When Your Husband Isn't the Spiritual Leader at Home

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In this episode, Elizabeth Urbanowicz tackles a deeply personal question: What can a wife do when her husband, though a church leader, doesn’t take spiritual leadership at home? Elizabeth provides practical, biblical insights on how to encourage spiritual growth and model biblical values for children without nagging or undermining authority. Join us to explore healthy, God-honoring ways to approach this challenging topic.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello, friends. Today's podcast question says, "My husband, a deacon at our church, is not a spiritual leader at home. We've talked about it because it worries me that our daughters will have him as a model for their future husbands. How do I deal with this without nagging or undermining his authority by asking our pastor to talk to him?" Now, this is a question that we have received a lot at Foundation Worldview, not this specific question about a husband who's a deacon, but a specific question about husbands not taking spiritual leadership in the home. And I just know personally, even though I'm not married, I know just from talking with friends that this is a concern that many Christian women have and even at Foundation Worldview, where we're a ministry that is trying to equip parents to faithfully disciple their children. The majority of our followers and subscribers are women. And so I know that this topic is something that a lot of Christian women wrestle with. So this is something we're going to dive down deep into today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

Now, I just want to be clear upfront that I am going to offer some very general, broad, specific guidelines. However, to anyone who is in this situation where you feel like your husband is not taking spiritual leadership in the home, or you know someone whose husband is really not taking spiritual leadership in the home, please know that my guidelines are very general and specific. I do not know the ins and outs of your specific situation. So the advice that I can offer and speak into your situation is limited.

So my advice would be to seek godly counsel from an older woman at your church, someone who knows Scripture, who loves the Lord, who can offer sound counsel because she knows the ins and outs of your situation in a way that I never could. So that would be first piece of advice.

Now, the next thing that I want to be clear on is I don't know exactly what this questioner means by her husband not being a spiritual leader. I think that there's probably three different directions that this term "not a spiritual leader" could go in. And so first, I think this term could mean that a husband does not intentionally seek to disciple your children and lead your home in seeking God through Scripture reading and prayer. I think another direction this could go is that maybe it means a husband is stuck in a serious sin pattern that affects you and your children and he shows no sign of repentance or sanctification. Or a third possibility could mean that a husband is abusive to you and your children and you are not safe at your home. Now, depending on what you mean by a husband not being a spiritual leader, my advice may look different.

So first, if anyone is listening to this podcast and thinking that your husband is not a spiritual leader, and what you mean by that is that he is abusive to you and your children, my advice is very clear and direct on this one, that you need to contact the authorities in your community and you need to contact the elders at your church and you and your children need to get to a safe place. So if there is abuse going on, that is very clear guidance that you need to contact the authorities in your community and the elders at your church, and you and your children need to get to a safe place.

For the next situation, if by not being a spiritual leader, you mean that your husband is stuck in a serious sin pattern that affects you and your children and he shows no sign of repentance or sanctification. This is something that, if you've never talked with him about this before, this is something that you need to humbly approach him about, that he is sinning in this way that is affecting you and your children. He's stuck in this pattern and you haven't seen any growth in him. Now, we're all stuck in certain sin patterns. That doesn't mean we justify these sin patterns, but we're all going to struggle with sin for our entire lives. We're going to struggle with it. Our spouse is going to struggle with it. Our children are going to struggle with it, and so we have to have grace in understanding that we have not married a perfect person. Our spouse is never going to be perfect. We are never going to be perfect. However, there's a difference between a sin struggle that a spouse is actually working towards where they are seeking the Lord's help. They're seeking accountability at church and with other brothers in the Lord who can really encourage them and hold them accountable. And you actually see some signs of sanctification versus a sin pattern where your spouse is completely blind to it and they're not seeking repentance, they're not seeking accountability. You see no sanctification in that. Those are two different situations. So if you see that your spouse is really struggling with this but is really putting the elements for growth in his life, that he's seeking accountability from those at church, he's seeking the Lord through prayer, and you do see small steps of sanctification that is completely different than someone who is unrepentant and you see no sanctification in. So if it's the case that you've talked with your husband about this, he doesn't agree with you and he's being very stubborn about this or he agrees with you, but he's not taking any steps towards actually being sanctified in this area, I do believe that is a time when you can go and talk to your pastor and ask your pastor what he would advise you to do in this situation that you're going through. You're not going to tattle on your husband. You're not going to try to get him in trouble, but you're going to just seek out counsel for what should you do to continue to love your husband and respect him well in this area where you just see no repentance and no growth and no sanctification in his life. That the role of a pastor is one of a shepherd. So he and the other elders at your church are there to offer guidance and support and correction.

Now, this specific questioner said that her husband is a deacon in the church. And so going to a pastor, not to say can you talk to him, but saying "What should I do?" is something that is important because Scripture has given very specific commands and descriptions of what the qualifications are for an elder and for a deacon. And the qualifications for a deacon are laid out specifically in first Timothy chapter three verses eight through 13, and I'll read that passage to us. Now, Paul writes, "Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus."

So if you are in a position where your husband is in this position of leadership, and there are some parts of this qualification as a deacon managing their own children, managing their households well, holding the faith with a clear conscience. If there are some of these things that you know, man, my husband is really falling short in this and you've talked to him about it and he's unresponsive and unrepentant, you're not going to go to the elders at your church to tattle on him, but to say, what do I do? How do I walk forward in this in a biblical way going to them for counsel?

Now, for those of you who are listening and are thinking, oh my goodness, my church doesn't even have a leadership structure like this. We don't have elders, we don't have deacons. This is one of the reasons why it's really important that we be very careful when we are choosing a church church to join and for our family to be a part of that we need to make sure that they are aligning with the biblical structure for leadership, that there should be a plurality of elders. There shouldn't just be one elder. There should be multiple elders or pastors who are overseeing the flock. And then we actually really need to get to know the pastors and their families. Are they actually living according to what God has laid out in his word for the qualifications for elders, similarly for deacons. So this is just a word of caution that we need to be really careful when choosing a church that we're choosing one that has a biblical model of leadership.

Now, I just went through two possible things of what it could mean of a husband not taking spiritual leadership. We covered abuse and now we covered a husband being stuck in a serious sin pattern. What I think this questioner probably means, and what I think most people who are listening to this podcast and thinking that they have a similar situation, what I think most people probably mean is that their husband does not intentionally seek to disciple the children or to lead the home in seeking God through Scripture and prayer. I think that the majority of people that talk about a husband not taking spiritual leadership in the home, meaning that the husband is not intentionally seeking to disciple the children or lead the family in Scripture reading and prayer. Now, ideally, would a husband do this? Yes, ideally a husband would seek to intentionally disciple his children. He would seek to lead the family in Scripture reading and prayer. And so that is a good desire to have a desire to have a husband who is discipling the children, who's leading the family in Scripture reading and prayer. However, Scripture reading and prayer are not the sum total of what it means to be a spiritual leader in the home. So I think sometimes we need to broaden our definition of what it means.

So I would ask, does your husband provide for your family's physical needs? Does he have a job? Is he providing financially? Do you have a roof over your heads? Do you have enough food on the table? And if the answer is yes, then that is a form of spiritual leadership that he is taking leadership in the home in that way. Then is he physically present at home? Does he care for things around the house? Is he developing relationships with you and your children? Because if he's physically present, he's caring for things around the home, he's developing relationship with you and with your children. These are all things that are encompassed in leading the home well. And so would encourage you just to think through these things and to be grateful for the ways in which your husband is already taking spiritual leadership in the home. And so it could be really helpful to have this mindset shift that rather than focusing on these are the things he's not doing that I really wish he were doing, which those things are good to say. Wow, God, thank you for the ways that he is providing for our home. Thank you for the ways that he is taking spiritual leadership.

Now, I know something that some women are concerned with is that they are having more spiritual input into their children's lives than their husband is. Now, a lot of times in many family situations, it is the wife who is spending more time with the children. So if the wife is spending more time with the children, naturally she is going to have more of an opportunity to guide them spiritually. And if she's the one that's spending more time with them, this is a good thing. You wouldn't want to never guide your children spiritually until your husband was there if you're spending more time with your children. So just know that you are also a leader in your home. Scripture is clear that the husband is the ultimate leader in the home, but the wife still has leadership as well, that the husband and wife are a team and they're leading together. The husband is the ultimate authority, but the wife is also a leader in the home. And so you spiritually guiding your children is a good thing and something that you should do. And if you're spending more time with your children, clearly you are going to have more of an impact and an influence over their lives, and that is okay because that is the role that God has given you in this season.

So if you find yourself in this situation where your husband is not really discipling your children through taking them through Scripture and praying with them consistently, just some practical tips. My first tip would be to pray for your husband daily, pray that God would convict him of the areas in which he is not leading well. Pray that God would help you to trust him and that you would trust God, that you would not seek to manipulate or control or nag. And pray that you would find your ultimate satisfaction in God because God truly is your protector and your provider. So pray for those things. Pray for your husband, pray for yourself.

I saw this recently in the life of a friend of mine. She recently got married and there was just this one area in her husband's life where she just saw he needed tremendous growth and she started talking with him about it. She talked to him multiple times about it, and he was just kind of getting frustrated and wasn't really responsive. And so eventually it wasn't something where she or her children were in danger. It wasn't something that was like a sin pattern that was going to make it so that her children were going to walk away from the faith, nothing like that. But she just started praying for him and she was like, God, I can't change his heart, but you can. And a few months later, her husband came to her and he just shared some of the things that God had been working on in him, and it was the exact things that she had been praying for. Now, I'm not saying that this is going to happen exactly the same and everybody's situation that you pray that God would change your husband in a specific area and he will, but that God can do what we cannot. We cannot change another person's heart, but God can. So prayer is foundational in this.

My second recommendation would be to affirm your husband in the ways in which he does lead well, that if you want your husband to take even more leadership in the home, telling him the ways that he's not doing it well is not what's going to help him because he's just going to feel cut down and discouraged, and he's going to feel like if he can't lead well in these things he's already trying to do, why is he going to try to take on more leadership? So just affirm the ways in which he is already leading well. Speak well of him in front of your children, speak well of him in front of others. Start daily practicing gratitude. Just start thinking of what is one thing each day that you can thank your husband for. Whether it's the way that he provides for you financially, whether it's him taking out the trash, whether it's him doing the dishes or cooking dinner or anything that you can just thank him for. Just seek to thank him for things that he's already doing well. And affirm him in the ways he is leading well. Just tell him how grateful you are for that and what a good job he is doing. And don't nag about the ways you think he could be doing things better. Now, this is a really hard thing to do, especially just with the certain tendencies that females and males have. I remember hearing in an Elizabeth Elliot talk one time that she said she envisioned hell as a place where the milk was bubbling over on the stove and the toast was burning, and men were assigned with the job of doing something and women were assigned with the job of doing nothing. Now, obviously that was meant to be a joke in her talk, but it does highlight the natural sinful tendencies that men and women have now, not all men and women, but men and men and women have these sinful tendencies that men tend to have the sinful tendency towards passivity towards not taking action. And women tend to have more of a sinful tendency towards control and manipulation, the need to be in control of everything. And so if you are nagging your spouse, you're just playing into these natural sinful patterns that we humans have, it's much better to actually affirm your husband.

Now, those of you who are faithful Foundation Worldview followers know that I am not married. I've never been married, so I do not know what it's like to actually be in this marriage relationship. So I can't speak exactly into that. But I was thinking as I was writing notes for this podcast of a situation of a guy that I dated not too long ago, and he was really faithful in our relationship. That every Sunday he would lead us in a Bible study every Sunday. And in all honesty, even though I'm very passionate about God and his word and studying God's word, I would frequently forget that on Sundays we were supposed to do this Bible study, but without fail, he would remember every Sunday. And one time I asked him, I said, you are so good at being consistent with our Sunday Bible studies. I was like, what makes you so good at this? And he was like, in all honesty, he's like, every time we do this, you tell me what a great job I did. And I thought, wow, that was interesting because I wasn't telling him he did a great job because I wanted to manipulate him into doing this more often or being consistent. I was just really grateful because some of the other guys that I've dated in the past have not done such a great job of consistently leading us in times in God's Word. But I thought, wow, how interesting that what is really motivating him to be so faithful in this is the fact that I'm affirming him in this. So that's just a little bit of an encouragement of the power of affirmation.

Then the third recommendation that I would have for you is to pray for your daughters. Pray that God would stir well. This listener has daughters, so I'm encouraging this listener to pray for her daughters. If you are a listener who has sons and daughters, just pray for your children specifically. But for this listener who's worried that your daughters are going to not have a good example of what they should look for in a spouse, pray that God would stir the affections of their hearts toward him. That they would desire God above all else, and then pray that they would desire to marry men who love God and who lead well and pray that God would provide them with such spouses. If you have not yet taken your children through our God's Good Design curriculum, I highly recommend that you check out those materials because in that we are laying the positive biblical theology for identity, for gender, for sexuality, for marriage, and for family. And as we go through what's involved in marriage and family, what we're doing is we're laying out the positive biblical theology of how God designed the family to be structured. Now, we talk about how sin corrupts that good design, but what ideally this good design is. So if you're worried that your children are not getting a picture of this at home, highly recommend that you take your children through those materials.

Now, as I said at the beginning, I've been able to offer some very general guidelines, but I highly encourage anyone who is in this position where you feel that your husband is not leading well spiritually, find an older godly woman at your church. Share your heart with her. Ask her for wise counsel because she's going to be able to give you advice that I cannot give because I do not know the ins and outs of your situation. So make sure you're leaning in to the gifts that God has given us through his body.

That's a wrap for this episode, but if you found the content of this podcast beneficial, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you don't miss any future episodes. And also, if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good. By using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.