One “drawback” (if it can be called that) of my new job as a Pastor is that there is infinite work to do, and it is almost all enjoyable work. This is the opposite of my 15 years at my previous job in a factory – there really wasn’t that much to do and what there was to do, well, it really wasn’t of much benefit to me or anyone else. But here at the church things are different. The weight of responsibility is great and the potential for calamity ever present, but the frequency of reward is almost constant.
I think I have moved through the honeymoon period rather quickly. You see, I came into this with my eyes more open than most. My dad was a Pastor, which means I was what we in the industry call a “PK” – a Pastor’s Kid. This is a position in life so special that it has its own two-letter descriptor. For many PKs, being one is an inherently negative experience. There is a lot of church to attend, a lot of behaving to do, and a lot of “dad being too stressed to be a dad” to experience. My childhood was marked with a bit of all those things, but my dad was really great about it. I rarely felt the pressure from him to “behave” externally; he was more interested in the condition of my soul than the condition of my apparel (my mom and sister made up for his lack of concern in that department).
There was this one time when I was about 16, during a congregational discussion at which I was present, when a man in the church said that my dad was unqualified to lead the church because, looking at me, it was obvious that he wasn’t in control of his own family. That hurt, but dad didn’t take the bait. It couldn’t have been easy for him. He could have agreed with the man (which would have been lying) and destroyed his relationship with me. He could have told the man he was an idiot and created division in the church.
To be honest, I don’t remember how he handled it but I remember, on that day and many others, being proud to be his son. I remember feeling loved and protected.
At times I was (and probably still am) a challenge. I was not a rebel in conventional ways; dad never had to have a talk with me about parties, alcohol, or drugs, but in a rather conservative church, the Pastor’s son listened to very loud, very fast music, wore a chain wallet, baggy cords, and plaid shirts. He had a goatee and and buzz-cut scalp (back in the day when those things were considered “edgy”). And dad didn’t talk to me about that stuff very much at all. He didn’t like some of the music I listened to, especially when I would kill the ignition in the car with the stereo on 10, only for him to start it up in the morning and receive a heart-attack inducing assault of speed metal at full volume. (sorry dad)
And so now, as a Pastor myself, I seek to emulate his grace for me in extending it to my own kids by not expecting them to be “better” than other kids by not doing things that PKs aren’t supposed to do.
There was another time, during another congregational discussion at which I was present, that a man spoke up and said that he had seen some kids in the mall that looked like me, and for the first time, because he knew me, he didn’t assume that they were bad kids.
