Not-so-quiet Desperation
A Leadership Interview
July 1, 2007
I thought I could handle being married to a pastor … but now I'm not so sure," says Lisa, a character in Desperate Pastors' Wives by Ginger Kolbaba and Christy Scannell (Howard, 2007). The novel tells the story of four pastors' wives in fictitious Red River, Ohio. "It's a town so small that when you take out your garbage, people already know what's in it," Ginger says. We were first interested in the book because Ginger is a former Leadership staffer and currently editor of our sister publication Marriage Partnership. Our interest was further piqued when the authors appeared on Court TV to comment on a recent trial of a pastor's wife accused of killing her husband. How has a fun, breezy novel tapped such a deep need? The characters in our book are all desperate for something: love, faith, peace, fulfillment. They all live in the fishbowl of pastoral ministry. Their husbands don't understand the stress of being a pastor's wife, and they have no one to turn to. So these four women from different churches, different denominations start meeting together. They drive 40 miles out of town to meet at a small café. It's the one place where the façade can come down. Why use a fiction? Surely there are true stories of hurting pastors' wives. Unless it's a murder, who would read it? We wanted to be able to reach out to pastors' wives, but if we did so in a non-fiction, reportorial way, nobody would believe it. From the outside, pastors' families often look so perfect. We wanted church members to pick up the book and say, "Oh, my. I had no idea I was doing this to my pastor's wife. She's just like me, and I need to give her a break." What kind of research did you do? As a pastor's kid, I'm familiar with the struggles of pastors' ...
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