The Life of a Pastors Kid...Yeah, it's intense.

I've debated over many different ways to take this post, but I've decided to keep it simple, for today. I want to speak on behalf of a very interesting, very unique group of people...the pastor's kids of today. Many of you reading this know who my parents/family are. For those of you who don't, my father is the Senior Pastor of a Mega-Church (It wasn't always a mega-church...). in Northern Colorado, and he has been there since I was eleven months old, so being a pastor's kid is all I've ever known.

Firstly, I want to remind all you non-pastor's kids that PKs, as we have been 'creatively' labeled, are all individuals and have very different stories. Today you will hear of MY account and my opinion on it all...Here we go.

Just because our parents were pastors doesn't mean we are all the same or have the same things to share. We don't all fit into either box of rebel or peace-maker...Believe it or not, there are many OTHER personalities that can come out of the home of a pastor. We are artists, musicians, doctors, entrepreneurs, pastors, writers, policemen, hippies, stay-at-home moms, liberals, conservatives, you name it. We each have been on our own 'faith' journey and we all have experienced God/faith/religion through our own eyes and experience. Being a PK is the same as being the child of ANY person who is 'famous'. But with the added bonus that your parent personally speaks into the lives of others. About God. So they are kind of a big deal to everyone.

One thing that I noticed growing up was the constant interest from others about our family-life. Everyone wanted to know the gossip about the Northrop family, any juicy details they could later go on to discuss with their friends, as if they had the 'inside' scoop on what's really happening behind the scenes; Spoiler Alert; my family was a normal family with no deep dark secrets. My dad really is a great man and my parents really have a happy/healthy marriage, and my siblings and I really do love each other!! (Side note: there were a LOT of people in my life who genuinely cared about me and my family and had the purest of intentions when they asked about how we were doing. I'm NOT referring to them here).  

Another oddity is that because people knew my father, they felt like WE had a connection, even if I’d never met them before in my life. I have to say that there was a give and take to this weird connection. I know that there were so many people who prayed for our family, for me, who didn’t even know me. I’ll never know, on this Earth, how those prayers affected my life for the good. And additionally, on rare occasions, my last name got me an 'in' with someone or somewhere that I wanted to be professionally and personally. But the other side of the coin is that my last name also opened the door to completely inappropriate behavior from strangers. I've had countless times that a distant friend from home has reached out to me on Facebook to suggest some sort of new business idea for my dad to implement at the church. One time an employee of the bank called my sister and told her he would like to discuss a new credit card that she qualified for. She made the trip to the bank and after a 30 second conversation, which could have been done over the phone, he proceeded to tell her about a new missions idea that he thought our dad should consider. One time my brother was out having a beer with friends and a protestor approached him and started yelling at him for defacing the church. Really?! I understand that people felt a connection to our dad and therefore felt a connection to us, but I seriously think common sense goes out the window for people and they just see the PK as their business connection to ‘the big guy’. Too funny. 

And lastly, most people think we know everything about what's going on behind the scenes at the church. They see our lives like this: We get to take the keynote speaker home each week! We must have picked their brain day and night about their sermons, inspiring stories and about all the 'dirt' they have on the congregation. But PKs see it like this: My dad is "Dary" to thousands of people, but he's only "Dad" to three of us. So, we've always preferred to have him as Dad. When he came home we didn't want to hear about 'church' stuff...we were only concerned with showing him our latest fort that we built, resolving the latest sibling argument, getting a basketball game in before dinner, or wrestling downstairs...how many of YOU were really interested in your parents' day at work while you were growing up? Ya...that's what I thought. We never knew much about what went on behind the scenes, because we just wanted to hang out with our dad. This is another thing that baffles me, when someone asks about some behind-the-scenes details of the church….I just want to ask them, did your parent raise you by telling you all their office gossip? Ha…NO….mine didn’t either…which makes me like you, normal.

I want to end on a positive note because I feel like most of this post is relieving years of latent irritation. I will always feel close to, and like family, to the other PKs from the church. One blessing that comes from your parent spending lots of time with co-workers is that you have regular mass-play dates with all the PKs. As kids, we spent so many hours together while our parents met upstairs and held meetings and prayed for the church. When I was young, the pastor’s called this TLC (I always assumed it stood for Tender Love and Care, but now that I’m typing it, I could be WAY off). Anyways, our parent’s would meet a couple times a month on Sunday evenings…Some of my most fond memories as a child were the nights that all the staff got together and let us kids run wild downstairs and outside. All us PKs have grown up and have gone our separate ways…some still attend church and believe in God and others don’t, but I will always consider my fellow PKs as friends, even family. It’s just a PK thing. We get each other and our weirdness. We understand the oddities of having parents who are well-known and the super odd connection that people feel to us when they know our parents. I feel blessed to have grown-up with the 10-15 of you who were part of shaping me in to who I am today. You are all fabulous.

 

So there you have it…the good, the bad, and the ugly of this fabulous title of PK. My dad and mom are stellar and I believe in them. My dad as a Pastor and my mom as his rockstar wife. So, if I have to be a PK in order to have them, I’m down.