Introduction

While there are many blessings of being a church leader family, you can also fear that, because of your vocation, your children’s faith will be damaged and they may turn away from God.

It is true that your children will be impacted and shaped by your vocation (just as all children are impacted and shaped by their parents’ lives). Your job, therefore, is to help your children navigate the difficult bits well and help them go on their own adventure with God, so that your family doesn’t just survive, but thrive!

We’ll be looking at how to do this well under four headings:

• Connected (this session)
• Prioritised (session 2)
• Covered (session 3)
• Empowered (session 4)

Your children need to feel fully connected to you. Think about a novice skydiver on their first flight in tandem with an experienced instructor. The thing that makes the novice feel safe is knowing that they are tightly and fully connected to the instructor, because he knows how to make everything work properly – then the novice can relax and enjoy the adventure.

As church leaders you are on the great adventure of ministry and your children come with you. What will help them get through the adventure well is a strong connection with you. You therefore need to figure out what helps your children feel connected to you so you can help them flourish even through tough stuff.

The problem of the hat dance

You can feel like you have two hats: a church leader hat and a parent hat. The problem is that in ministry, the two roles often seem to coincide. You can struggle to know which hat you are wearing at particular time; you and your family can feel the stress of trying to wear the right hat at the right time. You can feel like you are being pulled in opposite directions. But actually, you aren’t two different people: you are one person whom God has called to both ministry and parenthood.