My dad was a dentist during the week. He was also a lay deacon and taught Sunday school. He worked full weekdays until six o’clock, but apart from the occasional dental emergency or deacons’ meeting, he was home to be husband and dad most evenings and weekends.
When he was home, he was present and available. He coached my baseball and basketball teams. We played golf together. We went to, or watched, Clemson football and the Atlanta Braves. He found time to prepare his Sunday school lessons, but I do not remember him ever saying to leave him alone so he could get ready for Sunday morning. He made time for his prep when it wasn’t stiff-arming his son and three daughters.
That my dad did this well gives me hope. He wasn’t a pastor, but dentistry + deacon chair + teaching Sunday school added up to more than typical full-time pastoral ministry. Now, I’m one of many pastors who have felt anxieties about my calling inevitably making my children into “pastors’ kids.”
I did not grow up the son of a senior pastor who preached for half the service every Sunday. That, for one, is quite the level of spiritual prominence for any man — half the service every week! But at least “the preacher” chose that. He aspired to work, trained for it, pursued it, and answered the church’s call. But his children did not. They didn’t choose this. And so many of us pastors, perhaps more sensitive to this now than in previous generations, are concerned about what effect a church “fishbowl” scenario (however real or just perceived) might have on our children in their formative years. Will their every action be scrutinized and on display in front of the whole church? And even if not, might they feel it to be so?
This is a dangerous topic to address for a young pastor. I have my own experience growing up as the son of a deacon-dentist who was as engaged as any layman at our church. He was not, however, the fulltime senior pastor. He was not preaching at the center of corporate worship for almost fifty Sundays per year. Also, the experience I have as a pastor is limited. I’m 42. I served as a pastor-elder at a well-established church for six years, before partnering with three other pastors to plant a church eight years ago. And I’ve been a father for only 12 of those years (with kids today ages 12 to 5). I do not write as a pastor who has raised sons and daughters into adulthood. I have not yet seen the trajectory of their lives through their 20s and into mid-life.
Rather, I write as a father and pastor with a few years of learning behind me. And I’m still learning, with much more to do. I don’t pretend to have any silver bullets for how to raise pastors’ kids (or any kids for that matter) who will be happy, healthy, Christian adults. But I can share one particular principle from my hopes and dreams as a father of “pastor’s kids” that I pray is making some real difference.
One striking tension today between some local churches and the New Testament vision of a pastor is singular leadership versus plurality. In the New Testament, we find only one singular leader: Jesus. He is the one chief shepherd, and the lone head of His church. He is the one groom of His bride, and He alone gets the glory of singular leadership in the church. Beneath him, even the apostles were plural, not singular. Every window into local church life we have in the New Testament evidences a plurality of pastor-elders. Pastoral ministry is ideally teamwork.
And this teamwork rightly extends not only to leading and “governing” the church, but also to teaching the church. New Testament pastors are teachers (Ephesians 4:11; Hebrews 13:7). In normal circumstances, Christ means for his local congregations to be led and fed by a team of pastor-teachers who share the burdens and joys. In an increasing number of churches today, this shared ministry of teaching also extends to shared or team preaching, which in a practical way can be a huge win for preaching pastors, and especially those with young families.
If mom’s at home with the children, then the irregularity of dad’s pastoral demands may have few effects on little kids not yet in school. But once the kids are in school five days a week, this changes drastically. If dad’s “time off” from church doesn’t overlap with his children’s time out of school — that is, evenings and weekends — then his family feels a particular pinch from the church. This is especially so when all, or much, of the church’s evening and weekend needs fall on one man. But a genuine team of equals (even with one assigned as chief among them) drastically changes this dynamic.
Together, the team of pastor-dads can share the evening and weekend burdens, including teaching, preaching, and upfront leadership. At the same time, a functional team in pastoral ministry encourages a more modest, less heroic view of the ministry. This can help the pastor-dads aspire to be as fruitful (and more) at home as at church. So too, significant in freeing dad’s heart and mind to be more fully present and engaged at home is the *shared burden* that comes with teamwork. Pastor-elders carry many heavy emotional burdens, even in small congregations. They are able, over the long haul, to carry those burdens better when they share them, rather than shouldering them alone.
I suspect that, in general, the more prominent dad is at the church as the pastor or the preacher or the main man who carries the most burdens of preaching and teaching and leadership largely by himself, the more stresses and strains it puts on his family and children. Again, without pretense of this being the silver bullet or curing all ills, I believe genuine plurality in local church leadership is a significant balancing, health-producing, and life-giving reality that our mass-production culture in the United States is prone to overlook.
God has designed healthy families and healthy churches to go together. We might ask ourselves what’s wrong at church if it seems like being a pastor is far more of a threat to our families than a blessing. Is the church expecting too much of us? Or, perhaps more common, is the pastor expecting church, and his prominence there, to do more for him than anyone really expects of him? Healthy Christians want a healthy, perhaps modestly growing church. It does not have to be the fastest-growing, hottest-gathering in town. But sometimes the preacher is not really satisfied with health and modest growth. He wants eye-popping growth that draws eyes to his abilities and fruitfulness.
Basically, a functional pastor-elder team both distributes and cushions the pressures on individual families and kids. Again, I make no pretense that teamwork is the only answer, or the main answer, but my experience has been that it is a significant factor in making leadership of the church healthier and more balanced, and at the same time, more healthy for the pastors and particularly their families.
As pastors, we should own that pastoral ministry in certain models, with its evening and weekend demands, puts real and significant strains on the family that might not be necessary. We don’t have to take these as givens. When we work as a team of paid and unpaid pastor-elders, we can help each other absorb those stresses and strains far better than when working alone.
The post Raising Pastors’ Kids–Together appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...
When he was home, he was present and available. He coached my baseball and basketball teams. We played golf together. We went to, or watched, Clemson football and the Atlanta Braves. He found time to prepare his Sunday school lessons, but I do not remember him ever saying to leave him alone so he could get ready for Sunday morning. He made time for his prep when it wasn’t stiff-arming his son and three daughters.
That my dad did this well gives me hope. He wasn’t a pastor, but dentistry + deacon chair + teaching Sunday school added up to more than typical full-time pastoral ministry. Now, I’m one of many pastors who have felt anxieties about my calling inevitably making my children into “pastors’ kids.”
I did not grow up the son of a senior pastor who preached for half the service every Sunday. That, for one, is quite the level of spiritual prominence for any man — half the service every week! But at least “the preacher” chose that. He aspired to work, trained for it, pursued it, and answered the church’s call. But his children did not. They didn’t choose this. And so many of us pastors, perhaps more sensitive to this now than in previous generations, are concerned about what effect a church “fishbowl” scenario (however real or just perceived) might have on our children in their formative years. Will their every action be scrutinized and on display in front of the whole church? And even if not, might they feel it to be so?
No silver bullets
This is a dangerous topic to address for a young pastor. I have my own experience growing up as the son of a deacon-dentist who was as engaged as any layman at our church. He was not, however, the fulltime senior pastor. He was not preaching at the center of corporate worship for almost fifty Sundays per year. Also, the experience I have as a pastor is limited. I’m 42. I served as a pastor-elder at a well-established church for six years, before partnering with three other pastors to plant a church eight years ago. And I’ve been a father for only 12 of those years (with kids today ages 12 to 5). I do not write as a pastor who has raised sons and daughters into adulthood. I have not yet seen the trajectory of their lives through their 20s and into mid-life.
Rather, I write as a father and pastor with a few years of learning behind me. And I’m still learning, with much more to do. I don’t pretend to have any silver bullets for how to raise pastors’ kids (or any kids for that matter) who will be happy, healthy, Christian adults. But I can share one particular principle from my hopes and dreams as a father of “pastor’s kids” that I pray is making some real difference.
Pastoral ministry as teamwork
One striking tension today between some local churches and the New Testament vision of a pastor is singular leadership versus plurality. In the New Testament, we find only one singular leader: Jesus. He is the one chief shepherd, and the lone head of His church. He is the one groom of His bride, and He alone gets the glory of singular leadership in the church. Beneath him, even the apostles were plural, not singular. Every window into local church life we have in the New Testament evidences a plurality of pastor-elders. Pastoral ministry is ideally teamwork.
And this teamwork rightly extends not only to leading and “governing” the church, but also to teaching the church. New Testament pastors are teachers (Ephesians 4:11; Hebrews 13:7). In normal circumstances, Christ means for his local congregations to be led and fed by a team of pastor-teachers who share the burdens and joys. In an increasing number of churches today, this shared ministry of teaching also extends to shared or team preaching, which in a practical way can be a huge win for preaching pastors, and especially those with young families.
Home when kids are
If mom’s at home with the children, then the irregularity of dad’s pastoral demands may have few effects on little kids not yet in school. But once the kids are in school five days a week, this changes drastically. If dad’s “time off” from church doesn’t overlap with his children’s time out of school — that is, evenings and weekends — then his family feels a particular pinch from the church. This is especially so when all, or much, of the church’s evening and weekend needs fall on one man. But a genuine team of equals (even with one assigned as chief among them) drastically changes this dynamic.
Together, the team of pastor-dads can share the evening and weekend burdens, including teaching, preaching, and upfront leadership. At the same time, a functional team in pastoral ministry encourages a more modest, less heroic view of the ministry. This can help the pastor-dads aspire to be as fruitful (and more) at home as at church. So too, significant in freeing dad’s heart and mind to be more fully present and engaged at home is the *shared burden* that comes with teamwork. Pastor-elders carry many heavy emotional burdens, even in small congregations. They are able, over the long haul, to carry those burdens better when they share them, rather than shouldering them alone.
More prominence, more strain
I suspect that, in general, the more prominent dad is at the church as the pastor or the preacher or the main man who carries the most burdens of preaching and teaching and leadership largely by himself, the more stresses and strains it puts on his family and children. Again, without pretense of this being the silver bullet or curing all ills, I believe genuine plurality in local church leadership is a significant balancing, health-producing, and life-giving reality that our mass-production culture in the United States is prone to overlook.
God has designed healthy families and healthy churches to go together. We might ask ourselves what’s wrong at church if it seems like being a pastor is far more of a threat to our families than a blessing. Is the church expecting too much of us? Or, perhaps more common, is the pastor expecting church, and his prominence there, to do more for him than anyone really expects of him? Healthy Christians want a healthy, perhaps modestly growing church. It does not have to be the fastest-growing, hottest-gathering in town. But sometimes the preacher is not really satisfied with health and modest growth. He wants eye-popping growth that draws eyes to his abilities and fruitfulness.
Better together
Basically, a functional pastor-elder team both distributes and cushions the pressures on individual families and kids. Again, I make no pretense that teamwork is the only answer, or the main answer, but my experience has been that it is a significant factor in making leadership of the church healthier and more balanced, and at the same time, more healthy for the pastors and particularly their families.
As pastors, we should own that pastoral ministry in certain models, with its evening and weekend demands, puts real and significant strains on the family that might not be necessary. We don’t have to take these as givens. When we work as a team of paid and unpaid pastor-elders, we can help each other absorb those stresses and strains far better than when working alone.
The post Raising Pastors’ Kids–Together appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...