Barnabas Piper, The Pastor's Kid - jottings

Barnabas Piper, The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity (David C Cook / Kingsway Communications, 2014)
152pp

(Foreword by John Piper)

Obviously my kids are all delightful and well-behaved geniuses at all times and our family life is idyllic, but we were reading this book for a minister’s book group, so a few random jottings / a record of some lessons:

(I’m not sure I found much to disagree with here so what follows is mostly summary:)

I am not the eminent American Baptist pastor of an enormous mega church. So my context is pretty different from the Pipers’. I guess there’s a fair amount of translation and cross-cultural application to do with this highly readable and engaging book, but I think there’s lots here worth pondering and praying over. The pastor (and spouse), pastor’s kid and church may not always like what they read, but it should not be too hastily dismissed by any of the parties to this complex triadic relationship.

Piper is surely right that there are privileges and challenges particular to the lives of the clergy and their families, as there are with other professions too. Every single family is made up of sinners and has its own issues. Clergy families might well have moved away from their relatives. Hopefully they have a decent house (maybe in a desirable postcode), but finances might be tight. Likely the minister works from home and the vicarage is often used for ministry. The pastor’s job might be little understood and esteemed and the hours odd. When many parents are getting home, he might often be heading out. But of course he has the blessing of not having to commute. He can often have lunch with his family. There are, of course, many pros and cons to all callings.

Although the book explores some hard and painful things at times, Piper is surely right that a sense of victimhood and blame is most often unhelpful. Clergy families do well to cultivate both gratitude and realism. They and their church families all have their sins and foibles. Likely there is a need for repentance and doing better but love covers a multitude of sins and it seems to me there are times when it would be good to cut everyone some slack. We don’t want to take ourselves too seriously.

Churches sometimes want pastors to be practically perfect in every way and pastors can collude in this by pretending that they are. Of course, the spouse and kids know differently! A measure of openness and vulnerability is healthy (if hard) both in vicarage and church.

One of the strengths of this book is its emphasis on grace and the priority of trusting and following Jesus. Much else is detail – some of it somewhat important. No one is up to the job of being the perfect pastor, or parent, or PK, or church member, but God’s grace is sufficient. Thankfully Jesus loves and means to make use of broken people. He can deal with our guilt and shame and we would do well to hand them over to him. 

Pastor’s kids tend to see the good, the bad and the ugly of church life. They cannot really be sheltered from this and so, whilst respecting confidences, it is probably best to involve them in ministry and church life as appropriate. Their no-illusions perspective on church can be a real advantage to them e. g. in future ministry. But for them, faith can be weirdly bound up with their parent’s job. A wild and disobedient child could in some cases lead to unemployment and homelessness (1 Timothy 3:4) so everyone can feel under pressure. Maybe God is their parents’ profession, ministry, vocation and hobby. This is another reminder that the preacher does well to cultivate other interests in addition to the importance and fun of reading theological tomes.

We are called to love one another where we are, but the truth is that the pastor’s family may not have chosen this church and this location if they had a totally free hand! And they have to put up with their parent as preacher: maybe those stories and jokes which weren’t funny the first time!

It can be hard going for the kids if there aren’t a number of Christian friends their own age at church. They can feel a bit weird when they realise that church isn’t a big part of life for most of those at school. (Christian summer camps can perhaps play a helpful role here).

The Pastor’s child can feel watched. Even in a loving, harmonious church family, there can be a sense that he is under scrutiny. They might be expected to win the Bible trivia quiz, but are folk also on the look out for teenage rebellion?! Most clergy families will have experienced a tut tut or some uninvited parenting advice at one time or another.

The PK might feel known about, but not really known. The preacher must take care with his sermons, his conversation and his social media use. He should share his life and be known by the people, but the family may have different boundaries to him and the children may care both for some privacy and for deep relationships with church folk. As is so often the case, there are ditches on either side.

Good well-intentioned people can make assumptions. The PK wants to be allowed to be himself. As Piper puts it, the PK might find himself put in a nice little box with a label on it with little room to breathe inside (p. 63). The Pastor should encourage wonder (and a sense of the mystery of God) and perhaps should not panic even if there is a little wandering from the pastor’s well-defined way. 

Sometimes the PK can be adept at acting like a politician or chameleon – avoiding revealing too much, or giving the right answers or fitting in. He may be rather different in church on Sunday and at school on Monday. Like an onion, Piper argues the PK has layers! (Ch. 4)

Our most important prayer for our children must be that the love Jesus and love others. We are seeking God not just for right answers or outward conformity, but for an inner reality of knowing Jesus and a sense of identity as dearly loved children of the Father. Though they have always been familiar with Jesus, the kids need to know that he is far from mundane and that he is more than their parent’s boss! PKs will likely benefit more from principles than rigid and unexplained rules. There can sometimes be some yes and nos, some ifs and maybe’s rather than the preacher’s black-and-white always right and pre-packaged answers to everything.

Likely there’s a whole load of things we need to lighten up about. We do well to distinguish between God’s standards (which apply to us all) and the cultural expectations of our church, which we might seek to accommodate for the sake of mission (or to avoid parental embarrassment!), but which come into a whole different category.

We want to make space for our kids’ doubts and questions and remember that we are all works in progress. It is no surprise if they don’t have it all figured out at 13 or 18 or…. Some of us might too easily forgive and forget our own past mistake whilst coming down like a ton of bricks on or feeling overly anxious about our children’s.

It might be nice if our kids agreed with us on everything we hold dear, but we would do well to remember that the goal of parents is actually to make themselves redundant. We want to give our children increasing freedom, which we hope they will have the maturity to use well. We pray for them to grow in independence and that might mean taking different exceptions from the Westminster Standards to us!

Sure, the PK needs a pastor, but he also needs a parent! They want a “normal” relationship with their parents (whatever that is!) not appointments! (p. 115) And that requires time, energy, commitment and wisdom. We do well to talk with them, not always to preach at them, or even given them pastoral counselling! We are helpfully reminded here of the need to spend time with our children, to listen to them and to know them. As Piper says, they may be less into Jonathan Edwards than we are, and we ought to take an interest in their video games and their sports teams. He commends the pursuit of empathy: “We need parents who strive to put themselves in our heads and “get” us.” (p. 85) All Christians are called to self-sacrificial loving service of other, but we would be fools to sacrifice our families on the altar of ministry. Our kids didn’t choose to be born into the Vicarage.

We might be critical of someone who works too long in the City to the detriment of his family, and the same must apply to the pastor who is ever locked in his study or out at meetings or pastoral visits. We don’t want our families to see the church as a rival, nor to feel that we only ever give our best at church and our leftovers at home.

Likely the kids will also have a well-attuned hypocrisy sensor which they will feel free to use on their parents and their church! Our actions will speak louder than our words. Piper helpfully stresses that it is not sufficient for the minister to admit that we are all sinners. It would be great if he could find some actual specific sins of his own to confess to his kids, to apologise for, and if they could see him battling for godliness and maybe even making progress. Yes, you were right and indignant, but that doesn’t mean your indignation was entirely righteous. Perhaps you could say sorry to the kids for losing your temper, even if your shouting in their faces was entirely understandable (p. 79)!