Article
Raising Church-Planting Kids: Be Their Calm in the Chaos
Heather Oldham
Church planters and wives, while you pour yourself out for the mission, your children are navigating their own faith journey.
Planting a church is a calling that demands faith, endurance, and a willingness to step into the unknown. For church planters and their families, the journey is filled with both joy and sacrifice—long hours, uncertain outcomes, and the weight of shepherding a community while raising children in the midst of it all. In the flurry of ministry demands, it’s easy to focus on the logistics: the gatherings, the meetings, the outreach. But just as a growing church needs intentional love and care, so do the hearts of the children in a church planter’s home.
Church planters and wives, while you pour yourself out for the mission, your children are navigating their own faith journey—often feeling the weight of transitions, expectations, and emotions they don’t always understand. They don’t need perfect parents; they need present ones. They need to know their feelings are seen, that they are loved not just as part of the mission but as individuals with their own stories, questions, and struggles.
Responding with Love
One day, long after the tantrums, the teenage eyerolls, and the late-night heart-to-hearts, your child will remember what it was like to be loved by you. Not in how efficiently you managed life, but in how you responded when they were most vulnerable.
They will remember how it felt.
They will remember the way your voice softened when they were scared, the way your arms became their safest place, and the way you saw them—not just as a responsibility but as a person with big emotions, big dreams, and a heart that needed tending.
As parents, it’s easy to get caught up in the logistics of raising children—the feeding, the disciplining, the teaching. But what shapes them most is not the structure we build around them, but the love that fills the spaces between.
The world is noisy. Life is overwhelming. And childhood, for all its wonder, is a whirlwind of emotions—big, uncontrollable, and often misunderstood even by the child experiencing them. How we respond in those moments—of chaos, frustration, or heartbreak—becomes the foundation of how our children learn to navigate life.
Stable in the Chaos
When our children are overwhelmed, they are learning not just how to manage their emotions, but how to expect the world to respond to them. If their chaos is met with more chaos—our yelling, our frustration, our quick-tempered reactions—they internalize the belief that big feelings lead to more instability, that their emotions are bad or wrong, and that they should hide them rather than share them.
But if their chaos is met with calm, they begin to understand that emotions don’t define them. That they can struggle, feel broken, or be frustrated and still be safe, still be seen, still be loved.
Here’s why responding with calm is life-giving for our children:
- It teaches emotional regulation. Children don’t have fully developed coping mechanisms; they borrow ours. If we model calmness, they learn that emotions don’t have to control them.
- It establishes security. A child who knows they won’t be met with anger every time they struggle grows up feeling safe in relationships rather than fearful of rejection.
- It fosters connection over correction. In the heat of an emotional storm, children don’t need punishment; they need presence. They need to know that even in their worst moments, they are not too much to handle.
- It shapes their inner voice. One day, our children will be grown, facing struggles without us physically beside them. The way we respond to their childhood chaos will become the voice in their head. Will it be one of grace or one of condemnation? Peace or perfection?
Formed by Grace and Love
As church planting parents, it’s tempting to want well-behaved, well-mannered, perfectly put-together children. But the goal is not perfection; the goal is grace. Because perfection is an impossible weight to carry, but grace—that is life-giving.
The world will teach our children that love must be earned, that perfection is the goal, and that failure is final. But the gospel teaches something entirely different. It teaches that love is freely given, that grace covers where we fall short, and that failure is never the end of the story.
Children won’t remember perfect parents. They remember present parents. The way you sat with them in their sadness instead of rushing them to feel better. The way you delighted in their stories, no matter how small or silly. The way you showed up to their activities, and the way you talked about Jesus around the dinner table.
These are the moments that form the foundation of a child’s sense of worth. They won’t recall every word you spoke, but they will remember the way you made them feel—safe, seen, cherished, known, and accepted.
Guide Them Through Emotions
One of the hardest things for children of any age is that they often experience emotions before they understand them. They feel things deeply but don’t always have the words to explain why. And when they don’t know why, it can be even more overwhelming for them.
Instead of pressing them for an answer they don’t have, guide them toward understanding:
- Name emotions for them. Say, “It looks like you might be feeling frustrated. Does that sound right?”
- Help them connect the dots. Are they tired? Have they been overstimulated? Sometimes their reaction isn’t about the present moment at all.
- Offer comfort first, solutions second. If they are upset, start with empathy: “It’s okay to feel this way. I’m here.” “Do you need a hug?” Once they calm down, you can help them sort through it.
- Create a habit of emotional check-ins. Ask, “What was something that made you feel happy today? What was something that made you laugh? What was something that frustrated you?”
- Assure them that emotions aren’t wrong. They need to know that feeling deeply doesn’t mean they are too much to handle.
When your child is overwhelmed, they don’t need someone to fix them or force them to stop feeling. They need someone to sit with them in the storm and help them find their way through it.
And isn’t that exactly what God does for us? Psalm 46:1 tells us, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’ He doesn’t demand perfection from us before offering His love. He meets us in our mess, extends grace in our shortcomings, and holds steady when we feel lost.
Remember the Race
As church planting moms and dads, this isn’t just about parenting—it’s about shaping the next generation of believers. Your child’s experience in a church planting home will profoundly shape the way they see the Church itself. If they grow up feeling unseen and secondary to the mission, they may one day resent the very thing you’ve poured your life into. But if they grow up knowing that the same love and care you give the church is given to them first, they will understand the Church as a place of belonging, not competition.
One day, they will tell the story of their childhood—not through the lens of perfection, but through the love that filled the in-between. And when they think about the Church, may they not see it as the thing that took their parents from them, but as the place that reflected the love of Christ—the same love they first encountered in you.
Because the way you love them now becomes the foundation for how they will understand God’s love for the rest of their lives. And that is the most important legacy you could ever build.
