Raising A Family In Ministry
Meet our fabulous Guest Writer, Kathie Phillips!
For as long as I can remember I always loved children. I would dream about being a mom. I was very blessed to have a family, not perfect by any means but one that knew the importance of having their family in church, assuring we all had opportunities to find Jesus for ourselves. It was this influence that marked my heart and my life.
As a young mom at 23, I was madly in love with Jesus, he had always been in my life, speaking to me, leading and guiding me (although I didn’t always listen).
When Joel (my husband) and I started out we were in a pretty hard place. We were young, working odd jobs and had 2 babies, a year and 2 days apart. Food was scarce, paying bills was next to impossible but our love for one another was strong. We knew as long as we were together we would make it.
I recall the day Joel came home from work, walked through the door, and said “ I can’t do this anymore“ - you can imagine the thoughts that flooded my mind. Was he done? Did he want to leave me? Was the pressure of being married for 2 years and having 2 babies too much? The next words out of his mouth would send us on a journey I would never have expected. A journey I never wanted, but now a journey I would never change.
The words were “I can’t run anymore. I know I’m called to full-time pastoral ministry, I have to follow Jesus and go to Bible College". Our lives took a 180° turn. The days of occasionally visiting churches were done. This meant we would be in a church every Sunday, for every service, everyday, and for every event.
Our children became church kids, eventually the dreaded PK’s “pastors kids”. I wish I could say it was wonderful and at times it was but to be honest it was also very difficult. Raising children in ministry can put so much pressure on them. Our kids saw the highs and the lows they saw the heartache the heartbreaks, they saw people walk in and walk away. Our desire was to prepare them for greatness to know that they could do or be anything they wanted, they were chosen, called, set apart, and where ever they were to go the miraculous would follow.
Being pastors, with our family in the spot light and at forefront of the ministry, it often felt like a constant battle of guarding our family time & against people's expectations of us and our kids. God cared about our family and He guided us in how to raise our kids all while pastoring a church. It wasn't the easiest, but we did it.
As much as we loved our church we were intentional that other people or events didn't take priority over our immediate family. Joel and I have always said that “at the end of our life if our children didn’t love Jesus and know that we love them, then what good would it be that we had a huge church full of people."
One example of how God lead us in our family in the midst of full-time ministry was being intentional about celebrating our favorite holiday and in having Family Dinners. There were 6 of us and the kids always had friends over, dinner was always a big deal. We always ate together, talked about our days, laughed, cried, shared our dreams over a meal. As our family has grown most have married and now have 5.5 littles, we continue to make Family Dinners a priority. We do all the same things, we value this time together.
We love holidays, decorating, baking whatever the day called for, we made it the best we could. We are absolute Christmas fanatics. You could never have too many lights nutcrackers, decor, or Christmas trees. One year I decorated five Christmas trees in our house. Because our family was important to us, as was ministry, we always made sure that we had our house decorated and ready before we decorated the church.
Ministry is on going. With this in mind we felt the Lord's guidance to protect our time with our kids. We made a decision when our children were very small that once we came home, walked through the front door, it was family time. We didn’t discuss church, we didn’t discuss people. We wanted our kids to have the best experience and have expectation to the things that God could do in them and through them. We wanted to be the best example of that for them.
Our goal as a family was that we would love God and serve God. For us, worship and the word of God is life. We always had music on and not always worship. We would sing songs over our kids every night, songs of Gods love, His presence, we knew that if their little spirits began to know Him while they were little they would crave more of Him as they grew.
The teenage years were harder than the other years, this is when all the hormones decide to crop their head up like a gopher in the spring. We held on for dear life and refused to let their bad choices or attitudes change the powerful call on their lives. Whenever we had family talks over things happening in their lives we always reminded them that we were for them and that whatever it took we would make sure they succeeded.
As I look back on this season of raising our kids, there is a verse that we are most familiar with and that is "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." - this very thing happened, they returned to the way they were trained.
Many of you are wondering if your kids will turn out okay. I don’t believe there is a person in the planet that thinks “let’s have children with the intention of wrecking their life and being a horrible parent” but in the process you find out your own insecurities and your own weaknesses and then you get to work those out on your own with God. Unfortunately, we take our kids on that journey as well.
I’ve learned so many things and now as a grandparent my husband and I joke all the time that we're much better grandparents than we were parents, parenting isn’t easy. But, we have learned about how absolutely faithful God is. How he takes our messes and makes them beautiful. Let’s be honest, it can be really discouraging and tiring to train our children. We don’t always feel like we love or even like our kids. But imagine the privilege we have in raising up, and unleashing arrows who know who they are and know Who they belong to.
In raising children in ministry I want to encourage you in these 3 things: firstly, keep investing in your children by speaking life, identity, and calling; all while declaring the promises of God over them. Our words are powerful to speak life or death. "Call out the gold" in your children. The importance of walking in faith and calling those things that are not as though they are. Declare the promises of God over them. God's promises will never fail, they cannot fail.
Secondly, if you find yourself wondering if your children are going to "turn out okay"... you're not alone. All caring parents wonder this. As I shared, teenage years were hard for us. You can stand confident in the promise of raising your kids in the way they should go & they won't depart. No matter how discouraging or hard your child's life may currently look, God's promises will not fail you. God loves your kids. Your kids will return to the way you raised them. I cheer you on!
And lastly, covenant. One of the greatest lessons I have learned in parenting is about the covenant we have with God. It cannot be broken. If we parents are "covenant kids" with God this means our kids are "covenant kids" and are under His protection. How many times have we blown it out of rebellion, ignorance, pride, that list goes on and on but none of this changes the love our Father has for us. God is so amazing and gracious that before we were born, He already knew us. For some, this idea almost seems impossible. Think about it though, as a parent (mom) you had nine months to connect with your baby before they were born. You felt kicks, hiccups, and turns, in the natural that was covenant, you were your babies covering & protection. God sent His Son Jesus to be our covering. His death brought us salvation and we are now covered by His grace. I have covenant with Christ and so do my kids. The thought that God can’t love me anymore than He does right now blows my mind. If you are in covenant with Christ then your kids are covenant kids also.
Pastor Kathie Phillips - San Diego, California
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