her.

On your side, there is the question of whether you have the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. If the Holy Spirit has not equipped you for the job, graduating seminary or Bible college will not be an effective substitute. Learning how to structure a three-point message and correctly understand the scripture does not guarantee your ministry will build up the body of Christ. Only a combination of gift, dependence on Christ, and life experience will do that. In addition to your character, preaching will also put your looks and personality on display. If you are naturally handsome, gregarious and persuasive, yes, some women will be drawn to you. That is entirely normal. On the other hand, if you are nerdy, awkward and obsessive about biblical esoterica, exposing those qualities every Sunday will probably work against your prospects.

Godly women are attracted to spiritual men. Ordinary women prize the usual highly-valued male qualities: charisma, power, security and status. The foolish among them may see a man on the platform as a catch, not because of his devotion to Christ or the power of his preaching, but because they imagine there is a certain cachet in being the pastor’s wife or a measure of security in a regular salary. When such a woman discovers — as she will in due course — that being a pastor’s wife is hard work, that job security is questionable and the salary rarely impressive, and that a pastorate comes with all kinds of challenges that keep a man perpetually unavailable to his wife and family, she is bound to be greatly disappointed. She may even feel she has been the victim of a bait-and-switch. You don’t want to attract that sort of wife.

So, yes, taking a pastorate may improve your prospects, which can be good or bad. Equally, it may not make much of a difference.

Cart Before the Horse

Secondly, as I mentioned previously, taking a pastorate to improve your chances of finding a wife is putting the cart before the horse. It’s not just a matter of out-of-whack priorities. It’s also that scripture puts the question the other way around.

The New Testament never portrays shepherding God’s people as a stable career. Scripture does not contemplate the predictable, salaried position most people think of as a pastorate today. Even the apostle Paul had periods of service in which he worked with his hands so that he could preach and teach without charge. Moreover, the elders he had appointed in every town on his missionary journeys were not young, single men looking for wives; rather, they were older husbands and fathers who had demonstrated their ability to lead God’s people by successfully raising Christian families. Now of course not all gifted pastors and teachers are recognized elders. Some do the work of quietly caring for their fellow believers and instructing them in the word of God informally, without acknowledgement or financial recompense. This does not sound like the sort of situation you are looking for.

A “pastor” contracted to provide the primary spiritual leadership for a congregation surely ought to meet Paul’s qualifications for overseers, because that is what he is doing. If he isn’t, exactly what is the church paying him for? It’s a lot cheaper to play Andy Stanley’s latest YouTube sermon to the congregation than hire a full-time pastor whose only useful skill is platform preaching.

So then, a godly wife and a couple of decades successful parenting may qualify you for recognition as a biblical pastor. It does not work the other way around.

A Better Idea

If you want to make yourself attractive to the right sort of woman, get out there and find yourself a decent-paying secular job to demonstrate you can maintain regular employment and provide for a family. Clear up any school debt, and commit yourself to serving the Christians in a local church uncompensated and unheralded. Perhaps you can help with a youth group or teach Sunday School, though there are surely many other ways you can make yourself useful. Church lawns don’t mow themselves. Follow our Lord’s teaching and take the low place. One of these days, someone may say, “Friend, move up higher.”

In some churches, if they find you have a teaching gift, they may eventually ask you to speak occasionally. Make the most of those opportunities, but do not view them as the most important service you can provide to God’s people. Shepherding is not all about talk. It’s about observing the sheep, marking their needs and working away at meeting them one by one in order to help them become increasingly Christ-like. It’s about chasing the strays and bringing them back to the flock. It’s about pointing the lambs to green pastures and steering them away from the thistles. It’s about baring your teeth at the wolves to show them they are prowling near the wrong fold.

As you do this, keep your eye out for single, godly women, and take every opportunity to get to know them. But don’t make marriage your focus or top priority. There’s nothing less appealing to women than a needy man with a fixation on marriage-come-hell-or-high-water, and little more appealing than a man with a purpose in life entirely unrelated to the fairer sex.