Transcript
Ben Fallon: Well, I'm sure we all know of a godly mother and father who raised their kids in a loving Christian home, to fear and worship the Lord, but now, one of their children has walked away from the faith, or maybe they're just not interested in the things of God, or maybe they've gone as far as to publicly deconstruct and rage against the biblical values of their upbringing. Today's question is about that with specific application in a situation when it's a child of a pastor or ministry family. So, Paul, “What are the specific ways that pastors can protect their kids from disillusionment with the faith?” And then, “How can churches help contribute to the raising of pastor's kids?”
Paul Tripp: When a child is in a Christian family, a Christian ministry family, and is bitter and jaded and maybe walks away from Christianity, it's a heartbreaking thing for ministry parents. But I think it's so, so important for ministry parents to understand that life for a ministry child, a child in a ministry family, can be hard. First, it is a constant busyness. Ministry doesn't tend to be like a 9:00 to 5:00 job with predictability; there is a lot of unpredictability in ministry. Second, it feels for that child like they're seemingly always on camera because they are part of that ministry family. And it's often that people look at children in a ministry family with A, unrealistic expectations, and B, with judgmental assessments.
So a child, negatively impacted by this, needs compassion, needs understanding, needs patience, needs, if possible, wise understanding biblical counsel. And the counselor needs to help the child distinguish between who God is, the message of the Bible, what grace is, what the life of faith looks like, and the failures of the church and the ministry family. God will never fail, but your parents may. God is always wise, but your parents may do foolish things. God always extends grace; your parents may not.
And so, that's hard because what every child and every ministry family will experience, is that discontinuity between this beautiful life that's preached from the pulpit and the actual struggles in the home. Ministry parents are not perfect–they will make mistakes; they will have bad choices; they will react in anger. And so, that distinction between God's utter perfection, his choices boundless love, his glorious grace, his constant faithfulness, his infinite wisdom, and the frailty and weakness of any ministry family, that contrast needs to be observed.
And, if you're working with a jaded or bitter-ministry child, it's just so important to remember that lasting change is most often a process and not an event. Leave room for God's Spirit to work. And also remember, you cannot do by law, you cannot do by threat, you cannot do by guilt what God is able to do by grace in the disillusioned, disheartened, or embittered heart of a child from a ministry family. Move toward the child in Christ-like love, be willing to listen, temper warnings with merciful compassion. And again, don't try to do by human force what only God can do.
Look, I'm going to say this, “My children saw the difference between what their dad would preach and the way dad reacted on a Tuesday evening. And fortunately, we created an environment where we could talk about that, where we could confess our sin and our weakness, our impatience, our foolishness, to our children. And so, although we weren't perfect parents in any way, shape, or form, we weren't putting our children in an environment where we were calling ourselves righteous when we weren't. It's so troubling when there are glaring weaknesses and inconsistencies in your parents; and they're acting like there are none, and there's no forum that those can be dealt with. I said to my children, “There is a respectful way of you coming to me and questioning why I said what I did, why I reacted the way I did; and I would rather have you do that than you building a growing catalog of things that make you question, not only me, but this thing called Christianity.”
So, we're talking about something that is very important and, in ways. is the universal experience of people in ministry families. I, to this day, when somebody asks me how they can pray for me, the very first request, every time, is that I would live what I teach because I'm not there in complete consistency yet. And I'm thankful now we have adult children, and we still have wonderful relationships with them. And what we are talking about is just very, very important. Maybe, if I could speak to ministry parents here for a minute, maybe there are places where you need to go and make confession to your children for choices in the house and choices in ministry you have made.
BF: All parents, regardless of, if you're in ministry or not, could benefit from that answer, but we'd love if you could share this episode with a pastor or ministry family. And then for moms and dads in general, we have a variety of resources on parenting available at Paul Tripp Ministries. Paul has written two books, Age of Opportunity and Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles. And then we have a variety of free video resources that you can watch. All of these are available at paultripp.com/store.
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