Preacher’s Kids.
I volunteered at Liam’s school before Christmas and one of the moms in the class recognized me from church. She immediately asked me which child belonged to me…. Liam.
After church a few weeks ago, I came into pick up Liam from small group. As I walked over to the group, a boy turned to him and said, “That’s your DAD?! But he’s the guy on stage!” Liam sort of smiled, sort of shrugged, said yes. He grabbed his God-time card and walked out with me.
Recently while preparing a storytelling lesson for Discovery Village, I realized something. I was planning on using a personal example that included Liam as a key character in the story. All of the sudden it dawned on me, “I can’t use this story. Liam is in the room!”
Back when I made this choice to work in a church, I’m not sure it really occurred to me that my kids might grow up under a microscope, or at the very least (?) a spotlight. I’d love to protect them from this, but being that I’m stage a lot, it’s inevitable that people will look to me and ultimately to them to see if I smoke what I sell.
I hope my kids grow up to love the Church as much as I do, but I can’t guarantee that. I can nurture them, but I can’t force them. I can pray for them, A LOT, and ask for God’s hand upon their life.
I want to protect them from feeling any obligation to be cute on stage or be the example when I need a good anecdote about a …ahem… well behaved, wise-choice-making kid. (Sarcasm?)
I want them to have every opportunity to explore faith as they need to. I pray for them to have great relationships with their small group leaders and for them to know that I’m not eavesdropping on them when I’m checking things out in the back of the room.
And though we know it will be different to some degree, we want for their church experience to be as much like their friends’ as possible.
How we’re working at it…
We’ve got lots to learn here I’m sure, but we’re trying…
Jenna and I have started to create some rhythms about how we talk about church vs. work. I go to work; we attend church. Sure, this is a fine line, but they’re starting to get that there is a difference. I try and keep them from having to follow me around as I do “work church.” Only if it is absolutely necessary will they have to stay for all services on a given weekend. And on some occasions we’ve actually let them stay home (shocking!).
I’ve been trying to bring home as little work as possible. I don’t want my kids to feel like church orphans, that the church is all I’m ever concerned about. I’ve been trying not even to open my computer in the evenings.
I don’t just assume I can pick them up without security tags. I stand in line and wait with the rest of the families. (Most of the time…) I don’t want them to think they get perks for being staff kids. (Even though we all know they do…)
We attempt real faith conversations at home as they come up not under our agenda. They’ve got tons of questions on their own (especially Ellison for some reason). We pray and invite them into those prayers as well.
How about you?
Those of you who work or volunteer at a church, what do you do? There’s a long road ahead of us here, and we’ve still got lots to learn.
P.S. Craig Groeschel (teaching pastor at LifeChurch.tv) wrote a great article on the Swerve Blog. If you’re raising kids while you’re in ministry, staff or volunteer, this is a great resource. Check it out: here.
I don’t work in a church- but I am a pastor’s kid! I can tell you guys are doing a great job and it sounds like you have some great strategies for keeping church/work separate.
One thing that really affected me is when my dad would come home from work really stressed or frustrated. He would be venting to my mom about something or someone- and not realize I or my sisters were listening. I unfortuately heard way to many things I shouldn’t have that really skewed my view of the church, leadership, and people I went with.
Another thing my parents never really did (which is really sad if you think about it) is do family devotions or encourage personal study in the Word. Since church was work- I think it was hard for them to focus on spirtitual things at home- like they needed a break from it or something. I wished they had encourage me more to do personal bible study and had done family devotions on a regular basis. To this day, we don’t really discuss spiritual things- its too akward because they didn’t lay the foundation.
Make sure they find a great mentor especially when they reach middle/high school. My dad was my youth pastor at that time- I didn’t have anyone to talk to about things I was going through- unlike everyone else who had my dad.
Keep up the great work- you have great kids! Oh and don’t worry too much about the perks- considering some of the sacrafices kids have to make for being “pastor’s kids” its alright
I, too, always ask my children before mentioning them in a lesson or sermon.
I do let them think they get perks for being PKs. They make sacrifices and at church they have to share their dad so I have no problem with them knowing they’ll get some of those perks…but they also know that they’ll lose them if they “rub it in” and I try to make sure that they don’t get singled out because of it (extra giveaways make it home first rather than given in public).
But the biggest thing that we’re doing is making sure that they don’t think that church is a place, but a group of people.
Daddy goes to work – and he works by helping the people of the church. On Sunday, we go to a building where the people of God gather…but on Small Group night, we go to a house where the people of God gather…and the adults and kids in that group are just like family…and they see them ALL the time – 3 times a week minimum on a normal week.
So, they pretty much have 4 moms and 4 dads…and not all of them are pastors
Wow – - – do we need to get coffee sometime?
I can tell you what it’s like. I mean, we do work together and all…