Over the years, the Women’s Ministry Taskforce and now the Women’s Ministry Committee have understood the importance of supporting ministry wives, as a key part of the broader work of sustainable and healthy ministry practices within the PCNSW. Ministry wives are vital and necessary allies in the ministry life of the churches their husbands lead. Resourcing and pastorally caring for ministry wives is not only a strategic practice, but arguably an area of responsibility which the PCNSW could and should embrace.

The Women’s Ministry Committee is committed to better serving the unique needs of ministry wives. There are currently close to 200 ministry wives in the PCNSW and unmet opportunities to provide much needed support to them. One of our current goals is to employ a part time worker, specifically tasked with supporting ministry wives.

This could take the form of providing pastoral support and facilitating involvement in pastoral supervision, mentoring and accessible, relevant training. We envisage these initiatives could include both individual and group support for ministry wives.

We are distributing a survey for your wives, and the retired wives in your congregations, to provide us with information and feedback that will help us inform our application for funding for this position. It will be helpful for us to have more understanding about their current experiences and needs, and types of support that they have found helpful or feel would be beneficial in their current season.

We would be grateful for your support in passing this on to your wives and the retired wives in your congregations.

The survey can be found here.