Pete Briscoe has served since 1992 as pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Dallas. He and his wife, Libby, have three children: Cameron, Annika, and Liam. Pete’s parents, Stuart and Jill Briscoe, ministered for 30 years at Elmbrook Church in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mark Batterson is pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Lora, have three kids: Parker, Summer, and Josiah. They have lived on Capitol Hill since 1996. While not a pastor’s kid, Mark married into a pastor’s family. His father-in-law, Bob Schmidgall, planted and pastored Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, for more than 30 years.
Growing up, what did you learn about ministry?
Pete: We often sat around the dinner table “talking church.” While I’m glad for my seminary degree, my best training was table talk with Mom and Dad discussing church issues. Dad would throw out specific scenarios and ask each of us what we would do. It removed any rose-colored glasses and honestly faced the difficulties in leadership.
Mark: My father-in-law was my mentor and my model for ministry. I’ve never met anyone who worked harder at ministry, but his family always felt like they came first. I learned one of my “family rules” from him: my wife and kids can interrupt any meeting I’m in, no matter who I’m with. If they call, I answer.
What did you see modeled right for you?
Pete: My parents didn’t like the “pastor’s kid” thing. People in the congregation would pull my dad aside and say, “A pastor’s kid should be acting better than that.” With one such critic, my dad looked him in the eye and said: “Pastor’s kid. The key word in that phrase is the second one, kid, not the first. He didn’t choose that I would be a pastor. The truth is that he is a kid. Let’s cut him some slack and hold him to the same standards as other kids.”
That gave me a freedom that I appreciated from my dad.
Mark: I was not a PK, but I’m very intentional about a few things with our kids. I try to focus on all the blessings that are a byproduct of being a pastor. When we receive a gift or some kindness, we share the blessing with our kids.
We do have to protect our kids from some of the negativity of church life. We want to model generosity to our kids. We also live in an urban environment so our kids are surrounded by diversity and exposed to poverty. We try to involve our kids in serving and giving as much as possible.
Did you see anything, growing up, that you decided NOT to do?
Pete: My dad traveled extensively when we were young, which allowed him to have an extremely fruitful ministry. But there was a cost with the kids. He missed the vast majority of my basketball games in high school and college, for instance.
One generation sacrifices family on the altar of ministry. Another sacrifices ministry on the altar of family.
We were talking about this one day, and he said, “Pete, my generation failed in that we tended to sacrifice family on the altar of ministry. I fear your generation is sacrificing ministry on the altar of family.” I think he’s right, on both fronts. My hope is to fully engage my ministry and my family but to do so in an appropriate way during distinctive seasons of life. So, I am not traveling much at all when the kids are growing, but I am investing my time in ministries that allow my message to travel without ever leaving Dallas.
How do you keep your family a priority?
Mark: A few months ago, I took my son, Parker, snowboarding. I skipped our Saturday night services to do it. And as I was riding the chairlift to the top of the slope, suddenly I realized that my life had really revolved around NCC over the last decade.
I felt like I needed to reorder my life. I went into the year with three New Year’s Resolutions:
- Don’t check email on my day off.
- Don’t spend more than 30 nights away from my family for speaking engagements.
- Use all my vacation days.
A while back I decided I would give the church one night a week for church related meetings. Honestly, I could have meetings every night of the week. But I need to coach my kid’s teams and help them with their homework. I need to be a dad first and a pastor second.
What’s your most important goal with your kids?
Mark: My most important ministry this year is discipling my pre-teen son. On his last birthday, I took him camping and we signed a covenant around a campfire that included three challenges: a physical challenge, intellectual challenge, and spiritual challenge. We’ll train for and run a 10K together. We’ll read twelve books together. And we’ll read the New Testament together, as well as some other spiritual disciplines. If he meets those challenges, I’ll take him someplace really special for his next birthday to celebrate his accomplishments.
I’m not a perfect dad. But I’m determined to disciple my son. I want to give him everything I’ve got. And I need to know that I gave fatherhood my best shot.
Pete: For Libby and me, our passionate desire for our kids is that they know Jesus. I mean really know Jesus. We see in the Bible that most faith growth takes place during difficult times. So we expose them to the real world while trying to address real issues. We know they will make poor choices (we hoping that they do so seldom), and we pray that when they do, they get caught! Then, instead of seeing those poor choices as the end of life as we know it, we pray diligently about how to point in the darkness to the Light. We want them to fall in love with the one who can rescue them and show them gracious love in the midst of failure.
We aren’t as interested in “did they go into ministry?” or “did they perform their roles well?” But simply “do they know and love Jesus?”
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