Children of the ministry are not volunteers; they are conscripts.
Doug Toussaint

My job as a parent is a temporary responsibility with eternal consequences.
Tim Kimmel

What do Alice Cooper and Cotton Mather have in common? Not much, except that both grew up as sons of ministers.

The same is true of Aaron Burr, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Walter Mondale, John Tower, Marvin Gay, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sir Laurence Olivier. Other "preacher's kids" include Albert Schweitzer, Christian Barnaard, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

There's no guarantee, of course, that any child — whether born into the home of a preacher, professor, plumber, or prince — will decide to live in a way that brings honor to God and joy to parents. Nor can pastoral couples guarantee even that their children will find church a place to enjoy rather than endure. Some factors are beyond parental control — critics, conflict — but parents can help prepare children for church life, interpret what's happening, and create an atmosphere ...