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6 Things Your Kids Need Most from You as Their Pastor
Here are a few essential things your children need from you, not just as their parent, but as their pastor.
One thing I struggled to embrace in my early years of ministry is that I’m not only my children’s father—I’m also their pastor. I always aimed to be a good dad, but I didn’t give much thought to what it meant to pastor them.
Pastor, your children may never know another pastor more intimately than they know you. Have you considered how your dual role—as both their father and their pastor—shapes their understanding of what it’s like to be led by a loving shepherd?
I confess, even now, I am not always aware of this responsibility as fully as I should. But here are a few essential things your children need from you, not just as their parent, but as their pastor.
1. Recognize Their Sacrifice
We’re quick to celebrate faithful volunteers—small group leaders, children’s ministry volunteers, and faithful servants on the welcome team. But have you paused to acknowledge the quiet sacrifice of your own kids?
Pastors’ children (especially in church plants) are often expected to show up early, stay late, help set up or tear down, sit quietly while Dad talks for an hour after service, and participate in countless small groups or dinners—sometimes without much say. You’re modeling ministry life, but they’re feeling the cost. Naming that sacrifice dignifies it. It tells your kids, “I see you, I value you, and I honor what you’re giving up.”
2. Give Them Presence, Not Leftovers
Your children often bear the cost of your calling, not just on Sundays, but throughout the week. If pastors feel pressure to prioritize their marriages over ministry, the pressure is doubled when it comes to their kids. Time is a sermon—and what you do with your time preaches. Treat your time with your children the same way you would treat a counseling session with a hurting congregant: with intentionality and focus.
As an introvert, I know how ministry can drain your energy. I’ve had to learn to manage my capacity, ensuring that, at the end of the day, I still have something left to give the people who matter most.
3. Offer the Same Grace You Preach
Pastors’ kids often grow up under a spotlight. They’re expected to behave, serve, believe, and endure without complaint. But who’s pastoring them? Your children need space to be real. To be moody. To mess up. To grow. They need the same grace you extend to others—the same grace you ask the church to show you.
What you preach from the pulpit must echo around the dinner table. If you’re patient with other people’s kids but harsh with your own, they’ll notice. If you forgive church members but hold grudges at home, they’ll feel the disconnect.
They want to love Jesus and enjoy their youth. But that becomes harder when their pastor-dad offers grace to the church and judgment to his own house.
4. Relational Consistency
Be the same person at home that you are in the pulpit. My wife regularly asks our kids, “Do you think Mom and Dad are the same at home as they are on Sundays?” By God’s grace, the answer has always been yes—but it’s a question we ask with humility and trembling.
Your children don’t expect perfection. What they need is consistency. They need to know that the gentle, kind pastor who prays with church members is the same dad who tucks them in at night. And when you fall short—and you will—let them see you own it. That’s pastoring, too.
5. Model Rest
If there’s one thing your kids desperately need you to pastor them in, it’s how to rest.
Rest from performance.
Rest from perfectionism.
Rest from ministry demands.
Rest from the endless pursuit of approval.
Pastors often blur the lines between the pace of the church and their home. But if you don’t model sabbath and soul care, you’re preaching that burnout is holy. Rest is an act of worship. It says, “God is in control—even when I stop.” When you honor sabbath rhythms, you teach your kids that ministry doesn’t require exhaustion.
6. Show Them a Love for Jesus and His Church
Your kids know what you do—but do they know why you do it? Is “pastor” just a job title, or is it the overflow of your love for Jesus? They need to see you weep over the gospel. To witness your joy in serving, not just your stress. They need to hear your affection for the church, not just your frustrations with her. Your posture shapes theirs.
If they hear you regularly complain about your congregation, they’ll learn to resent the church. But if they see you love her, flaws and all, they’ll be more likely to do the same. Let your kids see that pastoring isn’t just a profession—it’s a privilege born out of love for Christ and His bride.
You are your kids’ first and most enduring picture of a pastor. Not a perfect one—but Lord willing, a faithful one. And what they need from you is not a polished leader or spiritual superhero. They need a dad who pastors them with presence, grace, consistency, rest, and love—for Jesus and for the good of their precious souls.
