I was married for about five days the first time my body gave me an inkling that something might be up with my reproductive system. Four months later, after extensive testing, I listened to my doctor talk to me about my diagnosis. These were the words that stuck with me: “It will be difficult for you to have children.” Five years later, our daughter was born. She was born during the rise of social media. My mom was in town the first time we planned to take our baby to church, and she was horrified that we would expose her to all those people and all those germs. It was important to us to go because of how we see our daughter: as a gift. Not knowing if a baby would ever come changed how we think and pray about parenting. When we first learned I was expecting, we told no one; there was too much risk. My husband I wondered about if this pregnancy made it to birth, how would we parent? Breastfeeding? Day care? Formula? Stay at home? I have said she is a gift from God (I hesitate to … [Read more...]

Did you hear the one about the dad (or pastor) who was well rested, settled, knew what he was doing and managed to go one whole day without someone breaking into tears in front of him? Yeah, me neither. Ministry is hard. And so is parenting. The two together feel like you're a parent of a congregation and a child all at the same time.  It's weird to tell someone old enough to be my parent the things I say to my kids on a regular basis. Let's play a game. The following are phrases I've said in the last year. You tell me if it was me to parishioners or to my kids. "You need to actually go talk to the person." "I'm not doing this for you when you can do it yourself." "The cook is not here, we have to do this on our own." "Someone needs to clean this place up." "I'm sorry, but you do need to put actual clothes on." If you guessed that all of these are things that I've said to both my kids and church people, then you win a free night of babysitting by a church … [Read more...]

I received an email after Easter with the subject line “Too cute and a distraction.” The church member was talking about my toddler son (let’s call him Z), who sat with us during two of our Easter services. I grew up in a sanctuary front row (probably a pastor’s kid thing), and so we also let my son sit in the front row. He stays in engaged the music and speaking when he’s close to the action. And he genuinely seemed to enjoy the services. I panicked when I saw the email. Was this going to be the shaming that parents of young kids tell me about? No — the body of the email was a delightful observation of how our son engages in the elements of worship (and therefore was more fun to watch than the action on the chancel). My anxious reaction gave me pause as I thought about what it means to set healthy family boundaries as a pastor. How do I respond to the judgments of church members on my parenting? So far, the judgments have been positive, but hardly deserved.  I get many comments … [Read more...]