How often do we berate one another in our local congregations?  How many times do we have roasted preacher on our way home from worship services?  Do we at times bite and devour one another, so we discourage those who are trying to do their best and serve God?

 

I’ve known many preachers and their families over the years.  Many have tales to tell that sing high praises for their local congregations support, love and care - but there have been times when hurts are shared over the unjust, mean spirited behaviors of certain members and how they abuse their local preacher and his family.

 

For some odd reason, there are certain people who have very unfair expectations of preachers and their families.  We have all heard how hard it is to be - what is termed a  “PK Kid” or preachers kid.  Preacher’s kids have a tough time, they are scrutinized harder it would seem than the rest of the kids running around the congregation.  They’ve more expected of them overall.  They aren’t allowed the same permissions of growing pains that occur during those trying teen years.  Just because they are preachers’ kids they’re supposed to be free from all those temptations, right?

 

Wives of preachers even at times feel the microscope bearing down upon them.  If they don’t sew their own clothes, cook the best hot dishes for potlucks, visit all the sick, clean their homes daily they are missing something in the department of godliness.  However, the big one is if their husbands don’t have crisp pleated suits and white starched shirts to wear on Sunday sermons she isn’t a fit preacher’s wife. Many preachers’ wives have unimaginable pressures place upon them by others in their congregation. 

 

In addition, the unjustifiable demands we place on the preachers is astonishingly unbelievable.  If they don’t expound with proficient enthusiasm during their sermon deliveries or they preach a lesson on something that offends us (even though that means we probably needed it) we will tongue lash their speaking abilities.  We expect our preachers many times to be the only ones who go out and visit the sick and our shut-ins.  We expect them to have the whole congregation in their pristinely clean home at least once a month for dinner.  We expect them to clock in and keep regular office hours.  We expect them to have not only three sermons, but also two bible class lessons ready per week and they are to put out a congregation bulletin with a lesson or article in it as well.  If they don’t smile and greet us with a firm warm handshake every time the building is open we claim he isn’t friendly enough.  The list goes on as to what we place unfairly upon our preachers of the Good Word. 

 

Trouble is too - if we’d open our Bibles we’d soon find that our expectations of our preachers and their families aren’t completely based in what God has stated.  We are the ones walking disorderly and against what God has stated He wants us all to do in His work, and in our treatment of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Why do we expect so much out of those who are just the same as the rest of us?  What is it that makes us feel that we’ve a right to demand perfection out of other human beings?  Why do we think its okay for us to cause others, who are trying their best to serve and live as a Christian, to feel that they will never live up to the standards we’ve set for them?  Why do we seem to relish roasting our preachers and their children and wives?

 

Kerry  L. Marsala is a commentator on social, cultural and political ideologies. She is co-publisher of Sarah's Seed Christian Woman's Journal (www.sarahsseed.freeservers.com) and has published one book, with number two waiting in the wings.