We don’t do our children a favor when we protect them from the world.
— Wayne Gordon
Thirteen years ago my wife, Anne, gave birth to our daughter, Angela. Two days later I proudly drove my Chevy to the front door of the hospital and assisted Anne and Angela into the car. Pulling away from the curb, we headed for the Chicago inner-city apartment where we had lived for three years.
When we crossed California Avenue and entered the Lawndale neighborhood with its glass-strewn empty lots and burned-out tenements, my wife began weeping.
“What are you crying about?” I asked. “This is a happy moment.” (The proud father got a failing mark for sensitivity that day.)
“How can we bring our innocent little daughter into this environment?” she sobbed.
I figured my wife’s emotions had something to do with postpartum depression, but I also suspected her maternal instincts were on target. Though I am not often burdened by guilt, at that moment, I began to feel guilty about where I had brought my family for the sake of ministry.
Pressures on the Pastor’s Family
Inner-city ministry isn’t the only ministry that is risky to a family. Frequent moves can traumatize a spouse and children. Churches that openly criticize a pastor can leave a family bitter toward ministry. And then there are the many normal complications of church life. Let me note three.
• Failed role models. Several years ago, a popular young man, who eventually became a deacon in our church, was like a pied piper to the children. He spent considerable time with all the children, including mine, regularly taking them to the lake and the park.
Then we learned his girlfriend was pregnant. My children, who were in elementary school at the time, old enough to understand what was going on, began asking questions: “Dad, I thought you weren’t supposed to have a baby before you were married.”
“Dad, Bob (not his real name) is a Christian. He has always taught us about God, but now he is not obeying God. Don’t we have to obey all that God teaches us?”
I saw my children confused and hurt.
That hasn’t been the only time one of our church leaders has failed sexually, and each has shaken our children. Such failures, sad to say, are not uncommon no matter the church setting. The sexual temptation and unbiblical ideas about sex that our children absorb from popular media are bad enough; when children also get mixed messages in church, the pressure is that much greater.
• Financial constraints. We have a rule in our house about tennis shoes: Mom and Dad will pay forty dollars for shoes, and if the kids want to buy something more expensive, they can add their own money. Still, the most we’ll spend on tennis shoes is a total of sixty dollars.
One day my daughter came home in tears wearing her fairly new, clean, tennis shoes. All her friends, who wear L.A. Gear, made fun of her because she was wearing a no-name brand.
A status symbol for my son Andrew is Air Jordans, with a price tag of $100. (And they can’t just be Air Jordans; they have to be this year’s model of Air Jordans.)
One day Andrew and I went to the mall to shop for shoes. He saw the pair he wanted, and I saw the price tag. “No way,” I said. “You know the rules. We’re not spending $100 on shoes. But we can shop around and see if any stores sell Air Jordans at a lower price.”
We walked through the entire mall without success. “You’re going to have to get a different kind of shoe,” I finally said. He resisted. I tried to stay calm, but then I got angry. I pointed to a pair of less-expensive shoes and said, “Are you going to get these shoes or not?”
“No!” he snapped, and we charged out of the mall. We drove home in silence.
Later that night, I went into his bedroom to pray with him, as is our custom. “Andrew, what is the thing with these gym shoes?” I asked. “Do gym shoes make you a better person?”
“No,” he answered. “But when you have those shoes on, everybody looks at you, and they know you’re in style. It makes you feel good.”
He started to cry. “If I don’t wear those shoes, everyone will make fun of me!”
“Maybe they will,” I replied. “But the important thing is what is inside you: your love for people and your love for God. If you grow up, and you’re always looking to have the best suit, the best car, the best house, you’ll be miserable.”
Hoping my little sermon had won him over, I asked, “What do you think?”
“I still want the Air Jordans.”
“Well, you can’t have them,” I concluded. “If you want to get the other shoes, let me know.” And I walked out of the room.
Early the next morning, I went to church for my devotions. The phone rang, and it was Andrew. “Dad, I thought some more about it last night. You’re right. I want to get the $60 pair of gym shoes.”
That was a long battle that ended on a positive note. But they don’t all end so well. Frankly, it’s hard for me not to spoil my kids.
• Time pressures. I have trouble getting home on time. I promise my wife and children I’ll be home at, say, 5:00. But as the work piles up, I wait until 4:57 to dash out of my office door. Although it’s only a two-minute walk to my home, because of the number of people I meet in the church and neighborhood on the way home, I’m fifteen or more minutes late.
Perhaps you’ve seen the T-shirt that says, If Mom is not happy, nobody is happy. That’s how it is at our dinner table when I’m late. Always being available for others but not available for our families takes its toll.
Several years ago while we were on vacation, my wife and I asked our two oldest children, “If you could change one thing about us, what would it be?”
“Well, Mom, sometimes you get a little irritable. It would be nice if you wouldn’t yell at us when you get mad.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. It sounds like we’re doing okay; every parent flies off the handle now and then.
Then it was my turn. My son said, “Dad, I want you to be home more at night. You’re never around. I never get to see you.”
That hurt, but it wasn’t a surprise. “Andrew, that’s certainly a good point.”
Then it was Angela’s turn. “Dad, I wish you were someone I could trust. I don’t trust you.”
I was stunned. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“You tell me you’ll do something, but you don’t do it. You break your promises.”
She was right. I had the best of intentions toward my children — “I’ll read you a book tonight, Angela” or “We’ll go to the lake tomorrow” or “I’ll be home in time to help you with your homework” — but then I let church demands and people in need take priority.
Wherever we minister, our children will face such pressures. So how can pastors balance the parental instinct to shelter their families, and the call of God, which often leads them to challenging, even dangerous places? How much should we put our children in harm’s way for the sake of a particular ministry? What do we sacrifice when we minister in difficult settings?
Too Much Shelter
The natural reaction when facing such risks is to build high walls of protection. But I don’t believe we do our children a favor when we shelter them from the world. In particular, three important and necessary things happen when our children have to deal with these challenges.
First, they learn about life.
I was in the back room of our third-floor apartment, preparing it for a tenant, meantime keeping an eye on 6-year-old Andrew, who was playing with neighborhood boys in the back lot. I heard shouting, and I looked out the window to investigate.
One of the boys was on top of Andrew (and I later learned he had punched Andrew in the nose). At that moment, the other boys pulled the aggressor off Andrew, and I heard them say, “Don’t you ever hit Andrew. That’s Coach Gordon’s son” (even though I’m a pastor, I’m known as “Coach”). I ended up having to go outside and stop them from hurting the boy who hit Andrew.
I don’t like seeing my son with a bloody nose, but that experience was good for Andrew. The worst thing I could do in that circumstance is say he can’t play with those boys any more. Life is full of bloody noses, and I won’t usually be nearby to pull off the bullies.
Second, by facing the world, our children learn about ministry.
Whenever it’s appropriate, I take my kids with me when I minister at places like Cook County Hospital, Cook County Jail, other churches, or with individuals in the neighborhood. My daughter walked the streets with me when I ministered in Harlem. Even though those places can be disturbing, they are places where children can develop the values of the kingdom, like the value of sacrificing for others.
One Saturday night in February, I came home at 10:30 after a church meeting. The kids were still awake. The phone rang, and the man on the end of the line said his car had broken down near the church. He needed $20 to fix it.
We discussed his situation a while, and I sensed he was giving me a line, so I finally said, “I don’t have $20. We’ll give you a ride home tonight, and on Monday we’ll help you repair your car.”
He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I repeated myself several times and eventually was able to hang up the phone. I turned around, and there was my son Andrew, standing in his pajamas with a $20 bill in his hand.
“Dad, I want to give that man $20 to fix his car.”
Andrew had celebrated his eighth birthday a few weeks before, and his grandparents had sent him money. For over a month he had held on to $68, unsure of how to spend it.
I had mixed feelings about Andrew using his money this way, but I said, “If the man comes back on Monday, I’ll use your $20 to help him fix his car.”
The man never did call back, and when I told Andrew, he was a little sad. He really wanted to help that man.
Third, seeing the world helps children become better Christians.
Bobby, one of our neighborhood drunks, regularly hangs around our church begging for money or lying on the curb intoxicated. One night I walked out of church with the kids, and Bobby leaned over, fell on me, and mumbled something. “We’re going home, Bobby,” I said.
After we had walked a few feet, Angela asked me, “What is the matter with Bobby? He can’t walk, and he smells funny.” (She had seen him before, but now she was old enough to ask the question.)
I explained that Bobby was drunk, that drinking had ruined his life, kept him from working, destroyed his family, given him the scars she saw on his face. Because of conversations like that, I don’t worry about my kids drinking as adults. Seeing the real world and the consequences of disobeying God teaches them better than any Sunday school lesson.
While no method of raising children is foolproof — they always have a free will — and though exposing our children to this world has risks, my wife and I agree our children are better for it. We have had an invaluable opportunity to communicate our values and beliefs and to set an example of serving others.
When to Protect
Oversheltering is one thing; neglect is quite another. In spite of my general philosophy of allowing kids to be exposed to some risks, I still feel I need to protect them from some influences.
• Serious physical harm. My 4-year-old son, Austin, was playing in the back lot with his sister. Three teenage boys walked by, grabbed Austin, and pushed him hard to the ground. Angela carried Austin into the house, and when she told us what happened, I was furious. I ran out the back door looking for the teens. At a nearby park I asked people if they had seen them. Before long the whole neighborhood was on the hunt.
We never found them.
There is a huge difference between a boy getting a bloody nose from his peers and a 4-year-old being attacked by teenagers. My children don’t need the latter, and Anne and I go overboard to prevent it. We always know our children’s whereabouts and never allow them to roam the neighborhood. (Thirty-five people are shot every day in the city of Chicago.) If one of the kids wants to play with a friend two blocks away, Anne or I walk them there, or we watch them walk and ask the friend’s parents to watch for them, meet them, and call when our child arrives.
My daughter is in eighth grade this year. We have already decided she will not attend the local public high school. Due to the risks of gang violence and rape, as well as the inferiority of the education she would receive there, we have ruled that school out.
• Abuse. When our children turned five, we counseled them about sexual abuse, teaching them the difference between good touch and bad touch. (“Bad touch is when anyone touches you where your underwear is.”) We tell the children immediately to tell us if anyone is touching them wrongly. At our church we screen children’s workers to guard against sexual abuse.
We also guard against emotional abuse. Although I want to raise my kids so they can handle what the world dishes out, I am sensitive to how certain situations are affecting our children’s feelings.
For years our children rode the bus to school. One day we learned from Angela that on the bus Andrew was swearing and getting into fights. He was the only white boy on the bus, with the rest being Hispanic and African-American. The Hispanic kids began to taunt Andrew, who sat with the black kids, saying he was a “wanna be” (that he wanted to be black). This happened several times and led to the fights.
Finally at the dinner table, I asked, “What do you all think about riding the bus? Andrew, is it a safe place?”
Andrew did not ask to be taken off the bus, but he said it was not a good place for him. My wife and I thought and prayed, and we decided Andrew wasn’t handling the situation well and needed more protection than we might normally give. We continued to have him ride the bus in the morning, when it didn’t seem to be as much of a problem, but we started driving him and Angela home after school.
• Television. At our house, the rule is no TV on school nights. It’s easy to let the TV serve as a babysitter or a way to get peace in the home, but it hurts the kids’ school work. And frankly, I think too much television destroys morals. We have noticed that after our children watch a show with some violence in it, they tend to argue more.
When we first put the restrictions on, the kids complained a lot, but eventually they found other things to do, and the television lost much of its allure.
Tom and Nancy Johnson, friends of ours, help lead an innercity ministry on the west coast. Once when Tom was out of town, Nancy was suddenly awakened in the middle of the night by a man on top of her. She began fighting for her life — screaming, scratching, punching.
The intruder cursed and tried to subdue her. The actual attack probably lasted less than five minutes — the intruder finally giving up and running out the back door.
That experience shook Tom and Nancy, and they seriously considered resigning that ministry. But they decided to stay, still feeling God’s call to that ministry. “That night the level of protection wasn’t what we wanted,” they say, “but we know we’re supposed to be here, and we still trust God for protection.”
We live in a world of physical and spiritual dangers. No matter where we are, ministry has risks. I’m doing everything I can to prevent anything untoward from happening to my family. At the same time, I feel God’s call to minister in a dangerous place. That call is winning out, and God has enriched my family as we have followed him.
Copyright ©1994 by Christianity Today
