Your First Ministry Is Your Family

A while back, I had lunch with a pastor I would consider pretty successful. He had written several books, led well in his community, and was visible in a lot of different settings. What stood out to me more, though, was his family life. His kids were grown with families of their own, and every one of them was serving in some kind of ministry role.

I was curious how he had done it, because I grew up in a family like that too. My siblings care deeply about ministry and serve in a lot of different settings. My parents were intentional with us, and the values and practices they built into our home carried into adulthood and into how we now parent our own kids. So I wanted to know how this leader had approached it with his own family.

I expected to hear about principles or shared values, maybe a few family rhythms that had held everyone together. I assumed this was a close family that still spent a lot of time with one another.

I was wrong.

As we talked, it became obvious that the family really didn’t have much to do with one another. There was a lot of dysfunction, along with a bitterness that had started when the kids were young and never gone away. They had done a good job hiding it, because I had no idea.

When I asked him about parenting principles, he told me that one of the best ways to lead in his situation was to avoid being around the family. He saw his adult kids and grandkids a couple of times a year, and any more than that, he said, would just create drama and problems.

I left that lunch disappointed, partly because it is so far from what I have with my own dad. We talk all the time, about ministry and about life, and we do life together, which is exactly what I hope for with my own kids.

The Gap Nobody Talks About

That conversation stuck with me because it wasn’t an isolated story. Over the years I have watched leader after leader present themselves one way, even when it came to their family, while the reality inside the home looked very different. There was bitterness and frustration, and a lot of unhealthiness sitting just under the surface.

I was in Christian schools all the way through high school and college. When I think back on those years, a lot of the kids who got into the most trouble, the ones who stirred things up time and time again, were pastors’ kids, ministry kids, or missionary kids. I didn’t connect the dots back then, but I definitely connect them now.

Many ministry families are not nearly as healthy as they appear.

I talk a lot about perception gaps at the organizational level, meaning the distance between how a ministry sees itself and how people actually experience it. Those same gaps show up inside the homes of pastors, elders, executive directors, and school leaders. What the congregation sees and what the family lives can be two very different things.

So I want to use this article to share some of my own experience, along with what I have observed in years of working alongside pastors and ministry leaders. My goal isn’t to pile on, but to help.

Still Living in a Glass House

We all know ministry is hard work. It puts a strain on marriages and families, and it keeps us always on the clock. We are expected to be the super parent for everyone else, and sometimes we are the only person someone calls in a crisis, the one who has to come in and save the day.

But there is an assumption that can creep into a ministry home, and sometimes it looks more like obliviousness. We start believing we have things figured out, that our kids are somehow better than other people’s kids, and that they will handle hard situations well simply because we carry a ministry title.

I believe growing up in a ministry family is harder today than it has ever been.

There is pressure, and much of it goes unspoken. Churchgoers set a benchmark for the pastor and his family, and we do the same thing in Christian school leadership and in nonprofit leadership. The expectation is that a ministry family will behave, present, and function in a way others should copy or aspire to, as if they have it all together.

They don’t. Nobody does.

Ministry is hard on a pastor, on an executive director, and on a school administrator. But the weight doesn’t rest only on the person with the title. It lands on the whole family.

When I was young, we called it living in a glass house. I’m not sure that phrase fits the same way today, but the feeling hasn’t gone anywhere. Ministry kids are constantly being evaluated and measured, always looked at through a lens of scrutiny, and I think they feel it more heavily now than we ever did.

Your First Ministry

So here is my challenge to you, ministry leader: your first and most important ministry is still your family. It is easy to neglect that role, or even give it up entirely, because we assume our kids already understand what it means to be part of a ministry family and know what to do with it. I’m telling you, they don’t.

Your kids need you to be their parent first and to carry your ministry title second, not the other way around. That is easy to agree with and hard to live out, so let me get specific…

Three Ways to Lead Your Family Well

1. Be present

This one is hard for a lot of us in ministry, because our attention is always being pulled somewhere else. But presence is the foundation for everything that follows.

Being present means knowing what is going on in your kids’ world, including what they are dealing with, the good and the bad, and their hopes, dreams, frustrations, fears, and insecurities. Being a ministry family doesn’t make those things go away. If anything, they can feel even heavier because of the pressure your kids live under.

If we aren’t present in those moments, we are counting on our kids to work all of it out by themselves, and that isn’t fair to them. Show up, pay attention, and set the example you want them to follow.

2. Create a family mission statement together

Whether your kids chose ministry family life or not, they are in it, and they should have a voice in it.

Sit down as a family and write a mission statement for how you operate. Talk through what you believe, why you do what you do, what you care about, and what your priorities and non-negotiables are.

Living those things out won’t always be easy, but a shared understanding gives everyone a common place to start when the hard conversations come. Ministry stops being something that happens to your kids and becomes something your family does together.

3. Define your role as a parent

That might sound like a funny thing to suggest, but if you haven’t put words to it, you will default to whatever the moment demands.

Here is how I define mine: my role as a parent is to equip my kids for adulthood through a biblical foundation, so they can navigate their faith and the culture in a way that honors God. I want them to live with integrity, joy, and love, so that others see their lives as an example worth following.

Notice the word equip. As parents, it is easy to see ourselves mainly as protectors, and protection has its place. But be careful not to give up the role of equipper. Our kids need more than shelter from the world; they need to be ready to step into it.

Bring Intentionality Home

I care a lot about ministry, and I always have, because my parents equipped me to. They showed me why it mattered, they modeled it, and they were present in our lives in a way that made it real. Now I try to do the same with my own kids.

Do I get it right all the time? No, and neither will you.

But when we bring intentionality to the way we parent in a ministry setting, I believe it becomes much more likely that we end up doing ministry as a family and caring about the same things.

I am around ministry leaders all the time, and it makes me sad to say that a high percentage of ministry families don’t make this a priority. What we end up with are pastors’ kids, missionary kids, and ministry kids who are frustrated, angry, insecure, disconnected from their faith, and unsure how to handle the realities of life in this context.

Parents, we’ve got to do better.

Take responsibility and take action. Be present in your kids’ lives, and put your family on mission together. Accept the role and the responsibility that come with being not just a parent, but a ministry family parent.

Your kids are watching you more closely than any congregation ever will. Be intentional in all of it, and equip them for something really amazing.