Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 45

Books to Build your Faith

The books in this list are ones that, at various times, have shaped and directed my faith. Each of them depicts something of what it means to believe or to struggle with belief. They either tell of a void in belief or of a Big God worth believing in, and in both cases the reader is shown a clearer picture of what faith means. Some are stories. Some are arguments or explanations. Some are reflections through memoir or poetry. I encourage you to find the one or ones with which you connect and consume them with delight.

Big Questions

So many of our struggles with faith revolve around big questions, complex questions, in some cases unanswerable questions. We even have questions about our questions. These books will either help readers know how to answer  (or if we can answer) these big questions or they will help us ask better questions in the first place. They offer thoughtful, winsome, careful answers and firm, grounded, biblical paradigms of thought and understanding.

[image error]The End of Our Exploring by Matthew Lee Anderson

 

 

 

[image error]The Reason for God by Tim Keller

 

 

 

[image error]Walking with God through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller

 

 

 

[image error]Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin

 

 

 

[image error]Surprised by Paradox by Jen Pollock Michel

 

 

 

[image error]The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor

 

 

 

[image error]The Skeptical Believer by Daniel Taylor

 

 

 

Connecting God to Life and the Mind

Call these books food for thought. They are rich nourishment for the life of a believer – hearty fare for the intellect and the maturing Christian life. You will find no simplistic instructions or how-to books here. These are for thinking, reflecting, and having our ideas and lives reformed.

[image error]Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

 

 

 

[image error]Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

[image error]God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

[image error]Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

 

 

 

[image error]The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard

 

 

 

[image error]Simply Christian by N. T. Wright

 

 

 

Living Faithfully and Living Well

True belief is only as meaningful as what we do with it, or rather what it does to us. Belief must be in action to be of any use, and these books are formative ones for transferring ideas to real life. They will shape worship, work, devotional life, relationships with God and people, and give hope in the hardest of times when doubts and fears at their worst.

[image error]Culture Making by Andy Crouch

 

 

 

[image error]A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

[image error]The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

 

 

 

[image error]A Praying Life by Paul Miller

 

 

 

[image error]A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson

 

 

 

[image error]Whiter than Snow by Paul Tripp

 

 

 

[image error]A Shelter in the Storm by Paul Tripp

 

 

 

[image error]Death by Living by N. D. Wilson

 

 

 

[image error]Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by N. D. Wilson

 

 

 

Understanding God

What is faith without an object? Our faith is only as strong as that upon which it rests, so we must be anchored in a true, deep, biblical understanding of God. He cannot be theory or academic debate to us; he must be a real, living, ruling LORD. These books usher readers into that reality of God and offer opportunity for faith to grow in profound ways.

[image error]Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller

 

 

 

[image error]Superheroes Can’t Save You by Todd Miles

 

 

 

[image error]18 Words by J.I. Packer

 

 

 

[image error]Knowing God by J. I. Packer

 

 

 

[image error]The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders

 

 

 

Understanding the Bible

Just as it is impossible to trust God without knowing Him so it is impossible to know God without reading the Bible. But the Bible is a complex book of varying genres, multiple authors, and covering hundreds and hundreds of years? It is easy to get confused or overwhelmed by it. Each of these books shows how the whole of scripture is woven together as a single revelation by God of himself with narrative themes and threads throughout.

[image error]According to Plan by Graham Goldsworthy

 

 

 

[image error]The Big Picture Story Bible by David Helm

 

 

 

[image error]The Songs of Jesus by Tim & Kathy Keller

 

 

 

[image error]The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones

 

 

 

[image error]God’s Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts

 

 

 

Faithfulness in Leadership and the Church

The Church is the body of Christ, a community of people following Jesus together under the leadership of those uniquely called with the aim of showing Jesus to the world. But the Church is also a community of sinful, doubting, struggling people, and we fail all the time. Leaders fail. Churches fail. People get hurt. When these failures happen it can undermine and fracture fragile faith, both for leaders and church members. These books draw the Church, from top to bottom, to a focus and reliance on Jesus, His gospel, and pursuit of genuine Christian character. Readers will be encouraged, grounded, and have their faith bolstered.

[image error]Strong and Weak by Andy Crouch

 

 

 

[image error]The Gospel by Ray Ortlund

 

 

 

[image error]Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders

 

 

 

[image error]The Disappearing Church by Mark Sayers

 

 

 

Stories that Stir

Sometimes the thing that encourages us in our faith or strengthens our faith most to see faith in someone else. Sometimes it is to see the character and trust of another person showing us the way. And sometimes, oddly, it is the failure and struggle of someone else. These people don’t always have to be in our world; fiction can build faith in profound ways as long as it reflects true realities to our minds and souls. These stories—some biography, some memoir, and some novel—are depictions of faith, and sometimes failure, to encourage readers by example.

[image error]The Brothers K by David James Duncan

 

 

 

[image error]Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Elliot

 

 

 

[image error]Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

 

 

 

[image error]Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

[image error]A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

 

 

 

[image error]Struck by Russ Ramsey

 

 

 

[image error]Peace Child by Don Richardson

 

 

 

[image error]East of Eden by John Steinbeck

 

 

 

[image error]The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner

 

 

 

[image error]A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanaucken

 

 

 

Poetry for the Soul

Poetry has a unique ability to illuminate truth in a manner our hearts and minds yearn for but often miss. It is imagery in word form rather than explanation. Poetry reveals reality rather than describing it and it makes the reader feel while we think. Faith needs a good framework on which to be built, but it needs passion too. It needs feeling and conviction and honesty and beauty. Good poetry offers each of these uniquely, and these books are rich with wonderful poems.

[image error]Good Poems edited by Garrison Keillor

 

 

 

[image error]The Soul in Paraphrase by Leland Ryken

 

 

 

[image error]Two Funerals, Then Easter by Rachel Welcher

New Happy Rant: Listener Q&A (Part 1)

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Barnabas do what they always do and wander to and fro through various topics . . .with a twist. These are all listener questions and suggestions.

Ted’s Gilmore Girls adoration
Left Behind series
Books we regret reading
Starting Businesses
Top 5 Movies
Archnemeses
AND MORE

FORTHCOMING BOOK

[image error]In his forthcoming book, Hoping for Happiness, recovering cynic Barnabas Piper helps us to throw off both the unrealistic expectations that end in disappointment and the guilty sense that Christians are not meant to have fun. He shows how having a clear view of the reality of the fall and the promise of redemption frees us to live a life that is grounded, hopeful, and genuinely happy. It’s available October 1, but you can pre-order now.

Get Your Coffee

[image error]WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #308

New Happy Rant: House Churches, Interesting A-Listers, and COVID Makes Us Sad

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Ronnie (sans honeymooning Barnabas) do what they always do and wander to and fro through various topics:

Metaxas burns woke twitter to the ground with white Jesus
J.D. Greear and house churches
Interesting A-listers and the next big reformed thing
Ronnie’s doctoral slog
COVID’s gift of negativity
Embracing COVID
Nature vs nurture in handling difficulties

NEW BOOKS

[image error]Ted Kluck has released a new book, The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail. In his typical insightful, humorous, genuine manner Ted tells a story that will resonate with your nostalgia and your children’s present life. It is funny, heart warming, and truly encouraging. You will love it and your kids will too.

 

[image error]Barnabas Piper has Re-released his book The Pastor’s Kid: What It’s Like and How to Help. Written from a PK on behalf of PKs for pastors and for the church, it offers pointed critique and diagnosis but also hope in the grace of God. Being a PK brings unique struggles, and this books seeks to address them in a way that brings about change and hope and restoration.

Get Your Coffee

[image error]WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #306

New Happy Rant: Ted Kluck is on the Hot Seat

In this episode of The Happy Rant the boys do what they always do and wander to and from through, well, just one topic: Ted Kluck. Ronnie and Barnabas come with pressing questions they’ve always wanted to ask Ted regarding:

David Foster Wallace
Being an only child
Unexpected authoring success
Being wined and dined
Adoption

NEW BOOKS

[image error]Ted Kluck has released a new book, The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail. In his typical insightful, humorous, genuine manner Ted tells a story that will resonate with your nostalgia and your children’s present life. It is funny, heart warming, and truly encouraging. You will love it and your kids will too.

 

[image error]Barnabas Piper has Re-released his book The Pastor’s Kid: What It’s Like and How to Help. Written from a PK on behalf of PKs for pastors and for the church, it offers pointed critique and diagnosis but also hope in the grace of God. Being a PK brings unique struggles, and this books seeks to address them in a way that brings about change and hope and restoration.

Get Your Coffee

[image error]WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #303

You Need More Curiosity in Your Life

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

As much as I might wish this to be literally true about cats, the saying is a warning about the dangers of curiosity. Curiosity is often deemed to lead people into precarious places and down risky paths. It gets us into trouble and tempts us to stick our noses where noses have no business being.

When we look around at the world, especially from a Christian perspective, it looks like a dangerous place. It’s unjust, unclean, and poisonous in millions of ways. In such a scary and complicated world, it seems like curiosity only serves to lure us out into the danger, and possibly to an untimely demise.

While the world is a risky place, it’s important to remember that we aren’t cats. We don’t have to go through every open door and climb to the highest point of everything. We don’t have to pounce on everything that moves. We have minds and souls, not just animal instincts. While curiosity can be a threat to the life of a cat, for Christians it ought to be a life-enhancer.

Curiosity and Discernment

Curiosity is the strong desire to know and to learn. When Christians are curious, they grow in knowledge and their ability to rightly discern situations.

Discernment is the ability to judge what is right and wrong, what is good and bad. Christians are called to dwell on things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable (Phil. 4:8), but how do we identify those things? In our world it can be hard to tell; almost nothing is black and white. In nearly every interaction we must be able to discern what is pure and lovely, what is honorable and true, and what is not.

Curiosity drives us in this process. We wonder and ask from a place of truth-seeking. Our curiosity, if godly, isn’t the thing that leads us into sin. It’s the thing that helps us recognize and avoid it, while celebrating the things that are good.

Jesus calls his followers to be in the world as he was, but not of the world. We’re to be of his kingdom, defined by it and living according to its standards, while loving our neighbors as ourselves. To love our neighbors we need to learn about them and their different cultures. We cannot fulfill this mission without being curious.

Curiosity and the discernment it begets enable us to plunge into culture, soak in it, but not be defined by it. It helps us love our world without being destroyed by it.

How Curiosity Anchors

But isn’t the world still dangerous? Won’t all this curiosity get us into trouble? The world can often seem like an evil tempter, beckoning us to our downfall. It’s scintillating and intoxicating, fogging our minds and numbing our senses. Think of Vanity Fair in The Pilgrim’s Progress, or how the White Witch’s Turkish delight so entranced Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

No question, the evils of the world are a powerful gravitational pull for our sinful hearts. To say we’re to be curious about the world denies none of this. Neither does it downplay the risks and dangers.

Instead, proper curiosity about the world opens our eyes to the wiles of the world and provides the discernment we need to fight against them. Curiosity about God anchors us in God’s strength as we learn more, seek more, and see more of him. Curiosity drives us to seek out truth and discern right from wrong. Curiosity isn’t a dangerous trap; it’s the thing God uses to make us wise so we can avoid the traps of sin and live freely for him.

[image error]For more on  curiosity, the Christian life, and interaction with culture check out my book The Curious Christian: How Discovering Wonder Enriches Every Part of Life

This article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition and is used with permission.

New Happy Rant: Fecund Culture War Strategies and Complementarian Jerks

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Barnabas (sans Ronnie) do what they always do and wander to and fro through a variety of topics:

OUR NEW BOOKS
Fecund, as a word and as a lifestyle
Can we even win the culture war?
What even is the “culture war”?
Complementarian jerks
Punching in our weigh class

NEW BOOKS

[image error]Ted Kluck has released a new book, The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail. In his typical insightful, humorous, genuine manner Ted tells a story that will resonate with your nostalgia and your children’s present life. It is funny, heart warming, and truly encouraging. You will love it and your kids will too.

 

[image error]Barnabas Piper has Re-released his book The Pastor’s Kid: What It’s Like and How to Help. Written from a PK on behalf of PKs for pastors and for the church, it offers pointed critique and diagnosis but also hope in the grace of God. Being a PK brings unique struggles, and this books seeks to address them in a way that brings about change and hope and restoration.

Get Your Coffee

[image error]WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #302

7 Things a Pastor’s Kid Needs from a Father

Pastors, your position is a demanding one, and those demands bring unique struggles on your family. A pastor’s wife bears a great burden, but she usually enters into the ministry willingly. A pastor’s children, though, are carried on the current of their parents’ calling. It is often a life of singular struggle and uncommon needs. These struggles often stem from the failures of the father. This isn’t to cast full blame on pastors for their children’s problems. But it is to say that pastors need to work to be good dads.

My own father has worked hard at this. He had his blind spots and weaknesses, and they have been a source of tension between him and me. But to this day, in his 33rd and last year of pastoral ministry, he has never stopped trying to be a better father. As I wrote this I thought of his failures, yes, but I also thought of successes. Lots of them. I also thought of dozens of conversations with fellow PKs about such struggles and their own relationships with their fathers. So know that my writing does not stem from bitterness of heart or some jaded desire to expose a good man’s faults. I love my dad. My desire is to see struggles avoided or defeated for other pastors and PKs.

So here are seven of the most significant ways a pastor can be a good father to his children. Pastors, your child needs . . .

1. A dad, not a pastor

Yes, you are called to pastor your family, but PKs want a dad—-someone who plays with them, protects them, makes them laugh, loves their mom, gives hugs, pays attention, teaches them how to build a budget and change the oil and field a ground ball. We want committed love and warmth. We want a dad who’s not a workaholic. It’s hypocritical to call your congregation to a life of love, sacrifice, and passionate gospel living while neglecting your own family. If a mortgage broker or salesman works too much at 60 hours a week, so do you. Leave work and be present for your kids. Your children will spit on your pastoring if they miss out on your fathering.

2. Conversation, not sermons

Sermons are an effective way to communicate biblical truth to a congregation, but not to your kids (or wife). Preaching at your children will stunt their view of Scripture, dull their interest, and squelch what passion you are trying to stir. Speak TO your children about the Bible in a way that’s interesting, applicable, and conversational. Help them see the Bible as a normal part of life. Rather than teach lessons, imbue your conversation with biblical worldview to help your children shape their life lenses. That way they’ll think they, too, can interact with this important book. Sermons at home separate them from the Word by implying that only the learned can understand it.

3. Your interest in their hobbies

Jonathan Edwards may be your homeboy or Seth Godin your muse, but your first-grade daughter doesn’t give a flip. Her love language is playing Barbies and dancing to Taylor Swift. Your son wants to build a Lego fort, beat you soundly at Modern Warfare on Xbox, or learn how to run a 10-yard out pattern. Your hobbies are yours alone, but engaging your children’s interests speaks love that matters deeply to them.

4. To be studied

It gets harder to share time with kids as they get older. So study them as hard as you study your Greek lexicon. They’re more important, anyway. Would your high school son appreciate going out to pizza with you or chilling on the couch and watching college football on a Saturday afternoon? Does your teenage daughter want you to take her shopping or to coffee? Maybe they don’t want recreation but just help—-so talk through their friend challenges or algebra problems, whichever are the most pressing. LEARN these things, even if it seems like there are no right answers. Teenagers are hard; they treat parents like idiots all the time. But these acts, when done consistently, add up. Make them a pattern so that when your kids are done thinking you are a moron they have a path to walk with you.

5. Consistency from you

No one can call hypocrisy on you faster than your kids (and wife), and nothing will undermine you in the home faster. If you stand in the pulpit on Sunday and talk about grace after spending Friday and Saturday griping at your family, grace looks awfully cheap and unappealing to your son in the second row. If, however, you treat your son as if you need his grace and forgiveness for your crappy attitude, it may open a door to God’s grace. (And use phrases like “crappy attitude”; it sounds more like you actually know what you’re apologizing for.)

If you act like the great shepherd in the pulpit but the hired hand who runs away at home, your children will see church and all it entails as phony because you are phony. If you encourage a life of joy but are morose or exhort your people toward a life of sacrifice but are lazy and spendthrifty, nobody will notice faster than those in your home. To your family, your interactions with God and them are far more important than your Sunday sermons.

6. Grace to fail

Pastors speak much about grace. It is the basis of our salvation and the source of hope. But when the rubber meets the road, do you offer enough of it to your children? PKs feel enormous pressure to be “good” and to be confident in all things biblical. But we are often not good and often lack confidence in biblical realities. We sin and doubt like everyone else, but when we do, the road to restoration and peace often feels like an impossible one to travel. Are we allowed the same grace to fail and to doubt (assuming you preach grace to your congregation)?

7. A single moral standard

One of the graces PKs need is a single moral standard. Too many PKs feel the pressure of their fathers’ priestly profession in our moral lives. The pastor and elder qualifications in 1 Timothy and Titus feel like a threat: “If you screw up, your father not only looks bad, he will be out of a job.” But those standards are the same ones that every Christian should be held to (other than the ability to teach). Nobody else’s dad is at risk of being unemployed if his kid is rebellious, but mine is. The additional pressure to be morally upstanding does not help my heart. It creates a convoluted soul environment in which temptation to rebel and temptation to be a hypocrite battle the desire to honor Jesus and my dad.

You have heard that it was said PKs should be holier than their peers, and their parents should raise them better, but Jesus says to us all, “Be holy for I am holy.” So it should be.

[image error]For more on serving pastors’ kids well and the challenges they face check out my book The Pastor’s Kid: What’s It’s Like and How You Can Help.

This article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition and is used with permission.

 

New Happy Rant Sports: Future of Baseball and a Home Run Derby Recap

In this episode of The Happy Rant Sports Podcast Ted and Barnabas break down the following:

Our optimism (or lack thereof) about the baseball season
The 1993 home run derby featuring awesome names, awesome hair, awesome biceps, and more.
Do we need steroids to save baseball again?
What we would bring back from the early 90s for baseball

NEW BOOKS

[image error]Ted Kluck has released a new book, The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail. In his typical insightful, humorous, genuine manner Ted tells a story that will resonate with your nostalgia and your children’s present life. It is funny, heart warming, and truly encouraging. You will love it and your kids will too.

 

[image error]Barnabas Piper has Re-released his book The Pastor’s Kid: What It’s Like and How to Help. Written from a PK on behalf of PKs for pastors and for the church, it offers pointed critique and diagnosis but also hope in the grace of God. Being a PK brings unique struggles, and this books seeks to address them in a way that brings about change and hope and restoration.

Get Your Coffee

[image error]WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #43

How To Pray For Pastors’ Kids

Why exactly is it that pastors’ kids (PKs) need prayer? What makes them so special? Actually, nothing. They are just like all their peers—the same weaknesses, the same proclivity to sin, and made in the image of God, too. All in all, PKs are a pretty normal bunch.

And there you have it, the reason they need prayer: they’re normal. Yet when you put normal people in uniquely challenging circumstances, things get difficult, and growing up in a family wherein the father’s vocation is full-time ministry is definitely uniquely difficult.

A pastor’s family often functions as the “first family” of the church, setting the bar in all things spiritual and moral. They are the exemplars of ministry and life. They’re always being observed, and with that comes expectations. The church expects certain behaviors and personas from their leaders’ families.

So you can see why it is that a pastor’s kid could use some extra prayer. Growing up is a challenge all by itself—learning, growing, hormones, identity crises, unrequited love, sports heartbreak, relational drama, school, spiritual life, siblings, parents, and more. Now imagine doing all that while a church watches, expecting you to be a good little Christian. Where can a PK hide? Where can she hide her mistakes and her insecurities? More deeply, where can she connect with Jesus deeply and genuinely, not as just another expectation?

Most people in the church love the pastor’s family. They have no intention of adding to the pressure or pain of PKs, so what can they do to ease the burden? More than anything, the church can pray.

THAT THEY WOULD KNOW JESUS

One of the most significant challenges PKs face is a true connection with Jesus Christ. All the knowledge and trivia and Bible memory doesn’t equal a saving relationship with Christ. On the contrary, sometimes knowing all that good stuff actually tricks PKs into thinking they have one. So many PKs know of Jesus, but all the morality, expectations, and knowledge blind them to His heart-transforming reality. Only a miracle of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to someone can truly save. Pray this miracle, that Jesus would be visible through all the stuff that happens in His name.

THAT THEY WOULD FIND THEIR IDENTITY IN JESUS

When people grow up under significant expectations, it is natural to gauge themselves by those expectations. Am I what I am supposed to be? Am I pleasing the right people? PKs see themselves as what others want them to be instead of what God made them to be. For PKs, those standards often look very “Christiany,” very moral, very “churchy.” Christian kids know they are not to measure themselves by “worldly” standards but rather by biblical ones, and these churchy standards sure look biblical. But something is amiss. Meeting churchy standards still feels empty.

Why? Because it is the wrong place to find one’s identity. A follower of Christ is a new creation in Jesus. With that comes freedom to live a life made full by honoring Jesus instead of a life made harried by meeting expectations.

THAT THEY WOULD LOVE THEIR FAMILY

Pressure crushes things, and a cracking family is one of the devil’s favorite ways to undermine a pastor’s ministry. It’s an exploitable weakness and a nerve to be jabbed. When a PK crumbles under the pressure of ministry, she often blames her parents. (Sometimes they even deserve it for heaping that pressure on.) More subtly, the practice of being “just so” for the church can carry over into the home and stilt relationships. Instead of honesty, transparency, trust, and love, there is a void between family members.

THAT THEY WOULD LOVE THE CHURCH

PKs see more of the ugly in a church than anyone but the staff does. They see how ministry can pull apart their families. All the expectations can frustrate and embitter them. That’s why some PKs rebel and abandon church altogether. On the other hand, PKs get to see the best parts of the church too—deep friendships, changed lives, needs meet, souls transformed. Pray that the good would outweigh the bad, that they would recognize that there is bad everywhere humans gather, and that the church provides hope and richness like nowhere else.

FOR GRACE

People who grow up in church hear all about grace but often know very little of it. It is God’s grace that reveals Jesus and connects a PK to Him. It’s grace that overcomes and redeems the failures of family and church. It is God’s grace flowing through the church to the PK and through the PK to the church that enables the relationship to flourish. Grace is the thread that ties each of these needs together and the means by which God can grant them. Pray for the miraculous grace that covers a multitude of sins, restores the fallen and the bruised, and ties God’s people together.

This article was originally published for Ligonier Ministries.

[image error]For more on serving pastors’ kids well and the challenges they face check out my book The Pastor’s Kid: What’s It’s Like and How You Can Help.

New Happy Rant: Artsy Personalities and the Creative Process

In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted and Ronnie (sans Barnabas) wander to and fro through a variety of topics:

Record making vs. book writing
Collaboration vs. loner creation
Ministry vs. creative work
Dealing with editors
Collaborative music listening
Things we wish we’d changed in our work
Bogus expectations
Time away to write

TED’S NEW BOOK

[image error]Ted Kluck has released a new book, The Outstanding Life of an Awkward Theater Kid: God, I’ll Do Anything―Just Don’t Let Me Fail. In his typical insightful, humorous, genuine manner Ted tells a story that will resonate with your nostalgia and your children’s present life. It is funny, heart warming, and truly encouraging. You will love it and your kids will too.

Order Your Coffee

WE ARE COFFEE MOGULS AGAIN. We’ve joined forces with Redbud Coffee, based out of Auburn IL, to bring you deliciously roasted and beautifully packaged coffee. Check out their variety of roasts and be sure to use the code HappyRant at checkout to get a 10% discount off your purchase.

Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:

Order your Redbud coffee
Connect with Ted, Ronnie, or Barnabas to speak for your church, organization, or event
Support the podcast through our Patreon page . This helps us cover production and hosting costs so we can keep this thing rolling

To listen you can:

Subscribe in iTunes.
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Listen via just about any podcast app/streaming service out there
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.

Episode #301