I’m a P.K.

I’m a PK. A pastor’s kid.

For many, the term ‘pastor’ or ‘preacher’ conjures a lot of trauma. I ache for people who have had bad experiences with churches and the people, predominantly men, who lead them. There is no excuse for shepherds hurting their sheep. I cannot tolerate that. I have too many friends and have read too many headlines for that to be accepted.

At the same time, for me and my brother and sister, the term “pastor” or “preacher” conjures memories of our parents and the churches they served at. There are rumors that pastors' kids are the wild ones. That they are the party animals and disruptors, the misfits and rebels. And while some of that may be true in my experience, it’s not so true that it defines me. Or my brother or sister, for that matter. Those moments were sidesteps that only revealed good shepherds following The Good Shepherd, a shepherd who shaped the three stupid sheep in their house as much as a shepherd can.

As a PK, I often joke that I was born on a Saturday and was in church the next day and every Sunday after that for my entire life. That is partially true. I was actually born on a Monday to two kids at a Bible College in Ohio. My mom had already graduated, and was waiting for her husband to graduate before they received their first job in ministry. But I am sure I was in church the following Sunday, surrounded by a bunch of soon-to-be pastors ogling over a little baby. Many of those pastors were lifelong family friends. And I have brought my family to church as many Sundays as possible for as long as I can recall.

My childhood revolved around church. My mom and dad were youth pastors in Iowa right out of Bible college before taking a tiny Pentecostal church in a Jewish town outside of Minneapolis. Then they settled in Des Moines, Iowa. And that is where I grew up. Both in stature and in faith. I also often joke that, as a young boy, I had to listen closely to the announcements, so I knew what I was going to have to do that week. There’s a potluck on Wednesday? Sounds like I’ll be setting up tables and chairs in the fellowship on Tuesday then. Some evangelist is coming for a revival? I’ll need to clean the church really well and expect houseguests for a few days. There’s a softball tournament at the church on Saturday? I’ll be mowing the churchyard on Thursday and Friday. (The church in Des Moines has a lot of property!)

Our family was always at church. The first ones there and the last ones out for Sunday morning worship services, Sunday night prayer meetings, and Wednesday night Bible studies. Mom and dad worked at the church all day while my brother and sister and I were at school, and then they’d be home for after school activities with us. Band practice, baseball and basketball, Boy Scouts and Girls Scout meetings. And we ate dinner together as a family nearly every night.

After dinner, though? Weekly women’s group took mom away a night. Dad had church council meetings. Men’s groups would meet on Friday night or Saturday morning. Church workdays took a lot of weekends. And if it wasn’t an official church workday, it was often a Ross family church workday. But we can’t leave out the multiple phone calls each day from people in the church and from other people just looking for help and handouts. As I said, our family was always at church.

Having parents that were also pastors made me quickly realize that I was going to have to share my parents. Sometimes the cuddles had to wait for their calling. Our meaningful conversations had to wait until after their consuming meetings.  That wasn’t ever easy; after all, they were called into the ministry, not me. And I know it was hard for my parents to have their real family to raise plus a church family to raise. Kinda like mobsters, but without the crime. Or the money.

The hardest things were the expectations. While my siblings and I were (mostly) good kids, we were certainly held to a higher standard than any other kids that ever, ever, stepped foot in that church. I remember a group of us in high school laughing one Sunday night during my dad’s talk. I’m sure someone farted or something silly. But we laughed. I was the one, though, who had to go sit on the pew behind my dad, on the platform, for the duration of the service. Just me. But it was the rest of the people at the church that bothered me the most… One toddler gets mad and throws a toy and it’s all. “Tommy, we don’t do that.” But when I throw a toy, my mom and dad were asked why Randy is acting that way. Tommy grows up and tells an off-color joke and it’s all “boys will be boys.” But if one of us pastor’s kids repeated that joke, we needed to be run up and down for what would compel us to find that sort of humor even remotely funny. Janey makes out with her boyfriend in the parking lot and people walk past. But if my sister held hands with a boy at church, she needed to be taught modesty. The “P” in “pastor’s kid” was often mistaken for “perfect.” And that was totally messed up.

So you can see how my business pretty much became everyone’s. Ours was a relatively small church, maybe a couple hundred people at Christmas and Easter, so I knew everyone. But that did not give them the privilege and permission of knowing every last detail of my life. “So how are you and Tammy doing?” What?! How did you know I was dating Tammy?! “I see you took a job at the diner. I don’t know if that is a fitting job for someone in your position.” Really? “I heard you talking about Saturday Night Live. I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to watch that. Or to talk about.” “I saw how upset you were that the Bears lost. Again. You really shouldn’t get so worked up.”  I already have two parents, okay?! I don;t need a hundred more. And ya know what? Being a PK didn’t make me immune to the world.

Honestly, it didn’t help that I often found my life serving as sermon illustrations. I honestly asked my dad one time if he created scenarios during the week just so he could illustrate a sermon. I have a pastor friend now who has a rule with his kids. His rule with his kids goes like this: if he uses their name and story in a sermon without their permission, they get twenty bucks. I wish my dad had that same rule. I’d have been so rich!

We were not rich, though. At one point, we were on welfare. And dad had three part time jobs other than the church just to make ends meet. Mom often made our clothes, I never owned name brand clothes, and we ate frozen and boxed food most days. To see my parents always on the clock and still struggle to pay the bills was not easy. And then the way people thought they had constant access to my parents for them to share their problems, and share their opinions of what my parents problems were, sometimes made me wonder if it was worth it. I know there are other careers they could have chosen where they would have been paid and treated to much better! But they saw the beauty of the church that I sometimes missed when I saw the warts and all. They said they had a calling, a divine directive to lead this group of people, the church, closer to Jesus.

Given what I saw at home and at the church, my mom and dad honestly did an outstanding job raising us. I ended up being “called” into ministry, and did a twelve-year sentence as a youth pastor before serving eight years as an associate pastor at the same church my parents were at. It wasn’t a nepo thing; I served even after they had both retired, in one way or another. And even when not serving in a pastoral role, most of my professional life has been built around the messages preached and taught in churches. My brother went to a sister-school of that same Bible College mom and dad went to and has been serving in churches ever since. And my sister has attended, supported, and is now serving in leadership at a nearby church from where we grew up. We were so raised in the church that church is now grafted into our lives. It’s not just something we do; it is truly part of us. Truthfully, I think church is more a part of my brother and sister these days than it is me. But for all our life, church life has been our life.

I have friends who are also PKs. Hearing their stories and reading stories of other church families in the news, I am so grateful for my parents. How all three of their kids turned out loving them, God, and the church is an act of divine intervention. And an indicator of my parents commitment to following Jesus in the ways He set out.

Were my mom and dad perfect? Not at all. Did we have scandal, rebellion, and misbehavior? Check, check, and check. I could tell you about what they did wrong and what I would have done differently, and certainly what me and my siblings certainly should have done differently. That will just sound like any armchair quarterback or gossip columnist, critics with the benefit of hindsight.

But were my mom and dad godly? That’s the better question. And I’d have to answer that yes, yes they were godly. Whether I agree with the decisions and plans and sacrifices, mom and dad lived (and in dad’s case, died) for the sake of sharing Jesus with people by loving and building His Church. They mimicked Jesus in everything. For a lot of people, church is something they do. For most people it’s merely a place they go. But for us, church was a way of life, and a life that was full for sure, but also joyful and educational and relational. I was recently reflecting about what nuggets I learned by being a PK that I think others likely miss when they see TV preachers and church scandals. I think those tabloid perceptions are the exceptions, not the norm. Because I wouldn’t change my upbring for the world. There are things that were so very hard, with tears shed; things totally opposite many people’s tabloid perceptions of a pastor’s family, with suspicions raised; and things that I honestly had to talk about in therapy, with both tears and suspicions. But all of those difficult things, coupled with the myriad of blessed things, shaped three pastor’s kids who turned out pretty okay. Kids who may not all be pastors but are living lives trying to reflect Jesus the way the pastors we grew up with did for us.

I’m a PK. A pastor’s kid.

And I couldn’t be prouder to wear that badge.