A standalone study for leaders on parenting without losing your children to the ministry.
The big question
Many adults who walked away from church grew up inside it, often as a leader’s child. Pastor Louis Fields Jr, who raised three children who still love the church, offers hard-won principles for parents in ministry. This study is about guarding your children from the very thing you serve.
Key takeaways
- Your children are your priority; the church is God’s, and he takes care of it.
- Know each child, show up for what they love, and treat them as individuals.
- Do not put pulpit pressure on them or force them into a calling.
- Live the same Christian life at home that you preach in public.
- Learn to say you are sorry; give grace and do not rehearse old mistakes.
Scripture to sit with
Proverbs 22:6. Train up a child in the way they should go. Fields calls this a principle to live by, not a guarantee.
Mark 8:36. What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul? Fields reframes it: what does it profit a preacher to save the world and lose his children?
Psalm 103:12 and Lamentations 3:22-23. God removes our sin and renews mercy every morning. Parent your children the way God parents you.
Quotes worth discussing
Fields says, “Your children are your priority. The church is God’s priority. He takes care of the church.”
On consistency, Fields says, “It is not what you say, it’s what you do. It’s how you live before them.”
Discussion questions
- Be honest: does your calendar show that your children are a priority, or an afterthought?
- Where might you be expecting a child to be someone they are not?
- Does the person you are at home match the person you are in public?
- When did you last apologize to your child, and mean it?
- If a child is already distant from the church, what would it look like to go back and own your part?
Go deeper
This study comes from the Jude 3 Project’s Preaching in the Culture conference with Pastor Louis Fields Jr. For a companion piece on the leader’s own wholeness, see the conference session on preaching from a whole place.
A closing reflection
This week, block out real time with one of your children, with no agenda and no audience. If there is an apology you owe, however old, go and make it. The church will survive the hour; the relationship may turn on it.