Minister’s Kid Blog

Growing up is a funny thing. It seems that the older you get, the more looking backwards you do. Now we could certainly stop and throw in our favorite Tony Robbins-Type motivational speaker CD or MP3 so we could focus on things ahead… But let’s get real. The future is important, but I still believe that experience, though maybe not the “best” teacher, is certainly the most intense teacher.

As I look back on life, I remember a funny story about something that happened early in my married life.

One Friday I met my wife at the end of the business day at her place of work (This was before kids when we supposedly did whatever we wanted. We don’t remember those days anymore). Her boss was also leaving to go to dinner with his wife and another couple. These two couples have kids the same age who often do things with each other. As soon as they met the kids began begging to spend the night at the other’s house. The standard “We’ll see” response was given and the kids were told to get into the car.

Once the car door was closed the couple, I felt like I transported to a parallel universe, one that I was not allowed to enter before I was married. You see, before the car door shut I had heard the type of conversation I had heard all of my childhood, except I was the one asking to spend the night at a friend’s house. BUT NOW… I was in the adult world, and once the car door closed only adults were around… and thus there seemed to be a completely new freedom to speak.

The two couples started talking very quickly. Their speech sounded something like a record on the wrong fast speed. They sounded like aliens who switched back to their native tongue. All the parties seemed to talk at once. It sounded something like: “What do you think”,”They’ve had a long week”, “We’ve got nothing tomorrow”,”Your house?”,”Our house is fine”… these phrases were all on top of each other, but they all seemed to understand… and with ease. You could feel the intense prayers of the children in the car… like they were praying for manna from heaven. The adults looked at each other and with what looked like a nodding grunt got into their vehicles to head to dinner.

This insiders look into adulthood was quite revealing. This “adult” conversation sounded strangely similar to one me and my high-school buddies would have after Wednesday night church trying to decide whether to go to Wendy’s or the BK Lounge… I guess I had a preconceived notion that there was sort of great wisdom that was always a part of adult conversation that allowed them to make decisions.

Be careful… reading the next statement may open your eyes in a way that has never happened before…

Adults don’t necessarily know much more than your average teenager. Most of them simply know that they haven’t figured it all out, where many teens still think they are at about 97% or more of all that can be known or understood.

We are all just a part of this thing we call the human race, experiencing this thing we call “breathing”. Cut your parents some slack. They are just old children trying to do the best they can with what they have. Hopefully this understanding will help you. My immediate reaction to the exchange in my story was to realize all the times my parents could have easily said “Yes”, and didn’t… for who knows what simple reason… My second reaction was to being to ponder who my parents were, outside of the role they hold as my parents.

I have found that when I try to show my kids that I know everything it’s simply because I wish I did, for their betterment. But I don’t have all the answers or all the power, any more than that kid at school who is so “popular” and seems to have everything figured out, or that guy at work who has everything going for him and couldn’t have any problems.

I think you’ll find that as soon as you have a more graceful understanding of the human race in general, you’ll start cutting yourself some slack as well.

I received an email recently from a friend asking for some pitfalls that often plague Youth Ministers during their day-to-day ministries. This friend is the type that you would do anything for, so of course I hit the “Reply” button and immediately started typing.

In replying so naturally, thoughts followed the same pattern, just flowing as they came to me. Here were some of my thoughts:

Pitfalls for Youth Ministers:

• Procrastination Syndrome - If you don’t know what this is, you’re not a Youth Minister.
• Superman Syndrome - getting it all done yourself so you can poke out your should-be-shaven-or-waxed chest…
• Clown Syndrome - becoming the court jester of your youth rather than ministering to them (aka Funny Fat Youth Guy syndrome)
• Slob Syndrome - Youth dudes are known for having the most messy, disorganized offices…. and lives.
• “I’m Not an Accountant” Syndrome - Not making budgets and budget planning/tracking an integral part of ministry - leads to irresponsibility and poor stewardship, along with a poor reputation with the staff

Now you must know that this friend and I are the kind that can sit in a Starbucks for hours and tell stories and laugh until we pee ourselves (I hope you have a friend like that. If you don’t, you need to go be one to someone who needs that kind of friend like you do). Therefore my natural flow of thoughts followed this pattern. But the interesting thing about my friendship and this list is that they are characterized by a spirit of honesty… the kind of honesty that is sometimes missed in Christiandom, and professional ministry in general.

You cannot be honest without having a time when you laugh at yourself. I have worked in Youth Ministry for years and I must say that these thoughts are funny and yet oh-so-indicting at the same time. The problem is that if you drop the “funny”, you’ll often drop the guilty feelings too. Which also drops the honesty… a truly daunting charge, especially on those in ministry.

So laugh… at yourself… at the things that go along with being a minister’s kid. SMILE… Living the life of a minister’s kid is a funny place to live.

Be honest about those things which may be a funny indictment on life in a ministry family… Then… and ONLY then, will you be able to truly attain health and happiness in the land of all things “Minister’s Kid”…

Until We’re All Home…

Walter

What an adventure it is growing up as a minister’s kid. Yet so many times you might find that the road you are traveling is a little bumpier than you thought it would be. This can be exceptionally difficult if you are truly trying to live out your faith and things still seem to be extremely difficult.

Now of course it’s in these times we start quoting the Psalms of David crying out to God, and start empathizing with Job, but I believe we have to be careful not to get “Putting on the full armor of God” with “Diving onto the Sword of Ministry”.

I ran across a quote from Dr. Maya Angelou today about the road of life. She says:

“If you’re on a road that somebody else has laid out for you and you look ahead, and you don’t like where you’re going… and you look back behind you, and you don’t want to go back there… step off the road, make yourself a new path.”

Waking up every day feeling like there is “no way out” is a terrible place to be. And if you feel like this as a minister’s kid, there may be a particular path you are on that you need to step off of. This is not the Discourse on Quitting, but I believe that I have had times in my life when I was trying so very hard to please people around me in ways that they weren’t interested in being pleased. It was only when I stopped trying so hard that I realized how LITTLE people were disappointed. Sometimes they didn’t even notice.

This is a small principle that you can apply to parts of your life. You may be a teenager who spends their life trying to smile and please every church member you come in contact with, never really searching out who you are. In some way, you need to “make yourself a new path”. You may be 25, still living in the town where you grew up, going to the same church where your dad has been a minister for many years. If you’re feeling stuck, UNSTICK yourself. Start packing. “But I don’t want to be a quitter.”, you might say.

It’s time to figure out if you are doing what God wants you to do, or simply filling in the blanks so that you feel better about what you’re doing. Are you completely miserable? Remember, Job praised the Lord on the day he lost everything. And he didn’t do so just to look or feel spiritual.

Just ask yourself this question… Would you trade your life for what you’re doing?
Well… you are trading every moment you spend for whatever you choose to do with it.

Be encouraged, and if you need to… take an exit ramp to something new.

As many of you may already know, the family of singer/songwriter, Steven Curtis Chapman, lost Maria, the 5 year old girl they adopted from China. She was struck by the family SUV, driven by one of her brothers in the driveway of their home in Tennessee. The prayers of the team here at MinistersKid.com go out to the Chapman family, and especially to the brother who is now wrestling with this terrible accident.

These kinds of events are why minister’s kids need a group of peers around them, lifting them up in prayer and support. Please stop today and pray for the Chapman family, and especially for the minister’s kids that are dealing with this great loss.

I recently spoke to a group of youth I am currently working with and we discussed relationships. We narrowed down the field of attributes of a “great friend” to about 15, including loyalty, honesty, good listener, and even “has a ride…”.

At the end of this exercise, I made each person choose only ONE of these traits as their top pick. In doing so, we combined some traits together… Like “hugs” was combined with “love” and “loyalty” was combined with “Got Yo Back…” (traits provided by the students).

In the end, the overwhelming majority chose “loyalty” as the top trait. We transitioned into James chapter 4 which is a passage that deals with our loyalty to God, and how being “friends with the world” makes you an “enemy of God”.

I give this example as a backdrop to the creation of this website.

There is a distinct group of people out there that may have the most difficult time drawing these lines. And rightly so, because when you combine ascertaining your personal faith, along with the fact that your parent is paid by a church as a Minister, the waters can get muddied pretty quick.

This website is designed to be a networking community for those whose parent(s) are professional ministers, whether a Senior Pastor, Youth Minister, etc. as well as those whose parents are professional Christian musicians or speakers. This is about local church ministry, but not JUST local church ministry. These waters sometimes get muddy for anyone whose parent is considered by some as a “Professional Christian”.

I know some of the unique needs and opportunities that are provided to this group, because I have spent the last 34 years as a preacher’s kid. It is with these experiences that I hope to share some insight and glean some from others through this blog. The forums here are a start to what I hope is an increasingly encouraging community.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Ephesians 3:20 - Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think–according to the power that works in you–

My prayer is not only that God will blow MY dreams away with what this site can be as a resource for you, but what God Himself will do in and through YOU as this community is a part of you growing in Him…

Until We’re All Home,

Walter Johnson