Good Pastor, Good Parent - Christianity Today

One morning a pastor grabbed his attache case and was hurrying out the door when his wife said, “Now remember, honey, we’re moving today. When you come home, our furniture won’t be here.”

The harried pastor mumbled something and rushed out the door.

After a full day at the office, by habit he drove home down the same street and into the same driveway. He walked to the front door of his old house and found it locked. He looked in the front window and saw no furniture inside.

Standing there scratching his head, he saw a boy on a bicycle riding down the sidewalk. “Sonny,” he called out, “do you know where the family that used to live here moved?”

The boy replied, “Awww, come on, Dad. Mom told you this morning we were moving!”

Good pastors aren’t always good parents. Good parenting takes time, and time is one thing pastors seem to have in short supply. We face emergencies that prevent us from keeping every family commitment. We work many evenings, and on weekends -family times for most people–we are extra busy.

I haven’t been a perfect father. Some weeks I don’t take my day off, and I’m not proud of that. I am away from home most of the day. That’s partly because of ministry demands, but also, quite honestly, because ministry is my passion. I eat, drink, and sleep church life. I love to work and have to tear myself away from the office.

At the same time, I love my family. My wife, Karen, and I have four children with whom I love to spend time. My oldest son, Rob, serves as an urban pastor. Lora is married to a minister. The two younger children, Joel and Amanda, still live at home.

I don’t want to shortchange either pastoring or parenting. But sometimes that seems impossible. How can you be a good pastor and still be a good parent? I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but here are a few things I think my wife and I have done right.

KEEP THE FUN FACTOR

As long as kids are having fun at church, their attitude toward ministry will usually stay positive. With a little forethought and preparation, we can help them enjoy themselves while we minister.

* Invest in an activity box. My kids have spent considerable time hanging around, waiting for me to finish ministry. Often they’re stuck at church long before or after services and would rather be at home. Sometimes we go to a restaurant for a meal with someone, and it turns into a marathon counseling session. Or we drop by the hospital on the way home, and I end up taking an hour. Kids get bored and can resent all the demands put on them.

That’s why Karen has stored a box of toys, books, and activities in my office that we never bring home. Periodically she would buy something new and special for the box that would have been an extravagance at home. After a few years, we even bought a little TV that I kept in my office closet just for the kids.

In the car Karen would also keep yummies that the kids couldn’t touch unless they were “on hold.” Eventually, when we needed new transportation, we bought a van. Now when the kids have been in a restaurant, for example, and have shown patience, we permit them to go to the van and relax until we’re finished.

* Encourage church friendships. We have encouraged the kids to make their friends at church. Every Sunday we urge them to bring home someone from church for the afternoon, and then we bring the friend back to church that night. When our children were in grade school, we encouraged them on Wednesdays to bring home someone from school, and then we would take the friend to church that night. The kids looked forward to seeing whom they could invite.

When our oldest son was in sixth grade, he began to notice that on Sunday morning his friends were outside playing while he was in his hated suit headed for several hours in church. He began complaining, “I don’t want to go to church.”

After several weeks of this, we prayed that God would show us a way to turn Rob’s attitude around. We came up with the idea of having picnics on the church lawn. Each Sunday afternoon a different home group held a picnic, and our family joined in. Rob’s attitude changed completely. Knowing that during the picnic he could run the grounds with his buddies, he looked forward to going to church.

Several years ago we began a pizza fellowship for the staff and their families once a month on Sunday night after church. We wanted the kids to have a special time of fun with the kids of other staff members. We eat heartily, tell silly stories, laugh, and let the kids run around the building (a rare privilege!).

SET FAMILY ROUTINES

I feel the greatest tension between church and family when I haven’t organized well. Church emergencies that intrude on family life are one thing; poor planning is another. I’ve found that establishing certain patterns and routines can help protect our family life.

* Daily routines. I keep a devotional routine with our high-school teens. After going to the office early each morning, I return home at 6:30 to read Scripture and pray with our teens before they leave at 7:00 for school.

Unless I’m out of town, I’m home for dinner each night at 5:30. I know this is the one time each day when my family is all together.

(As important as routines are, though, we also need to be spontaneous about family times. Sometimes I come home at 4:30 P.M. and challenge the kids to some “hoops,” bowling, or a table game before dinner. My son Rob has said several times that these spontaneous small segments of fun meant a great deal to him. They communicated, “I know you’re here, and I enjoy being with you.”)

* Weekly routines. For years I blocked out every Tuesday night as family night and accepted no appointments. Some Tuesdays we planned special activities with the children. Other nights we just hung around the house and made ice cream, helped with homework, or watched TV together. Looking back, our older children say they looked forward to those Tuesday nights. They could handle my absence on other nights because they knew Tuesday was coming.

* Yearly routines. Every year for fifteen years, we have driven to Michigan for a week of vacation. We’ll pick blueberries, drive go-carts, sit on the beach. One week isn’t much time, but our kids say that week in Michigan has provided some of their fondest family memories.

USE TOUGH CHOICES TO TEACH VALUES

My son Rob played lineman on a Naperville high school’s football team. I made it a priority to attend almost every game. In his senior year, the team advanced in post-season play to the game that qualified the winner for the state finals. That put me in a terrible dilemma. I hadn’t anticipated that Rob’s team would advance that far (O me of little faith), and I had agreed months before to speak in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the weekend of the Illinois state football championship.

As I sat in the stands that day, I rooted for Naperville High, but with mixed feelings. I thought about what I would do if Rob’s team won. I would call the pastor who invited me, explain the circumstance,. and ask him to release me from the commitment. If he replied, “It’s too late for you to back out,” I would have to keep my commitment. Yet I dreaded disappointing my son by missing his state championship game.

As it turned out, with five seconds left in the game, the other team came from behind and scored, defeated Naperville High, broke my son’s heart, and saved my skin (I kid him that I’m partly responsible for their defeat!).

But had his team won, and had I missed the big game, that wouldn’t have been a total loss for Rob, if I explained my decision to him properly. Although my absence would have disappointed him (and me), he would have learned something about values. My son is tremendously important to me, but keeping my word–even when it hurts–is also a high priority.

The fact is, schedules don’t always work out. How Karen and I communicate about schedule frustrations affects our children. We can do it negatively and teach negative values. Or we can use the opportunity to teach positive values.

Karen’s father was a pastor. One afternoon, after he had promised to drive her somewhere, Karen stood at the front door waiting for him to come home from the office. She stood there for over forty-five minutes. Finally she lost her temper and said to her mother, “I hate Dad.”

Karen’s mother didn’t correct her or defend Karen’s father. She walked over to Karen, put her arms around her, and said, “I know it’s hard.” Her mother acknowledged Karen’s frustration but was careful not to put down Karen’s father.

Karen follows her mother’s example. If she feels I’m not giving her or the kids enough of my time, she talks to me about it alone, but she never badmouths me in front of them.

Whenever schedule conflicts arise, how we present them to our children affects how they feel about our role as a pastor. If we model a genuine love for ministry, a willingness to sacrifice, and compassion for others in need, our children will pick up those values.

Our daughter Lora recently told us, “When you took me with you to visit a church member in the hospital, you didn’t say, ‘I’m the pastor, so I have to go and see them.’ Instead, it was, ‘I want to see them because they’re hurting. I care about them.’ That caused me to love the people in church, because I knew how much you cared for them.”

MAKE SURE THE SACRIFICE GOES BOTH WAYS

Sometimes I must be at church rather than with the family. Karen and I have found that our children can understand that–as long as the sacrifices work both ways. They must also see me make sacrifices at church so we can be with them.

For example, Karen and I have tried hard to attend our children’s school activities. On occasion I have even changed the church schedule so Karen and I could be at school, actually letting the church calendar revolve around our kids’ calendar! This tells them they are important, that church meetings are not the ruler of our lives.

Obviously, at other times, I have to tell my kids I can’t attend their school activity. My children can accept this more readily because I have put priority on these activities before.

One prominent speaker received a call from the organizer of a large conference. “We want you to come and speak,” said the man enthusiastically, and told him the meeting date.

The speaker checked his calendar and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t come.”

“But you must! We need you.”

“I can’t come.”

“Tell me why. If you’re scheduled elsewhere, I’ll call and ask them to release you.”

“You don’t understand,” said the speaker. “That day is my son’s birthday.”

Sometimes we must choose ministry over family, but our children will accept that more if at other times we choose family over ministry.

LOOK FOR MINISTRY’S FAMILY OPPORTUNITIES

Church life puts pressures on my family, but it also affords special opportunities. Sometimes church members call and say, “I’ve got a ticket to the Cubs (or Sox or Bulls). Do you want to go?”

“That sounds great,” I usually reply, “but I would like to take my kids. Do you have enough tickets for them to join us?”

I rarely go to a sporting event with someone from church unless my kids can come. This way, they reap the benefit of being a PK.

Required church responsibilities have also provided valuable opportunities for family time. Every two years I take my family to our denomination’s general council. As we made plans for the 1983 council, Karen and I discussed how the kids had complained in the past about going, and we decided to let them stay home.

When we broke the news, we nearly had a riot on our hands! We learned our kids love general council–they just didn’t always show it. Now, even though our two older children are out of the house, they insist we include them in our general council plans.

Our church is committed to overseas missions, and so I regularly take missions trips. From the time our children were small, we have told them, “When you become a teenager, you can go on a missions trip with Dad.” On one trip to Africa, my son and I had quite a bonding experience: we were almost stoned to death! My son still has a stone that just missed his head.

Our kids have enjoyed the unique adventures and opportunities that being in the pastor’s family allows.

BALANCE THE BOOKS

On Christmas Day 1991, as I was enjoying Christmas dinner with my family, the phone rang. “Pastor, they just took Tina to Children’s Memorial,” the caller informed me. “The doctors think it’s spinal meningitis. You need to get down there immediately.” I hung up the phone full of concern and regret. My kids would be deeply disappointed.

I walked into the dining room and said, “I’m sorry, I know this is a special day, but I’ve got to go to downtown Chicago.” I explained what had happened and prepared to leave.

As I was about to walk out the door, one of my kids said something I did not expect. “Dad, can we pray for you?”

Karen and all my children then laid hands on me and prayed for God to use me to help this needy family.

My children responded admirably to that emergency, but I have learned that when the demands of my ministry take me from something they expect from me, I need to balance the books by doing something special at a later time.

For Christmas 1992, I tried to balance what had happened the year before. A few days before Christmas, someone in church gave me enough tickets to take my entire family to the Bulls game scheduled for Christmas Day.

We are all enthusiastic Bulls fans, but I didn’t tell Karen or the kids. One Schmidgall family tradition is that I get up early on Christmas morning, put out the china and crystal, and make a big German breakfast for my family. That morning, underneath each plate I secretly taped one of the tickets to the game that afternoon.

An hour or so later, as everyone ate their eggs and potatoes, I could scarcely contain a smile. “Now I have a game for us to play,” I said. “Everybody lift up your plates.”

For a few seconds, they were puzzled. They pulled the tickets off the plates and read. Finally one of the kids said, “You mean we’re going to the Bulls game today?”

I nodded. “Yep!”

Bedlam broke out. Everyone shouted and stomped their feet. We got ready and went downtown and had lunch at Carson’s Ribs; then we went to the game together. It was a memorable Christmas and helped to ease the memory of the previous one. It’s not always easy to balance ministry and family. But with some prayer and diligence, even a good pastor can be a good parent.

********************

Bob Schmidgall is pastor of Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois.