What Do You Expect from a PK?
Jim and Sally Conway
July 1, 1984
"Barbara, you didn't have your eyes closed when we were praying. And you're the pastor's daughter!" boomed the Sunday school teacher in front of the entire primary department.
How did she know, our oldest child wondered, unless her eyes were open too?
We recently asked Barbara and her two sisters-all of them now married-what they most liked and disliked about growing up in a pastor's family. They talked about the enjoyment of meeting Christian leaders who came to our home. They cited the greater opportunities to travel, the fun of being the "speaker's family" at various conferences and camps. They appreciated their insider's perspective-seeing Mom and Dad in ministry yet also being real people who got discouraged, angry, and needed forgiveness like anyone else.
But our daughters weren't wild about being expected to bail out teachers or youth leaders stumped by theological questions. More than once they found an adult turning their way to ask, "What do you think? Why did God send Abraham to Israel instead of India?"
For many in a church, the pastor's family is a peculiar people, more holy than normal, and thus assumed to be uninterested in ordinary human life. Our girls sometimes found out they weren't invited to friends' parties because "we know you're a minister's daughter and can't come." One woman apologized to me (Sally) years later for not including me at Tupperware or Avon parties "because we thought you wouldn't like what we talked about."
Three pressurizers
Expectations descend upon pastoral families from three directions:
1. The community in general. Leaders in any field are subjected to more scrutiny and higher demands. Why don't the news reporters leave Princess Di alone? Because all of Great Britain (and beyond) thinks ...
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