Every parent can relate to this scenario. You park your car at church or Target or a birthday party (insert any public gathering of your peers) and before getting out of the car you turn around facing the backseat. Here comes the 30 second required lecture to the kids: “Remember, no hitting, spitting, crying, joking, poking, hopping, running, name calling, and general malfeasance. Mom and Dad are basically omniscient and we see all things. We brought you into this world and we can take you out!” We raise our voices for dramatic effect. We bear our teeth and plaster our “I’m serious about this!” face and then we send them into the public square with very little confidence that they heard anything we said.  [sigh!]

Not surprisingly, I haven’t seen much fruit from my speeches. There was, in fact, much spitting, hitting, crying, and general malfeasance when my kids were in public. But thankfully, we’ve never really had much to worry about. Our kids are normal, run of the mill teens. They’re not cooking up black tar heroin in their bedrooms (though I admit that I haven’t checked recently.)

Good kids all around, I guess.

But one thing that has been against them from the beginning is this: they are preacher’s kids. PK’s for short. For those who have no experience in vocational ministry or church work, this is a common designation for kids who grow up in the glass house of ministry. For so many pastors and families, this kind of life is a pressure cooker of stress and loss and constant disappointment. If ministry life is foreign to you, you may think this entire conversation verbose and self-aggrandizing. You might even think, why the emphasis on preacher’s kids?  Or more specifically, you may be thinking that kids are kids. Doctor’s kids or accountant’s kids or plumber’s kids are all basically the same. There’s no real reason to say a pastor’s kid has it any harder than the rest.

And generally speaking, that’s true. All kids grow up and experience loss and pain and heartbreak and peer pressure. But pastor’s kids have a unique burden inside the church community. While it doesn’t have to be this way, and while it is not always this way, it often is this way.

Pastor’s kids have it hard.

The metaphor I have always worked with is this: The church (the organization and people and drama and everything in between) sits on top of a hill. The pastor works here, worships here, and counsels here. At the bottom of the hill sits the pastor’s home filled with his family. He lives there. This is the place that is designed to be a sanctuary and full of security. While the pastor is able to leave the building and the people and the drama behind at the end of the day and enter his home with thanksgiving, rarely does the pressure of ministry stay where it belongs. Instead it rolls down the hill, relenting to the gravity of church work, following the pastor to where he resides. This pressure becomes the air the entire family breathes. Each conversation around the dinner table inevitably is about ministry and people and conflict and what-if’s. While passing the green beans and washing the dishes, the children are getting normalized to something poisonous.

Pastors themselves are trying to put words to what they are feeling. Insecure is not strong enough of an adjective to describe what most pastors feel from day to day. No one is fully equipped to deal with the devastation of sin in others or the division in community that is wrought by the sin of someone who professes Christ. And because of that reality, pastors do their best, grit their teeth, and hold on to grace for dear life.

And unbeknownst to us pastors, our children become causalities. Spiritual refugees in a home meant to personify safety. Words like gospel  and  community and church  become indictments to their little souls. They see the church as more of an event and less of a family; more of a problem to be solved, and less a community to embrace. It becomes a place to behave well so God and people will love you. Ironically, they don’t know even know it’s happening. This phenomenon is akin to the frog in the kettle—little by little they die to what should be giving them life.

Equally dangerous is the pressure put on PK’s by well-meaning souls who, after catching them in minor pre-teen infractions, (usually in the church foyer), scold them and say, “More is expected from you. Your dad is the pastor!” This belief, held by not a few church people, holds firmly to an unwritten doctrinal tenant: pastor’s kids are supposed to be holier than other kids. Completely ridiculous! But kids don’t know that. They feel the pressure.

So these PK’s, who want to be loved and accepted, begin to behave well. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, we smile, thinking it looks like their hearts have been captured by God. They have learned the right spiritual language and they perform in a way that keeps them out of trouble and garners them praise in the right circles. However, this behavior is not driven by grace. “More is expected from you. You’re dad is the pastor!” This deadly echo in their ears comes from the depths of hell, not from heaven.  These PK’s sing the songs and learn how to get along in the rip tide of the church world, but when no one is watching they sink to the bottom of the emotional ocean.

And pastors miss it—we’re often too busy holding onto our own lifeboats.

I don’t have the statistics, but I have been told they are high—pastor’s kids leave the church by the droves. After they are out of the house they leave the people and the place that was most intended to be solace for their souls. They put the offensive weight of “ought to” behavior in their rear view mirror with the hopes of starting over without the pressure.

This is a tender subject for me. I am a pastor and I also have two kids. I am more than aware of what is at stake. Both are in high school and will soon get to choose whether they stay connected to the church. My heart aches for what I want for my kids.

I want my kids to love the church.

I want them to know the church is God’s only plan for the world to know the redemptive power of Jesus. I want them to treasure up the people of God, as broken and inconstant and frail as we are. I am desperate for them to submit joyfully to Godly authority, drink in holy prayer, hunger and thirst for righteousness at the feet of biblical preaching, teaching, and personal bible study. I yearn for them to embrace the long haul of discipleship, scripture memory, and personal piety. I want them to appreciate the weekly commitment to sit next to others and sing and repent and be challenged by the Bible. I pray my kids will be gracefully forgetful and never remember all the ways we allowed the pressure of my vocation to be the water they swam in and the air they breathed.

These days I want to give a different speech before we get out of the car—especially as we’re walking into church. “Remember, God loves you. You are not first Jon Quitt’s son and daughter. You are not first a pastor’s kid. You are a son and daughter of your heavenly Father. You are not defined by your behavior inside the church or even outside the church. You are defined by the overwhelming grace of God at work in your life. He is ordering your steps. And you may hit, spit, cry, joke, poke, and name call, but that has nothing to do with who you are. You are loved and embraced. With that, go and enjoy God, his people, and his church.”