Sadly, some of our children don’t come to Jesus in repentance and faith but turn away in hostile rebellion.
A cocktail of external social influences can mix with internal trauma, hormones, and indwelling sin to stir up hostility to parents in general and Christianity in particular. Whilst we still love them dearly, such children bring us unspeakable heartbreak. And, in a ministry home, we and our children have the added pressure of having our congregation watching us. We feel the heaviness of our responsibilities to both our children and our church. O Lord, help us!
Our decision to write anonymously is because we are living this ourselves and the last thing our precious teenage child needs is to feel that they have been publicly named and shamed. We also know of other pastors and wives facing similar agony as their children are swept along with the pervasive godless culture including searching for new sexual and gender identities. And with us increasingly seen as the bad guys, even our words of truth can be easily weaponised against us. Perhaps we are still rare cases, but anecdotally it does seem like there has been a rise in the number of evangelical pastors affected. Here then are seven principles we daily seek to apply, and hope will help others as they parent such children in their ministry home.
1. We must guard our own hearts and daily rejoice in the gospel. We must plead with the Lord in our lament and keep our minds fixed on Him who does all things well. What a joy then to remember we are justified by God’s grace and not the works of our parenting or ministry! Sin can quickly break through when we feel sad, weak, and frustrated. Yet the book of Job teaches us that we don’t live in a purely mechanical universe where Biblical parenting and prayer guarantees an obedient Christian child. And so, like Job, we need to guard our own hearts when we, our friends, or the devil himself, claim it’s all our fault. God works in mysterious ways and sometimes there are knots in the wood, crooks in the lot, and mysterious factors that we cannot fully understand about our children. And so we must guard against feeling poor old me, poor old me! ‘It’s not fair Lord – I’ve done A, B, C, so why haven’t you given me a child that does D, E, F?’. We need God’s help, yet again, to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. We need His grace, yet again, to be forgiving and humble enough to ask for forgiveness. Each night we need to rest in the truths that God is sovereign, good, and wise. He knows the road He has called us to walk, and His grace is sufficient for us and made perfect in our weakness. We must guard our own hearts.
2. We pastors must take 1 Timothy 3:4 seriously. ‘He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity.’ We need to feel the burden of this, but also know the difference between process and output. Output – the salvation of our kids is God’s business. But the process of parenting is our business. So, consider this: should your church fire you because rebellion arose in your church or because one of the members fell into unrepentant sin? I sincerely hope not! But they should fire you if you remain indifferent to this rebellion or turn a blind eye to the unrepentant sin. If you are incapable of handling these situations, or your only tool is a rod of iron, you should be fired! The sad reality is that church life kicks up many sad situations that a pastor cannot prevent but that he must know how to manage. And, transposing this back to the family home, a pastor will show his suitability for church leadership by the way he reacts and responds to rebellion in his home. That is the point. Keep yourself accountable to your local church and pastors from sister churches. Invite them into your home, share a meal, and let them watch and decide whether you are managing your own household well. If we are an Eli, we are not fit for the job. But if we are managing the challenges well, we deserve their support and prayers. But we must take 1 Timothy 3:4 seriously.
3. As much as possible, we mustn’t let our prodigal child remove all the structures and patterns of family life although we must be willing to flex. Keep the rhythm of eating meals together, trips out, family prayer time, and even gathering for church on Sundays. At the moment we encourage our child to gather with us for church on Sundays, but we don’t expect them to attend other meetings. Likewise, we must keep the responsibility for conflict resolution with us as parents, but be willing to seek outside help. Sometimes the introduction of a different person in the midst of a difficult situation has helpfully changed the relational dynamics. This is not relinquishing our responsibility, but wisely using the human resources God has blessed us with. Which leads on to the next point.
4. We should consider asking for help from our own local church. We mustn’t be too proud or too insistent that the situation is something we alone must fix. Don’t you just love the local church? How sad it has been to walk with pastors who don’t have this support in their own church. It can be such a blessing if we have other trusted friends to support us and to give our child a different source of help. What a blessing if we have other people at different ages and stages who can serve us and our children! Perhaps they have a pet or hobby that can bring some welcome change; perhaps they can have our child over regularly so that we can have a breather! What a blessing. And we mustn’t feel that letting others see our struggles will undermine us – if we are modelling the need for help, we are discipling our church family to reach out when they also need help in the future. Please don’t be too proud to think that you must hide and solve this challenge alone. And please don’t cut out the opportunities that the wider church family will have to serve you and your children. It really does take a local church to raise our children!
5. Where possible we should seek out the wider support of other Christian pastors and parents, especially those who have also faced the struggle of rebellious children. What a blessing to be able to read good Christian literature, attend conferences and seminars and connect with other Christians for help with parenting. But do be careful not to draw all your support from the seemingly successful ones, especially if their children are still young! One wise older pastor suggested we are better keeping much of our parenting advice to ourselves until our children are grown up! Sometimes, the understanding of parents who themselves have had prodigal children can be a vital part of the jigsaw of advice. But, as there can also be a temptation to form ‘pity parties’, we should pray that the Lord will guide us to wise and godly folk who will, in turn, guide us in God’s word with love, gently correcting us where necessary.
6. We need to be open to seeking and receiving help from non-Christians too. We Christians should not reject wisdom from further afield as the Lord can use this to help us in our parenting struggles. In God’s goodness, sometimes schoolteachers, social workers, and groups like CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Support) may have the keys needed to unlock things that are going on in our rebellious child. Of course, this can come with a risk if these outsiders have an overtly anti-Christian worldview, but with the other supports also in place, they can be a very important source of help, particularly for our struggling child. Be ready to trust the Lord even when things look like they are slipping out of your hands. This needs our humility to accept that we may not have all the skills to deal with our child’s behaviour, but prayerfully seeking the help of a wider network can be a good step forward in helping our child.
7. Whilst we should always remain hopeful of radical change, we mustn’t write the draft of our prodigal child’s conversion story too soon. Yes, we trust in the God who saves and so remain hopeful, but we shouldn’t live constantly on the edge of expecting the Lord to dramatically intervene tomorrow. This can be particularly difficult if other Christians (perhaps especially older relatives) see this as the first topic of conversation each time we meet. Sadly, we know of a pastor now in his late 80s who still has a rebellious son. Another couple we love dearly have accepted they may never see their son again. Although we remain hopeful, we must pace ourselves. In the Lord’s mysterious providence, some of us may need to trust Him through decades of longing for change, but trusting that ‘all things working together for our good’ includes the ongoing rebellion of our child or children.
In closing, please listen again to our Good Shepherd: ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light’ (Matt. 11:28-30).
O Lord, thank you that you have promised to help us parent our children and that we are always safe in your hands!
