With both Jesse James and James Dobson the sons of ministers, generalizations about the effects of growing up in a pastor’s home are difficult. But the question remains: How do the unique dynamics of the minister’s home life affect ministry now, and in the next generation?
To investigate, LEADERSHIP editors Terry Muck and Marshall Shelley gathered four individuals who’ve seen both sides-as PKs (preacher’s kids) and as pastor/parents:
H. B. London, Jr., is pastor of First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California. His father, Holland London, served as a pastor and district superintendent in Missouri and Arkansas, and now enjoys an itinerant ministry. H. B. and his wife, Beverley, have two sons: Brad, 28; and Bryan, 24.
Chuck Smith, Jr., pastors Calvary Chapel of Dana Point, California. His father pastors Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. Chuck and his wife, Chris, have five children: Will, 11; Jennifer, 9; Michael, 7; and twins Scott and Karen, 3.
Joseph Stowell III recently became president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago after serving for six years as pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church in Southfield, Michigan. Both his father and grandfather were pastors. Joe and Martie Stowell halve three children: Joseph, 18, Libby, 16; and Matthew, 14.
Richard L. Strauss is pastor of Emmanuel Faith Community Church in Escondido, California. His father, Lehman Strauss, pastored eighteen years in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and in 1957 moved to the Southfield, Michigan, church that Joe Stowell would later serve. More recently, he has been in itinerant ministry. Richard and Mary Strauss have four sons: Steve, 32; Mike, 28; Mark, 27; and Tim, 23.
They discuss both the effects of growing up in a pastor’s home as well as trying to maintain a healthy one.
Leadership: What did you enjoy most about being raised in a pastor’s home?
Richard Strauss: I enjoyed the fact that my dad was respected. I mean, here was a man standing in the pulpit teaching the Word of God, and people were listening and writing things down, and their lives were being changed. And that was my dad!
I was a retiring child, not outgoing at all. Dad was such a strong personality that he overshadowed those around him. But I didn’t resent that. I felt like some of the respect people had for him trickled down to me. Part of my identity was being his son.
H. B. London: My dad traveled a lot, and being an only child, I missed him a lot. He would come home from some faraway place (whether ten or ten thousand miles away), and he would tell me about the places he’d been and the people he’d met. I wondered if I’d ever be able to do something like that.
Then at one point, he was chaplain of the St. Louis Cardinals during the days of Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter. On my sixteenth birthday, he asked, “What would you like to do?”
“I’d like to go to Stan Musial’s restaurant,” I said. So with a bunch of my friends, we went. I’ll never forget sitting there and Stan Musial coming by, talking to us, and giving me an autographed picture.
Joe Stowell: One of my best memories is having great Bible teachers around our dining room table: M. R. DeHaan, Sidlow Baxter, and others. I remember one meal when Frank Logsdon, former pastor of Moody Church, leaned over to me and said, “God has given you a great daddy.” That stuck with me. I felt like, My dad’s a good guy, an important person.
Chuck Smith: My fondest memory, too, is having godly people in our home who were so animated and enthusiastic when they talked about the Lord. Their devotion to the Lord and the ministry made me feel as though this was the most important subject in life.
One time my dad had been at a pastors’ conference and met four colleagues. This was kind of out of character for him, but Dad spontaneously invited them over to the house. It was stimulating to me because they weren’t sharing statistics about who had the most people in their churches; they were sharing their common commitment to Christ.
Leadership: As you were growing up, was the church a place you enjoyed or endured?
Strauss: When I was young, I didn’t go to enjoy it; I went because Dad made me. But I enjoyed being there because that’s where my friends were. And those friends were important to me. At times I was willing to endure some of Dad’s wrath in order to be accepted by my peers.
What I didn’t enjoy were those folks who would periodically use my dad’s position against me: “You’re the pastor’s son. Now how could you . . .”
I resented that manipulation, the double standard.
London: You long to be normal, treated like any other kid, but you know you aren’t “normal,” at least not within your dad’s church.
Stowell: I seldom went to church for the right reasons. Sometimes I wonder if anybody really does. I, too, went because my friends were there. I had friends in the public high school, but if push came to shove, my friends at church counted more.
London: I was just the opposite. I did the perfunctory thing and went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. But school, sports, and baseball camps represented so much more of my life than church.
I wasn’t a bad kid, but I didn’t radiate any spiritual depth either. I wanted much more to be accepted by my peers in high school than by my peers at church. I didn’t want anyone to know I was a preacher’s kid. There were times when I wished my dad were a bricklayer, an accountant, a garbage collector, anything but a preacher.
In fact, my lifestyle was such that when I went back for a high school reunion ten years later, having been to seminary, they gave me an award for the “Profession Least Likely.”
Smith: As a pastor’s kid, you learn to relate within your church subculture. You get outside the subculture and you’re less comfortable.
At school, I didn’t want anyone to know I was a Christian, let alone a pastor’s kid.
Plus, up until I was in junior high, my dad was pastor of a Four Square Church. I mean, try explaining that one to your friends! (Laughter)
Leadership: Did your parents recognize the pressure on you as PKs and try to compensate at all?
Smith: My dad was aware of the down side of being a pastor’s kid. There were lots of restrictions on our behavior because of what others would think, and Dad was aware of that.
He had a saying-“When your dad owns the candy store, you’re treated to certain privileges.” For instance, one time Dad was the director of a weeklong summer camp. He took me along, and most of the time I was kind of lonely because he wasn’t really there for me. There was always a crowd of people around him. I only caught him coming and going.
But one evening, everyone was finishing dinner, and he came to my table and whispered, “Grab your swimsuit and meet me at the pool.”
The pool was closed then. But he opened the lock and we got in. I’ll never forget it-just Dad and me swimming in the pool. It was like he “owned the candy store” that weekend. As camp director, he had access to the pool, and he wasn’t breaking any rules by going in there with his son. Things like that were very special to me.
Leadership: Do you now realize some benefits of your upbringing that you did not realize when you were younger?
Strauss: Several things come to mind. My dad had his study at home, and one day I walked past his study and heard him talking. I knew there wasn’t anybody in there. I thought, Who’s Dad talking to? So I sat down and listened. He was praying.
I sat there for ten or fifteen minutes and listened. That was a moving experience, and after that, every once in a while if I knew he was praying, I’d sit outside his door and listen. That’s something that’s grown more meaningful now than it was at the time.
Stowell: I think being a PK, being in the public eye, helped forge my life. What grated against me at the time actually became a part of my training. Learning to live with people watching you, learning to show deference to people who expect more of you than they would of others. I appreciate that now.
Leadership: For you, those expectations were a plus, something to live up to.
Stowell: It was a training time, because the rest of my life I was going to live in this fish bowl.
When I graduated from seminary, I asked my father what I should do-be an assistant pastor? He said, “No. Go right into the pastorate. You’ve grown up in a pastor’s home. Go for it.”
Growing up in a pastor’s home is a seminary education in itself. You develop a sixth sense for the issues of ministry.
When my own children started coming along, I asked my dad, “Why do you think all three of your children went into the ministry?”
He said, “I don’t know. Your mother and I can’t take credit for it. We think it’s because the church in Hackensack, New Jersey, consistently prayed for our children. In prayer meetings, people would pray aloud for you children by name.”
I attribute that to the fact that my behavior drove ’em to their knees. (Laughter)
But I do think as pastor’s kids, we may have more prayer poured into our lives than other kids.
London: In the late forties and early fifties, legalized gambling, I’m sure with Mafia ties, was being brought into St. Louis.
My dad took a strong and public stand against it. I remember the threats and the phone calls he got, and the guards we had around our house at times. At one point my mom and I had to move from St. Louis to another town because of the threats on our lives.
I remember how bold my dad was, and not just publicity bold; he really felt strongly that if someone didn’t take a stand against this that a lot of children and young people would be harmed.
During the time, as a seventh and eighth grader, I was embarrassed by the editorials making fun of my dad for his holy roller approach and such. But I think he instilled within me the attitude that says, “Just because you’re the underdog doesn’t mean you have to quit.” He gave me a sense of boldness and pride about who I was and what I represented.
Smith: One thing I took for granted that I’ve come to appreciate is the intimacy with God and his Word that our family enjoyed. Our constant orientation was toward God. That’s where we sought our solutions; that’s how we addressed life.
So when I was sick, and there was a period in my childhood when I was sick quite a bit, I just expected my grandmother to put her hand on my forehead and pray for me. I came to expect spiritual ministry as well as medical attention.
My wife is still somewhat uncomfortable praying aloud. But for me, having grown up this way, praying extemporaneously is a natural expression. I’ve appreciated the fact that I feel at home in Scripture and in the presence of God. Part of that is due to the environment in which I was raised.
Leadership: Your ambivalence here is interesting. All four of you have profound respect for your family life. Yet you’ve said that in school, the pressure from your peers was so great that none of you was ready to stand up and say, “I am a pastor’s kid!” Most of the time you hoped people didn’t talk about your dad’s vocation. There’s respect for the man, but embarrassment over the role.
Smith: It’s a matter of cultural dissonance. My comfort zone was inside the subculture of the church. From birth, I’ve been trained how to act in this environment.
But the outside culture, at least in my upbringing, was presented as so bad, so evil, that I couldn’t help but be uncomfortable when I was outside church settings. Any time I heard profanity at school, I’d find myself asking the Lord to forgive me for hearing it. With this overactivated guilt mechanism, I lived a dual life, trying to straddle two cultures.
I wish I’d understood then that some differences are largely cultural. I’ve been trying to sensitize our high school Christians to that fact, and it takes some of the stress off. I tell them, “You don’t have to act in a secular culture the way you act in a Christian culture. It’s okay not to use Christian vocabulary in a secular culture. What you’re doing is almost missionary work. You have to learn cross-cultural communication.”
Had I known that in high school, I think I could have existed better with a sense of cultural relevance instead of seeing everything as necessarily a spiritual compromise.
London: The term now is nerd. I don’t know what it was then, maybe clod or square, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to be one. I would do anything not to be square or nerdish-to the point of rejecting many of the things I knew better.
As an only child, I didn’t have anybody at home who was facing these things with me. So my peer acceptance was not at home; not even at church, because those people didn’t matter to me that much. It was at school where it seemed so important that I was accepted. I did not want to be a nerd.
Strauss: It’s hard not to be, especially if you grow up in a home where there are lifestyle restrictions. I grew up within a pretty restrictive framework, where movies and dances were no-nos. How could you be accepted by these people when you consistently avoided the school dance? And you didn’t go to most parties. And you didn’t know the movies they were talking about.
I remember people in our church who had greater liberties than our family had. I envied them. But we could never adopt their standard because others in the church just wouldn’t hear of it.
Stowell: And there was always a bunch of little spies at public school who went to your church. “You know what the pastor’s son did at school today, Mom?” And then the mom would tell the deacon’s wife and so on. You never escaped the tension.
I think the ambivalence you mention goes back to the ambivalence of your father’s position in the world. At one time, the ministry was one of the most respected professions. These days, when they rank the prestigious professions, ministers don’t even make the list. So you move from your church, where your dad is highly respected, to the outside culture, where no one knows what your dad does-or if they do, they’re put off.
Leadership: Did you ever resent the demands ministry placed on your parents? Were there times when you felt, either justifiably or unjustifiably, that other people had stolen your parents’ attention?
Stowell: I would say no, but for one reason. Vacations saved it for me. If we hadn’t taken our vacation as a family, I would have felt that way. My dad didn’t make a conscious effort to do something with me five days a week. He had meetings; he was gone a lot of evenings. But two things stand out in my memory that demonstrate to me that Dad did care for me and that I was important to him.
Several times he took me to Yankee Stadium for the Memorial Day double header. Or on an occasional day off, when he didn’t go to the office, I’d say, “Dad, let’s go see the Yankees.” And he’d take me. Very memorable.
Then we also took the whole month of August for vacation, and we drove to Michigan, where my grandparents lived. And Dad and I would go fishing on the St. Joe River. We had a rowboat and we’d row up the river and fly fish as we drifted down.
I think those times saved me. For eleven months he belonged to other people, but in those ways, he said, “You are important to me.”
Strauss: I agree. Our times together were summer Bible conferences. But my dad did something else that sticks in my memory. When I was about five, he had a portrait taken of just him and me with our arms around each other, and he wrote across that portrait, Pals. He hung it in his study. I used to go in when he wasn’t there and just stand and look at that picture. It meant more to me at that age than anything in life. In fact, I’ve got it at home now.
Smith: I never thought of the ministry taking Dad away. That would have been too abstract for me. And it wasn’t a big issue for me, because in junior high, I pulled away from my parents and wanted to put as much distance between us as I could.
But when I was younger, I do remember him going off and not being able to understand why I couldn’t go with him.
Other times, I remember how rude the people at church seemed to be to us kids. After a service, I’d be standing there holding Dad’s hand, and they would step right between Dad and me-literally and figuratively coming between us. They either ignored me or seemed annoyed that I was there, since their lives were falling apart and they had to talk to the pastor.
So I remember growing up hating adults, these people I always had to be polite to.
I think Dad was sensitive to what I was feeling. He would let me hang onto him, grab his pant leg, and I never heard him say, “Go away. I’m trying to talk to this person right now.”
Leadership: How did your experience as a pastor’s kid affect your decision to enter the ministry?
Stowell: One reason, from a human perspective, that I’m in the ministry today is that my dad was respected by people.
Not only did people look up to him, but I could see he was a man of character. He cultivated the godliness that earned their respect. I never saw Dad being manipulative or playing politics. I saw his genuine interest in others and love for the Word of God. That’s where his credibility came from.
As a boy, I was impressed by that. I’m not sure I’d couch that in spiritual terms-“That was my call to the ministry.” But it was a beginning-“The ministry is a good thing to do with your life.”
Strauss: What it did for me was to keep the ministry an option. It wasn’t an unpleasant prospect. Because I’d seen Dad used by God to touch lives, I saw the ministry as something, if God directed me that way, that I could live with.
Smith: I felt just the opposite. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be in physical education, definitely not the ministry. I didn’t want to get calls in the middle of the night. I wanted to do something where you put in your time and then went home to your wife and kids.
In junior college I began to feel the pull of the world, and I knew if I didn’t get something going with God, it would suck me in. So I made a decision for Christ, but with the stipulation that he not call me into ministry. I knew my dad felt rewarded by what he was doing, but it wasn’t attractive to me. I didn’t want those intrusions in my life.
Stowell: I admired my dad and my granddad. Many times I thought, I want to be like them. But I sure had questions about the ministerial image: the schedule, the way people looked at you, the way they thought of you. I didn’t want to be holy all the time. I didn’t want to cough in a deeper voice. (Laughter)
Smith: Or carry a Bible wherever I went.
Stowell: That bothered me. In my senior year of college, I felt this nudge to go into ministry. But even when I got to seminary, I wanted to make sure my image reflected the strength of character and person I saw in my father.
Smith: I was fortunate in that Dad was very athletic. He was an all-star football player, and even now he’s very active in tennis and water skiing. So I didn’t have that image of the pastorate.
My resistance was slightly different. I told myself, I’m gonna be secular. Not profane, but secular. With Christ living in me, I want to be comfortable with non-Christians. I didn’t want to be a minister who was uncomfortable in secular surroundings.
Leadership: Now all of you are in the ministry and have PKs of your own. How do you see your role? To your family, are you the pastor or the father?
London: As our kids were growing up, I looked at them as my sons and myself as their father. Yet spiritually, my preaching, instruction, and example as their pastor has had great influence on them. I’m the only pastor they’ve ever had.
Stowell: I don’t think of myself as their pastor. I do pastor them on Sundays. But when I walk in the door at night, I don’t think of them in congregational terms. My home is my escape, a place where I don’t have to be The Pastor.
Smith: My mom probably “pastored” us more than my dad did. She definitely provided the spiritual leadership for us growing up.
Strauss: We pastor our children in the sense of guiding them and providing direction for their lives. But I don’t see myself as their preacher. I struggle with dads who preach at their kids but don’t listen, who have an agenda for every conversation: Dad speaks, kid listens.
I have a tendency to be like that. But I’m grateful that God gave me a wife who won’t let me. I don’t want to be the family preacher, except on Sunday.
Stowell: I can stand up in front of hundreds of people and articulate a spiritual principle and illustrate it. People even take notes. But that afternoon, sitting with my wife and kids, it’s a lot harder.
Leadership: No notebooks come out?
Stowell: No! I’m not nearly as articulate or convincing. I’ve given a talk to teenagers on dating, morality, and handling temptations. I tried to sit down and cover that with my kids. It didn’t work. I wondered, What’s wrong with me? I just lost the gift.
That’s the difference between fathering and pastoring. Fathering is a very different role-our impact goes beyond the realm of precept. Our impact comes from our character, attitude, integrity-our caring and love for them.
Smith: In the pulpit it’s what we say; at home it’s what we are.
Leadership: What does your family contribute to your ministry?
Smith: I find my family gives me a realistic view of life. Since I’ve tried to limit my counseling, there are people who are unnecessarily alarmed: “You don’t counsel anymore, and I’m afraid you’ll get out of touch with your people.”
That’s mythical as long as you have a real family in a real world. You’re in touch with where your people are. You have job problems. You have to put gas in the car. Your kids get in trouble at school. I mean, it’s the same stuff.
But besides that, they offer stability and support. They’re on my team. They encourage me. They believe in what I’m doing for God. I think that’s important. I want to be behind them in the same way in whatever they’re doing.
Stowell: Not only is my wife my best critic, but she has also, in a sense, become the goal of my ministry. Evaluating my preaching, I ask myself, Did I feed Martie this morning? If so, I feel I’ve done my job. She’s heard most all my sermons. She also knows me, so she would know if my preaching did not match my practice. It’s a great treat to hear her say, “God really worked in my life today.” That’s the ultimate compliment.
Smith: One Sunday after the service, I came in and stood in the kitchen next to Chris and said, “Can I help you with anything?” She got me busy with some vegetables, and I said, “Boy, I just don’t know about today.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Oh, the message.”
“Honey, it was great!” she said. “It spoke to my needs. It was really powerful.”
“Thanks, Dear.”
Then she said, “Is that what you were fishing for?” (Laughter)
Leadership: In a profession as demanding as the ministry, should the family be expected to pay part of the price?
Strauss: I ask myself why many pastors allow other people to come before their families. In many cases it is a genuine love for people and a desire to meet their needs. But I wonder if there aren’t other motives that sometimes cloud the issue. Sometimes we in public ministry have a greater need for affirmation, but our families see us as we are and don’t always give it. But we can be the hero to that struggling person over there. So we spend the time where we get the most praise.
Smith: Also, a lot of ministry is fun-getting up in front of people, teaching them how to live their lives. At times it’s a lot more fun than being home changing diapers. And if you’ve got an excuse to get out seven nights a week, I mean, what wife can argue with God? But that’s unfair.
London: Most of us see ourselves as called-out people, different from lawyers or plumbers or salesmen, and I do think God has a special covering for us. There were ball games I should have seen that I didn’t. There were other kids I was giving more attention to than my own at times. But I think God knew my heart and my motivation. It wasn’t selfish, and it wasn’t egocentric. Oh, it may have been sometimes, of course. But most of the time it was genuine.
Stowell: We can’t presume on God’s covering and neglect our families, but it’s true, they do make sacrifices because of the ministry. There were times we planned a family outing, and someone got into a near-fatal car wreck, so I had to go to the hospital. The only thing that keeps me sane is believing God does compensate and offers a covering because we’re doing it for him.
Strauss: I think the kids understand, too. If you’re faithful and you really have their interest at heart and you’re there most of the time, when an emergency comes up, they’re not going to begrudge your taking care of it. My kids haven’t.
I heard Howard Hendricks say, “Your family is not apart from your ministry; it’s a part of your ministry.” I found that helpful. Our loved ones are legitimately a high priority in ministry. If we build the greatest works by human standards yet fail our own families, I don’t think we’ve really honored God with our lives or our ministries.
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