Growing up as a pastors kid

Often, people perceive the concept of growing up in a pastor’s home in a generally negative way. For example, you’ve probably heard stories of children who had a distant, preoccupied pastor father, or those who had pastor dads who held impossibly high expectations.

Thankfully, this has not been my experience as a pastor’s kid. I can’t think of a better way to “raise a child in the way they should go” than to be raised in a healthy and vibrant Christian community. I myself, now at age 24, have had the profound blessing to be raised in the context of such an environment within the body of believers who took a genuine concern and responsibility for my spiritual life. Church has been and will always be my family and a place where I can find encouragement, support and spiritual nutrition in my walk with Jesus.

As a young boy, it was in church that I was guided through the Bible stories of people who obeyed God and experienced blessing, and those who disobeyed and suffered the consequences. Most importantly, I learned about a God of mercy and love who sacrificed His only Son Jesus to save me from the penalty of my sin. When I was seven, it was in a Sunday school classroom that I made the decision to invite Jesus into my heart and apologize to God for the bad things I had done.

The body of Christ was truly a community around me while I was growing up. For example, when I took an interest in music, it was a church member who gave me a guitar and taught me not only how to play skillfully but to do it to the glory of God. When looking for a job, church members stepped in and taught me their trades. After I graduated from high school and got involved in missions, the church prayerfully and financially supported me. This and countless other instances of direct church involvement have marked my life in a significant way.

I am deeply grateful to have been raised as a pastor’s kid within the community of the church and can confidently testify to God’s active grace in using the church to raise up and edify its people. I can’t imagine where I would be in my faith journey without the constant involvement of committed people that gave so much to me.