Four Principles for Raising Your Kids While Doing Ministry

When I was a young minister, I feared that ministry would wound my family. I had heard numerous stories of the crazed “PK” (pastor’s kid) who was out of control—they were common stories.

Today, our kids are adults and all love Jesus, the church, and their family. Raising our kids in ministry worked for us and wasn’t the colossal failure that I had feared.

When Cathy and I sat down to identify some principles that could be connected to intentional actions, we came up with the following four. I’m sure there are more, but these are ones we can say that we intentionally pursued. They are:

1.The PERKS principle: We included our kids in our ministry as soon as they were born. Our kids got to go places and do things that most kids didn’t (camps and conferences.) There are perks of being in ministry—you just have to look for them (i.e. keys to the sanctuary, access to the church kitchen/refrigerator, a flexible schedule, etc).

2.The PEOPLE principle: We surrounded our kids with incredibly wonderful people, friends, and mentors. We held lots of ministry meetings in our home, which in turn, gave amazing volunteers, interns, and staff lots of opportunities to rub shoulders with our kids. These were the people who baby-sat, hung-out with, mentored, and led our kids closer to Jesus. Our children were influenced by a community of amazing people and we are so grateful.

3. The PRESENCE principle: Because of the flexibility of a ministry schedule (perk), we arranged everything within our calendars to be at our kids’ activities. Since I didn’t work a 9-5, M-F type job, I had the freedom to attend events during the day and coach sports in the afternoon. Ministry kept us busy, but our calendar time kept us focused and present. Our children have adopted this principle and are now present for us and one another.

4. The PERFORMANCE principle: We allowed and encouraged our kids to be themselves. Ministers teach their congregation that they should be who God created them to be but, so often within ministry, families want their kids to be who “others” want them to be. This was a tough one for me, but with the help of my wife, I worked hard not to allow my own insecurity (what others would think of me) to wound our children. We became aware at a young age that we needed to either focus on their behavior (behavior modification) or focus on following Jesus. As much as they didn’t feel pressure from us, we soon realized that they would feel pressure from others (about being PKs) and that pressure (from others) was more than enough.

We weren’t perfect parents! You won’t be either, but the stories that scared me about raising kids in ministry aren’t the only stories out there. The story that was written about our family and ministry is one we’d want written again… and we’d want it for others too.