The Future Ministers’ Wives Club will be reinstated this coming fall, and promises to train women of all majors in the proper ways of ministerial wifehood.
Once a successful ENC club in the 70s and 80s, the FMWC has been called to return to combat today’s materialistic and power-driven society. Women working outside of the home has been a marital issue that this club hopes to rectify even before marriage.
“The Minister’s Wife” will be the first book that FMWC will cover next fall. Other related literature will follow.
Dr. Karen Henck signed on to be the club advisor. Dr. Henck wants to encourage young women to think of a career as ‘wife’ to be a viable opportunity, stating that the career of minister’s wife is “one for which [young women] won’t get paid, but they’ll get lots of other rewarding experiences.”
Women can join the club from any major, but only male religion majors aiming to be ministers may apply to court a future wife from the club’s members.
In the fall, those males will lay out expectations regarding their future wife. Then, the female members of FMWC will train in fields necessary to prepare them for the résumé-building-intensive spring semester. Lessons include housekeeping, sewing sessions, cooking courses, childcare, mandatory piano and organ lessons, casserole baking, choir directing, along with learning to support future husbands in any way necessary.
Club events include seminars in the President’s Dining Room on how to stretch one pound of hamburger for the family as well as unexpected guests, and the installment of a dress code requiring modest turtlenecks and floor-length skirts.
April will feature a presentation by Dr. Henck detailing “Instructions On How to Always Keep Your Husband Satisfied in the Kitchen and Anywhere Else,” and the mandatory Casserole Bakeoff to finish out the spring semester before the future ministers court their future wife.
Sophomore history student Caelyn Doane has been elected Club president. She remains a dedicated girlfriend to a future minister, and has been working to perfect guidelines for the club. Henck’s ideas come as a valuable supplement to Doane’s initial thoughts.
“I expect that we shall create an atmosphere in which modesty is encouraged,” Doane said, “and that we would be prepared to support our husbands in their jobs because it’s such a high calling. Their lives come first.”
Sophomore religion major and future minister Josh Morgan is excited for the club, and to hopefully give a ring by spring to his future wife. He believes every Nazarene school in the country should adopt the reinstallation of this club.
“It’s something I think the community is lacking, and I’m curious to see if our actions in reinstating the club will resound through the country and start a national movement,” Morgan said.
Doane’s goal is to see wives who maintain contact and support one another, even once the members have graduated and married. She plans to adopt 21st century technology to enhance the experience of the women who decide to join.
“We could make a Ministers’ Wives Potluck Pinterest and share our insight in the club, and the club would live on even past our enrollment here,” Doane said.