When the Calling Isn't Theirs: Raising Children in Ministry
By: Michael J. Decker, M.Min.
There is something every Pastor and ministry leader should periodically remind themselves of, particularly when the demands of ministry become overwhelming and the lines between home and church begin to blur: our children did not ask to be Pastors’ kids. They did not answer the call to ministry, they did not choose the church we would Pastor, they did not choose the city in which we would live, and they did not participate in the conversations that led us to accept one ministry assignment over another. They simply became part of the family God called us to lead. Yet, despite having no say in the decision, our children often experience nearly every dimension of ministry alongside us. They experience the blessings, the excitement, the relationships, the victories, and the moments when we see God do something extraordinary, but they can also experience the criticism, the expectations, the disappointments, the transitions, and the sacrifices that accompany a life of ministry. For that reason, we have to remain sensitive to what ministry is doing in the lives of our children, because the calling that God placed upon our lives should never become a burden that our children grow up believing they had to carry.
Being a Pastor’s kid can be a wonderful privilege, but it can also be a complicated experience. Our children often grow up knowing that people are watching them in ways that other children may never experience. They may feel that they are living in a glass house, where their behavior is noticed, their mistakes are remembered, and their decisions are sometimes interpreted through the identity of their parents. A child who is simply having a difficult day can become the subject of conversation because, after all, “that is the Pastor’s kid.” A teenager who is trying to discover who they are, navigate friendships, deal with insecurity, and figure out what they believe can feel an extraordinary amount of pressure to appear as though they have already figured everything out. There can be an expectation that because their father or mother is the Pastor, they should somehow possess a maturity beyond their years. However, we have to be careful about that! Our children are not extensions of our pulpit, and they are not responsible for protecting our reputation within the church. They are not miniature ministry leaders who are required to model perfection simply because their parents have been called to lead a congregation. They are children who have been entrusted to us, and before they ever become the Pastor’s son or the Pastor’s daughter, they are our son and our daughter. They need the freedom to grow, to make mistakes, to ask questions, to discover who they are, and to mature at the same pace as other children their age. We should never allow the expectations of a congregation to become heavier than the needs of the child standing in front of us.
This becomes particularly important when a ministry family experiences a transition. For a Pastor, a transition from one church to another may represent an exciting new chapter. It may be an opportunity that has been prayed about for months or even years. It may be the fulfillment of a burden God has placed in our heart, a new assignment, a church that needs leadership, or simply the next step in a journey that we believe God is directing. We may look at the new opportunity and see everything that could be. We see the vision, the potential, the people we will reach, the things we believe God wants to accomplish, and the possibilities that lie ahead. But our children may see something completely different. They may see the friends they are leaving behind. They may see the school they will no longer attend, the neighborhood they will no longer live in, the youth group where they finally found their place, the people who have become like family, and the familiar routines that made them feel secure. What we see as a new beginning, they may initially experience as a loss. What we see as an answered prayer, they may experience as the ending of a chapter they were not ready to close. That does not necessarily mean they do not trust God, and it does not mean they do not respect the calling on their parents' lives. It simply means that they are children, and children often process significant life changes differently than adults do. Adults tend to process transitions through the lens of purpose, calling, responsibility, and the future, while children often process them through the lens of relationships. We may be thinking about where God is taking our family while our child is thinking about the best friend they will no longer see every morning at school. We may be thinking about the ministry opportunity in front of us while they are thinking about the bedroom they left behind. Both experiences are real, and neither one should be dismissed.
One of the greatest mistakes we can make as ministry parents is to assume that because we have peace about a transition, our children should immediately have peace about it as well. We can know that God has directed us and still give our children permission to grieve what they have lost. We can believe that God is doing something new while allowing them to miss what was. We can encourage them to embrace the future without making them feel guilty because they are still emotionally connected to the past. Faith does not eliminate grief, and trusting God does not mean that we cannot miss people we love. Our children need permission to process those emotions without having every struggle interpreted as a spiritual problem. If they are sad because they left their friends, that does not mean they have a bad attitude. If they compare the new church to the old church, that does not necessarily mean they are rebellious. If they need time to adjust, that does not mean they are resisting the will of God. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is simply listen and say, “I understand why you miss them. I miss them too.” There is tremendous freedom in allowing our children to discover that their parents understand their emotions rather than constantly correcting them.
We should also remember that our children need a childhood. This may sound obvious, but ministry has a way of consuming nearly every available moment if we allow it to do so. There is always another service, another meeting, another sermon to prepare, another person who needs a visit, another phone call that needs to be returned, another crisis that requires our attention, and another ministry opportunity that seems too important to miss. If we are not careful, our children can grow up watching ministry receive the best portions of our time while they receive whatever remains. That is not the legacy we want to leave! Our children need to laugh and play and develop interests that have nothing to do with church. They need to participate in sports, spend time with friends, go on vacations, pursue hobbies, make memories, and experience the ordinary moments of childhood that may seem insignificant to us now but will become precious to them later. They need places where they are not the Pastor’s kid but simply themselves. There will always be another sermon to preach, but there will not always be another opportunity to watch your child play in the backyard. There will always be another church meeting, but there will not always be another night when your teenager wants to sit down and talk with you about what is happening in their life. There will always be another ministry event, but childhood is moving forward whether we are paying attention to it or not. We should never become so focused on building the church that we neglect the home God entrusted to us. In fact, there are moments when stepping away from ministry responsibilities to invest in our children may be one of the most important ministry decisions we ever make. We sometimes convince ourselves that because the church needs us, we cannot leave. We tell ourselves that people are depending on us, that there is no one else who can handle the situation, or that this particular meeting is simply too important to miss. Yet there will always be something that needs to be done. The church will always have needs, and ministry will always produce another demand. Our children, however, will not remain children forever. There will come a day when they will leave the house, establish their own lives, and perhaps build families of their own. When that day comes, we will not be able to go back and reclaim the evenings we spent at the office, the conversations we missed, the ball games we skipped, or the opportunities we had to simply be present. We need to understand that our children are not interrupting our ministry when they need us; they are our ministry!
Perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities we have as ministry parents is helping our children develop their own relationship with Jesus rather than simply inheriting ours. Our children need to know that faith is more than what their parents preach on Sunday. They need opportunities to encounter God for themselves, to ask difficult questions, to wrestle with their beliefs, to discover Scripture, to pray, and to develop a genuine relationship with God that does not depend upon their father's position or their mother's ministry. Our goal should never simply be to raise good Pastor's kids. Our goal should be to raise children who genuinely know and love Jesus. That distinction matters because church involvement and spiritual formation are not always the same thing. A child can know how to behave in church without understanding why they believe what they believe. They can know all the right words, sing every worship song, and know exactly how a Pastor's family is supposed to act while never developing a personal relationship with Christ. We should be less concerned about whether our children look like perfect Pastor's kids and more concerned about whether they are becoming authentic followers of Jesus. That also means we need to be careful about what we communicate when our children struggle. We should never make them feel that their worth is connected to how well they represent us. They need to know that our love for them is not conditional upon their behavior, their involvement in church, or their ability to meet someone else's expectations. They need to know that they can come to us when they are confused, angry, disappointed, or struggling without immediately being afraid that they have disappointed their parents or God. If our children cannot be honest with us, they will eventually find someone else with whom they can be honest. And we should want to be the people they trust enough to bring their questions to.
When we look back years from now, our children may not remember every sermon we preached or every ministry accomplishment we celebrated. They probably will not remember the attendance numbers, the budgets, the building projects, or the meetings that consumed so much of our attention. What they will remember is whether we were present. They will remember whether home was a safe place. They will remember whether we listened. They will remember whether they felt that they mattered to us, even when ministry was demanding our attention. They will remember the transitions, too. They will remember how we handled difficult seasons. They will remember whether we allowed them to grieve or whether we told them they simply needed to get over it. They will remember whether we acknowledged the sacrifices they were making or assumed they should be grateful simply because their parents were in ministry. And perhaps most importantly, they will remember whether our ministry made them love Jesus more or whether it caused them to associate Jesus and the church with disappointment, pressure, and pain. That should cause every ministry parent to pause.
There is also a painful reality that we must be willing to acknowledge: some people grow up resenting the church because of their experiences as a Pastor's kid. They watched their parents sacrifice constantly. They saw the criticism their parents endured. They experienced the expectations placed upon them. They watched people come and go. They saw their parents exhausted and discouraged. They may have watched church members receive the best of their parents' time while they received what was left. Eventually, they began to associate the church with everything that seemed to take their family away from them.
Our children should never have to pay the price for a calling they did not receive!
We cannot control everything they will experience. There will be people who disappoint them. There will be churches they struggle to understand. There will be transitions that are difficult. There will be seasons when ministry demands sacrifice. We cannot protect them from every difficulty, nor should we attempt to create an artificial world where they never experience disappointment. But we can make sure they know where home is! We can make sure they know they are loved. We can make sure they know they are more important to us than our position. We can make sure that when the church becomes difficult, home becomes safe. And we can make sure that when the ministry assignment changes, they know their family is still together! That is why I believe one of the greatest measures of a successful ministry is not simply what happened in the church we led, but what happened in the hearts of the children we raised. Will our kids one day look back upon their childhood and be grateful they were raised in a minister’s home? That is the hope!
Perhaps we need to slow down long enough to ask our children what they are feeling instead of simply telling them what God is doing. Perhaps we need to listen when they say they miss their friends rather than immediately reminding them about the new opportunities ahead. Perhaps we need to recognize that what feels like an exciting new chapter to us may feel like the closing of a very important chapter to them. And perhaps, in the middle of all the responsibilities of ministry, we need to remember that there is a little boy or little girl sitting somewhere in our house who does not need us to be the Pastor tonight; they simply need us to be Mom or Dad! The church will have another service. The ministry will have another opportunity. The sermon can wait. The meeting can wait. But childhood will not. So let them be kids. Let them laugh. Let them enjoy their childhood. Let them have memories that have nothing to do with church. Let them know that they are loved for who they are and not for how well they represent the family. Let them see that serving God can be a source of joy rather than something they must endure. And above all else, let us live in such a way that when our children grow up and look back on the years they spent as Pastors' kids, they do not remember a church that stole their childhood. Instead, may they remember a family that loved God, loved people, loved one another, and walked through every season together.
Our children did not ask to be Pastors' kids, but we can make sure they never grow up wishing they had not been!
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