Transcript
Dan Hurst (00:03):
Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving, by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey. Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton. Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock. Although we are sons, Mark Hallock.
Mark Clifton (00:29):
That we’re without him. That’s what that means.
Dan Hurst (00:31):
Yeah. I learned that. That was the cool way of saying without—
Mark Clifton (00:34):
That’s right. We’re without Mark Hallock. Mark Hallock is no longer with us.
Dan Hurst (00:37):
Well, today.
Mark Clifton (00:38):
Today. He’ll be back. He’s actually down in Alpharetta doing some work on our behalf with the North American Mission Board. Dan and I are in his church. Dan, if you haven’t been listening to these podcasts, you got to go back and listen to the last two. Dan accepted the call to a church that is First Baptist Independence. Is there a website?
Dan Hurst (00:59):
There is a website.
Mark Clifton (01:00):
Okay. We’ll put it in the show notes.
Dan Hurst (01:01):
It’s terrible.
Mark Clifton (01:02):
That’s good. That’s even better. We’re really
Dan Hurst (01:04):
Working on it.
Mark Clifton (01:05):
Oh, I want to go now and see what-
Dan Hurst (01:06):
You should see it the way it used to be.
Mark Clifton (01:09):
Okay. Okay.
Dan Hurst (01:10):
It’s vastly improved, but oh man.
Mark Clifton (01:12):
But First Baptist Independence, Missouri, which is a suburb of Kansas City, an old suburb, inner ring suburb, by all means, not a new one. This church in 1985 averaged about 2,100 and the day Dan showed up, they had about 70 seven weeks ago. So Dan is now the pastor here at First Baptist Independence and taking it through a revitalization process. S,o man, if you listen to the last two podcasts, you’re all filled in. If you haven’t, go back and listen to him as Dan talks to you about his journey and his first seven weeks here. And we’re here in their former television studio. This church actually had television programs and all kinds of things like that. So we’re here doing a podcast in here and today we’re going to do one something Dan and I know a lot about.
Dan Hurst (01:54):
We’re going to talk about us today.
Mark Clifton (01:56):
Us today. Well, we talk about us all the time. Yeah. We do. We do. By the way, we are a block and a half from Harry Truman’s house.
Dan Hurst (02:02):
He used to walk by this church all the time on his way to the Presbyterian church.
Mark Clifton (02:07):
There you go. I grew up here. My junior high school was William Chrisman, which is a block and a half from here. And he died in 72, I think. I was 12 years old. So I don’t really ever have a memory of seeing him, but his wife lived a lot longer, Bess Truman. And I saw her several times here when I lived in Independence.
Dan Hurst (02:25):
She was a very sweet lady.
Mark Clifton (02:27):
She was. But anyhow, something cool about … I did a whole independent study on Harry Truman when I was in college. I was a history major. So I learned everything I could. He was Southern Baptist, by the way.
Dan Hurst (02:38):
Right. He was. Remember Grandview Baptist Church?
Mark Clifton (02:40):
Never went. Really? And never went, drank like a fish and cussed like a sailor, but nonetheless.
Dan Hurst (02:43):
And he was a deacon. No, I’m not. I’m just kidding.
Mark Clifton (02:49):
But no, he was a lifelong member of First Baptist Church of Grandview. But yeah, he just lived up the street from here. And when he came back from being president, at that time they didn’t have any … There was no annuity. There was no pay for a former president. Well, he didn’t have any money before he went and he didn’t have any money when he came back. He didn’t graduate college. He failed at business. He failed at a farm. And he lived in his mother-in-law’s house. That house that’s a block and a half from here was his mother-in-law’s house. It wasn’t his home. And so when he came back, there wasn’t even a fence around it. In fact, when he came back, the first thing he and his wife did, he’d buy a new car and they loaded their own suitcases in the backseat, in the back in the trunk of that car.
(03:31):
And they were going to drive to New York City to see his daughter, their daughter, Margaret. So they just get in the car, the two of them by themselves and drive like normal citizen, right? Well, by the time they get to the Illinois border, word kind of gets out, “Hey, the former president’s coming.” And it kind of got a little hectic. And so they started giving him a police escort all the way to New York, highway patrol. It was kind of a mess. But he didn’t do it intentionally. He just said, “I’m just a citizen. I’m just taking a car ride.” He was very normal. Well, anyway, this is an absolute true story. His grandson shared this story one day at the Truman Library about his granddad. So his granddad had been home from the White House, I don’t know, a year or so. They didn’t have the fence around the house yet.
(04:12):
And a guy’s car broke down in front of Truman’s home up here on Truman Road. It wasn’t called Truman Road then, it was called 12th Street. But anyway, broke down here. And so he walks up to the Truman’s house and knocks on the door to see, can I use the phone to call it a tow truck? And Truman answers the door. This is a true story. And so he says, “Sure.” So he lets him use the phone and as he leaves, the guy looks at him and goes, Truman was really unpopular when he left the White House, right? The guy looks at him, he goes, “You look like that awful, terrible President Truman we had.” And he goes, “Well, that’s because I was that awful, terrible President Truman you had.” It’s a true story. You got a lot of Terry Truman stories. They were great.
(04:53):
Okay, that’s about all the time we have today. I brought that up because his grandson told that story. And by the way, one more thing about his grandkids. This amazing. He was like five years old in kindergarten before he found out his granddad had been president.
Dan Hurst (05:08):
Really?
Mark Clifton (05:09):
Yes.
Dan Hurst (05:09):
Wow.
Mark Clifton (05:10):
His mom and dad just didn’t there’s no reason to tell him. It’s just granddad and grandma. And so he’s in kindergarten and he comes home and he says, “Was grand…” Oh yeah, granddad was president. Truman wanted to be so normal. When you walk in the first floor of that, you can go to the house and tour it now. And the entire first floor of the house was the only part you can go to. There’s only one thing in that first floor of that house that reminds you he is president and that was Bess has some of the White House China in the China closet. There is nothing else.
Dan Hurst (05:40):
Really?
Mark Clifton (05:40):
It looks like anybody else’s house in the 1950s.
Dan Hurst (05:43):
I have her rocking chair.
Mark Clifton (05:45):
How do you have Beth Truman’s rocking chair?
Dan Hurst (05:47):
I do.
Mark Clifton (05:48):
How did you get that?
Dan Hurst (05:49):
Her nurse after … She stayed in the house even after Harry died.
Mark Clifton (05:54):
She stayed there until she died.
Dan Hurst (05:57):
And her nurse as she was getting ready to retire also and Bess said, “I want you to have whatever you want. ” And she loved this rocker that was in her room. And so she gave her the rocker. Well then she lived over in Raytown and she got older and wasn’t able to care for herself anymore. She decided that she needed to get rid of some furniture. Well, she had a really dear friend and she gave her the rocker. Well, that really dear friend happened to be one of our best friends when we went into the ministry. They were kind of like a big … She was like a big sister to me. And we loved she and Ralph, Sharon Firsick and Ralph Firsick. And so Sharon then gave it to us.
Mark Clifton (06:44):
Next time at your house, I got to look at it.
Dan Hurst (06:46):
Yeah, you got to look at it.
Mark Clifton (06:47):
I’m so into Harry Truman stuff.
Dan Hurst (06:48):
It’s really fascinating. It’s just an old rocker, but it’s in great shape. We don’t let anybody sit on it.
Mark Clifton (06:54):
I could do all kinds of Harry Truman stories. I don’t have time. Well- I love that one. You look like that mean old president, Harry Truman. Well, that’s because I was that mean. Anyway, so here we are. And that was his grandson that told that story. And what’s it like to grow up as the son or the grandson of a president? I don’t know, but I do know what it’s like to grow up as a son of a pastor. And you know what it’s like to grow up as a son of a pastor and a foreign missionary. So we’re going to talk today about the challenges of being a preacher’s kid.
Dan Hurst (07:23):
Now let me say right up front, we’re probably going to say some things that sound hurtful.
Mark Clifton (07:29):
Yeah, we probably are.
Dan Hurst (07:29):
But we’re through all that.
Mark Clifton (07:31):
We are.
Dan Hurst (07:31):
I mean, at least I didn’t have a great, great relationship with my father early on.
Mark Clifton (07:37):
You didn’t. I remember you told me that. It was very different than mine.
Dan Hurst (07:40):
Yeah. And later on in life, he and I became best friends and he became … I mean, he was my hero. So when we say things that are just a little critical, understand that those are in the past.
Mark Clifton (07:50):
And there’s certainly a sense of where my dad had an abundance of love for us as his three children. I was the youngest. I had two older sisters. He loved us immensely. He expressed that love to us immensely. Told us he loved us all the time, but we always felt like we’re competing with the church.
Dan Hurst (08:09):
Right.
Mark Clifton (08:09):
Always felt like that. Exactly. I never knew exactly where we stood in that line. I knew he loved us, but I knew he loved his church too and I never knew. That’s another story for another day. But I’ve sort of worked through that as well in my life.
Dan Hurst (08:22):
And you’ve got five things that we want to kind of touch on that pastor’s kids have to deal with as they’re growing up.
Mark Clifton (08:30):
From an article that we found that’s really good. First of all is, and I want to add six. Let me add six. Let me add the first one. I think the first one is a lack of boundaries.
Dan Hurst (08:39):
What do you mean by that?
Mark Clifton (08:43):
Family boundaries. When I was growing up, I lived in a parsonage and people could come to our house anytime they wanted to come and they could interrupt our schedule anytime they wanted to interrupt it. And I never felt like our family had strong boundaries of this is our family time. This is for us. I felt like at any time anybody from the church wanted to impose on us that that came first. If people came over to our house and they had kids, they just got to play with all of my toys. They got to do whatever they wanted because they were in our church and ride my bike. I always felt like my parents didn’t protect our family life very well, didn’t make those boundaries and said, no, this night’s for us. No, these things are just for our family.
Dan Hurst (09:37):
Gotcha.
Mark Clifton (09:37):
You see what I mean?
Dan Hurst (09:38):
Yeah.
(09:38):
It’s interesting because kind of along the same line, I don’t ever recall going on vacation with my parents.
Mark Clifton (09:45):
No, we didn’t either.
Dan Hurst (09:47):
Because what was a vacation was actually going to preach at another church or a conference. Or a conference or something. Something like that. It was always ministry related and we just happened to tag along.
Mark Clifton (09:58):
And generally there were other people involved.
Dan Hurst (10:00):
Yes.
Mark Clifton (10:01):
Whenever we went to a conference, there’d be other families that would come with us or go with us. And so the idea of identifiable family time when I was growing up was really hard to come by. I know sometimes we’d be having dinner and we’d be … It was good to be around having dinner and the phone would ring and my dad felt compelled to get up and go talk to the person on the phone all through dinner. I’m like, “Where’s our family time? Where’s that? ” Or someone would knock on the door and my mom would say, “Oh, we can’t eat right now. These people are here.” Now, I know most of you don’t experience that, but I did and my mom and dad blessed their hearts. They wanted to love the church first, but they didn’t know how to do that balance of saying, “We got to protect our family and create strong boundaries there.
(10:44):
At the same time, we got to love our church. How do we do both?” So that was the first thing I remember as a kid and I remember we had a family down the street, had six kids and they were sort of kind of wild kids, but they would come up and just take my bike and just ride around on it. I told my dad, I go, “Jonathan’s got my bike.” “Yeah, Mark, it’s okay. Let him …” It’s like, “No, it’s not okay. That’s mine. We can’t do that.” Anyway.
Dan Hurst (11:11):
Part of the problem that though is that when parents don’t set those family boundaries as pastors, how do you teach your people that they need to set boundaries in the family?
Mark Clifton (11:22):
Exactly. In their family. Okay. It’s not on the list. It’s just something that I needed to work out as a 66 year old dad.
Dan Hurst (11:30):
And how did that make you feel?
Mark Clifton (11:31):
I’m still dealing with it.
(11:33):
No, I’ll tell you what, I think how it has worked out in my life is I do the opposite. I try to create too many boundaries and I’m probably less hospitable than I should be and probably … Now people don’t think that because when they see me they think, ” Well, Rainor, when I used to do this podcast with Rainer, Rain would say, “Man, you’re gracious to people. I see you all the time. You just love people and gracious to people. ” “Yeah, but I have to work at it. I got to work at it. ”
Dan Hurst (12:01):
And when you don’t, you don’t.
Mark Clifton (12:02):
Because my default is, why don’t you all get out of here so I can go to bed and watch what I want to watch on TV and I don’t need any more fellowship time and I’m good. Take a hike. That’s kind of my perfect evening. It’s just leave me alone. And I do think part of that has come from … I think the staff I work with at the North American Mission Board, they’re not with me very long until they pick up on that. They say, “Clifton, before the car stops, you’ve opened the door. You can’t wait to get away from us.” Or before the conversation is over, you’ve hung up the phone.
Dan Hurst (12:39):
Yeah. Well, I can tell you from traveling with Mark, when we travel to go somewhere to Alpharetta or to Dallas or somewhere and we’re traveling a lot of times we’ll travel on the same flight or at least come home on the same flight and I’ll see him at the airport when we’re checking in and that’s the last time I see him.
Mark Clifton (12:58):
I go hide from you.
Dan Hurst (12:58):
Even though we’re on the same plane.
Mark Clifton (13:01):
Yeah. And even though you and I have been friends for all of our lives, I don’t want to sit there and talk to you. No, exactly. I just want to be alone. And I do think some of that comes from just having no boundaries as a kid. Pastors, you got to be careful about that. I mean, I feel like I need to get … Okay, that’s number one. Number two, unrealistic expectations. How did that affect you as a kid having unrealistic expectations? Compared to a regular eight or 10 or 12 year old.
Dan Hurst (13:26):
I think it was the fact that they expected me to … I wasn’t even saved and they expected me to act saved.
Mark Clifton (13:33):
Wow, that’s powerful.
Dan Hurst (13:34):
That was kind of the thing. Now I went through all the emotions and emotions. I mean, I knew all the scripture versions. I was a royal ambassador. I knew how to play the game because I was expected to play the game even though I wasn’t a player.You understand what I’m saying? So I think it was unrealistic and I had to behave in certain ways that weren’t me. Along with that, I wasn’t allowed to do things that normal kids would get to do. You’ve talked about some of the things that your parents like four square dancing, you weren’t allowed to do that.
Mark Clifton (14:15):
You could do square dancing. No, we couldn’t.
Dan Hurst (14:17):
And I never went to a school dance, never went to … I don’t recall going to a school party.
Mark Clifton (14:23):
No, I didn’t either.
Dan Hurst (14:24):
And you just didn’t do that because what would the people at church think?
Mark Clifton (14:27):
Exactly. We didn’t play cards. We didn’t go to movies. We didn’t dance. We didn’t go to dances. I told you before, even when we had square dancing in PE, they sent a note to the teacher saying I wasn’t to participate.
Dan Hurst (14:40):
So you just sat there.
Mark Clifton (14:41):
For religious reasons. Who knew I’d end up being a bluegrass promoter? Anyway, but yeah, those unrealistic expectations of, you’re right, you’ve got these way … It wasn’t just you got to behave in a certain way and for an eight or nine year old, sometimes it’s just demanding too much time and the expectations of us are you got to let a kid be a kid and there are times that they’re going to make mistakes and they’re going to do things that aren’t and you got to love them through that. But I think it’s very challenging. And part of it comes from the church looking and you go, well, you’re the preacher’s kid. Mark, what do you think? You’re the preachers. I heard that all of my youth group. Listen,
Dan Hurst (15:26):
One year when we were on furlough, we were only on furlough twice because it was every five years you’d come home for one year. And my second furlough, so at that point I’m I think 12 years old, something like that. We went to Windermere. I remember this
Mark Clifton (15:41):
Like it was yesterday. Oh yeah, that’s the Missouri Baptist Conference Center.
Dan Hurst (15:43):
Yeah. We went to win and they had a cave there. Remember that cave?
(15:46):
It didn’t go very far.
Mark Clifton (15:48):
If you could get your girlfriend to walk in that cave with you, she would be scared of the dark and she’d hold your hand.
Dan Hurst (15:52):
She’d hold your hand.
Mark Clifton (15:54):
I was never able to accomplish that by the way.
Dan Hurst (15:55):
Well, there was a missionary kid, another missionary kid there, a girl and our parents were out doing their thing, their conference and everything. We decided now we weren’t an item. There was no interest there.
Mark Clifton (16:07):
You were taking a girl in a cave.
Dan Hurst (16:08):
But we said, let’s go in the cave. Okay. We went in the cave and then our parents found out I got a whipping like you would not believe. Really? Yeah, because my dad said, “What would people think? ” The Bible says, “Avoid all appearances of evil.” I said, “We went to a cave.” Yeah, I know. But it was that sort of thing. You cannot do that. You better not act that way.
Mark Clifton (16:31):
Yeah. And I know I always wanted to go to the Disney movies that were popular in the 1960s, Herbie the Love Bug and the Barefoot Executive and all these things. We couldn’t go to Disney movies. And it wasn’t because the Disney movies weren’t good. It was because we don’t go to theaters because what if a church member sees us in a theater? The other thing sometimes is the unrealized expectations, unrealistic, I should say, unrealistic expectations are that you’re sort of considered a non-paid church staff member.
Dan Hurst (17:01):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (17:01):
You’re going to show up and do stuff at the church just because you’re the preacher’s kid.
Dan Hurst (17:04):
You have to be there.
Mark Clifton (17:05):
If we have a cleaning day, you’re going to be there.
(17:08):
You’re going to be there. And you’re going to do help with the cleaning.
Dan Hurst (17:09):
Which kind of goes to the second point and that’s the stereotypes that you are expected. That’s the way preacher’s kids act.
(17:18):
That’s what they do.
Mark Clifton (17:19):
And people have a different lens through which they see you and they expect you to behave that way. And again, there are many times as a youth, the youth director, when he was out of things to say or didn’t know what else to do, he would say, “Well, Mark, you’re the preacher’s kid. What do you think about that? ” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m not even listening to you right now.” My mind is somewhere else. I’m a 14 year old boy. I’m not paying much attention at this point, but because I’m the preacher’s kid, Mark, what do you think about that?
Dan Hurst (17:45):
Here’s the other stereotype though is that the preacher’s kids get to be the wildest kids when they get away.
Mark Clifton (17:51):
They do sometimes.
Dan Hurst (17:51):
And they do. Listen, my freshman year in college, I was at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, home of Bob Jones University.
Mark Clifton (18:00):
Yes.
Dan Hurst (18:00):
We went to Bob Jones University to pick up chicks. I mean, that’s just the way it was.
Mark Clifton (18:05):
I think we got some real … I think between going into caves and going to Bob Jones University-
Dan Hurst (18:09):
No, I’m just telling you.
Mark Clifton (18:11):
We need Mark Hallock here to keep us in line.
Dan Hurst (18:13):
But there’s those stereotypes that preacher’s kids have to act a certain way and
Mark Clifton (18:17):
They’re acting.
Dan Hurst (18:17):
That’s the problem. They’re acting.
Mark Clifton (18:19):
And then when they’re not in front of you, then they behave totally differently. So we have really parents who don’t set good family boundaries to protect their children. We have really unrealistic expectations for how church members behave toward you as a preacher’s kid and how you are asked to do things that normal kids wouldn’t be asked to do on a regular basis. And then the stereotypes. This is how you’re supposed to behave. This is what a preacher’s kid, this is how they’re supposed to act and trying to live up to that stereotype. And then another one is sort of a presumption of a call to ministry.
Dan Hurst (18:54):
Yeah, what is the deal with that?
Mark Clifton (18:56):
Oh, you’re going to be a preacher just like your dad.
Dan Hurst (18:58):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (18:59):
Oh, I can see that. When I was born, the doctor that delivered me, my mom and dad had two daughters and back then you didn’t know whether you’re going to have a son or daughter until the delivery came so they didn’t know and Dr. Fair delivered me and Dr. Lambert was her name actually. She was a lady doctor and I was born in a house. They didn’t have a hospital in Princeton, Missouri. So went to the doctor’s house. That’s kind of weird. Anyway, she had a room there. You don’t need to hear all that story. This podcast is going down quick in flames. But nonetheless, she said, “Oh, this young man, this baby, as soon as I was born is a boy. Oh, pastor, he’s going to be a preacher.” Just because I was a boy, he’s going to be a preacher. And then I heard that all my life. You’re going to preacher like your dad. And I got to be honest with you, it almost made me not want to do it because I feel like, well, if I do that, it’s just sort of like people are just … Is this really what I’m called to do? Yeah. Am I hearing the call of the Lord or am I just hearing the encouragement of everybody else? Now, in all fairness, my dad didn’t strongly encourage me to do it. He wasn’t like that, but I felt it from the people that you should really follow your dad. You should really be a pastor. You should really follow that call to ministry. And so when I got older and I decided to, I had a real problem with, am I doing this because I should, because the Lord’s calling me or because it’s sort of just what I’m supposed to do and what’s expected of me.
Dan Hurst (20:27):
Yeah. Interestingly, I’m the only sibling that followed in the ministry in my family.
Mark Clifton (20:34):
And you were the-
Dan Hurst (20:35):
There was four of us. You were the black sheep for sure.
Mark Clifton (20:37):
I was the black sheep and I was the oldest and I was adopted. That’s right. And the other three were natural born and all three of them didn’t follow the suit. They went into the medical field, all three of them, but not me. No, I was the black sheep, which kind of explains a lot, I guess.
(20:55):
Wow.
Dan Hurst (20:56):
But anyway, along with that sense that you have this, you’re supposed to be in the ministry or even act like you’re in the ministry. The problem with that is that’s expectations that are above your age grade. You’re a young teenager and they’re talking about you could be like your daddy.
Mark Clifton (21:13):
Or 10 or 12.
Dan Hurst (21:14):
Or 10 or 12. Yeah, you’re exactly right.
Mark Clifton (21:17):
I heard it the day I was born.
Dan Hurst (21:18):
So all of a sudden-
Mark Clifton (21:19):
Well, I didn’t hear it, but it was said of me.
Dan Hurst (21:21):
So all of a sudden you’re expected to be like the preacher among kids of your same age. That’s a problem. It’s like, oh, he’s a preacher’s kid and you’re an eight year old and here’s another eight year old acting this way. There’s a problem here. It’s a behavioral issue.
Mark Clifton (21:37):
Yeah. How about socializing among our own group? Because the nature of the work of pastors having to visit homes, go to parties, attend funerals and the like, children of pastors often feel exposed to many social events where there are not a lot of kids their age present.
Dan Hurst (21:52):
Oh, that’s an issue too. Yeah.
Mark Clifton (21:54):
This can become a challenge for a pastor’s kid. You can be more comfortable around adults and around kids your own age, guilty. I mean, I grew up feeling far more comfortable in a room of adults than I ever felt in a room with my peers. And that did not serve me well in junior high. It did not serve me well in high school because I really didn’t know how to function well among people my own age because there weren’t very many 75 year old deacons in my high school class. They were all high school boys and girls like me and I wasn’t comfortable in that. I spent so much of my time with adults and I was affirmed with how well I dealt with adults, but I needed time to socialize with others and other kids my age. And I think that’s particularly true when we homeschool our kids.
Dan Hurst (22:42):
Now, did you go through the pressure of you’ve got to do things that you’re not supposed to do because your friends are doing things you’re not supposed to do?
Mark Clifton (22:48):
What do you mean by that?
Dan Hurst (22:49):
Like smoking. That was a big issue with my family. You don’t smoke, of course. You don’t go to hell for smoking, but you smell like it. That’s what my dad used to say.
Mark Clifton (23:01):
And so you wanted to do that?
Dan Hurst (23:02):
And I wanted to. And I can remember I couldn’t go get cigarettes or anything like that. So I went out to the backyard, got a banana leaf, rolled it and smoked it, thought I was going to die because I just wanted to be like my friends who did things that they’re not supposed to.
Mark Clifton (23:17):
Yeah. I definitely … And that exhibited itself in my life in that I never felt like I fit in.
Dan Hurst (23:24):
Right.
Mark Clifton (23:24):
I never felt like I fit in.
Dan Hurst (23:26):
You weren’t allowed to be like that. And so you wanted to be like that. So the way that they were so different was that they did things that were wrong.
Mark Clifton (23:34):
Right.
Dan Hurst (23:34):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (23:35):
So I think sometimes being a preacher’s kid, you spend so much of your time at adult events that you feel more comfortable around adults than kids your age. I think sometimes you feel that sense of that urgency to call to ministry because your family’s in ministry. You have a stereotype that you’re supposed to live up to. You have unrealistic expectations and your parents aren’t always good at creating boundaries. And then the last one we’ll look at is what we call erratic schedules and that is so true. Your schedule of your life isn’t necessarily built around your school or your sporting events. It’s always built around the church calendar. And we can’t do this because we have this meeting coming up. We can’t go there because your dad has this event coming up or every Wednesday night we’re here, every Sunday morning, Sunday night we’re there.
(24:21):
And I’m not suggesting …
(24:23):
Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t be engaged in the activities of your church. Obviously you should, but there’s a lot of activities that are not necessarily related to the weekly church activities. There are committee meetings. There are other events you’re supposed to go to and you know how it is. When you’re a pastor, there’s something going on every day. And if you’re not careful, your kids are involved in that and the schedules become unpredictable and erratic and challenging. You see that there’s plenty of roles that involve other children that they can do things in their life that you can’t do because your dad and your mom are so busy with the church and so busy in ministry that it can just become a stress. It’s a little bit like not setting the good boundaries that we talked about before. This is our family time.
(25:12):
Now I do think I see many of the younger guys today, they’ll put on their calendar, “This is my kid’s baseball game and I’m going to be there for that or my kid’s basketball game and I’m going to be there for that. And this is my kid’s concert or his recital or band recital. We’re going to be there for that and move those.” And I applaud you in doing that. Look, guys, as the parent of kids and you’re in ministry, you’re going to struggle with these things. You’re struggling with the boundaries. You’re going to struggle with the expectations of your church members. You’re going to struggle with your kids spending a lot of time with adults and not as much time with their own age group. You’re going to struggle with certainly the erratic schedules that come with ministry, especially if you’re bi-vocational. In the midst of all of that, you got to love your kids, you got to have fun with your kids and you got to let your kids know they come before they do come before your church. Your call to be a pastor, your call to be a husband is a primary call.
(26:15):
I do know that Thom Rainor used to always tell me, “Mark, you can’t balance church and home life. You’ll always be out of balance.” You have to realize that your home life is your church. In other words, the better you love your children, the better you love your wife, the better pastor you are. That’s true. And the better model of a husband and a dad you are to your church. So when you’re loving your family well and taking care of them and giving them your time and creating good boundaries for them and allowing them a certain degree of freedom to be who they are, then you’re modeling for your church what it means to be a good dad and a good husband and that’s being a good pastor. So don’t put those two things in conflict.
Dan Hurst (27:03):
The toughest thing to do though is to switch horses in the middle of the stream because now you know that you have to do that. You can’t just suddenly start doing it.
Mark Clifton (27:11):
Yeah, you’re right.
Dan Hurst (27:12):
And it’s a problem. But for those of you who are going into new ministries and everything, set that boundary, set that guideline right away. It’s the first thing that your people should know that you hold of incredible value and they’ll respect that.
Mark Clifton (27:26):
And then if you’ve suffered through this podcast, again, not one of the veterans, whenever Mark’s not here, Dan and I just sort of flounder around in the water till the thing’s over.
Dan Hurst (27:35):
Yeah. But don’t tell them. They’ll get a big head. We don’t want to begin with you.
Mark Clifton (27:37):
That’s true. But I do want you to be aware of this Adam and Eve, they had two sons there at the beginning and one turned out really good and one turned out really bad and Cain and Abel had the same parents and grew up in the same environment and turned out entirely differently. And I don’t want to lay a bunch of coals on your head and make you feel like a total failure when you have a kid who is apostate or a kid who is openly rebellious. First of all, he may just be working on his testimony and decades from now, maybe even after you’re in heaven, he’s going to come back to Jesus and it’s going to be a great testimony. Secondly, again, you just have to know that when you say you’re supposed to manage your household well, if you don’t manage your household well, you’re not qualified to be a pastor.
(28:33):
I don’t think that means I personally don’t think that means your kids have to behave perfectly. I think sometimes that’s where this pressure, these things we just talked about comes from. I think pastors read that and are held to that and they think, “You know what? I got to make sure my kid tows the line, doesn’t do these things.” And so you bring all this unrealized expectation. I think managing your household well means before the Lord, you’ve done the best you can. You’ve done what He’s asked you to do. You’ve been the godly father, the godly husband, He’s asked you to be and if the child still turns out like Cain, I don’t think that’s your responsibility and I don’t think that disqualifies you for ministry. You have been a godly parent. The child did something different.
Dan Hurst (29:16):
I think one of the things that I learned raising my children was that I don’t expect the people that I minister in church to be perfect. Why should I expect my child that I’m also ministering to-
Mark Clifton (29:28):
Oh, that’s so good. …
Dan Hurst (29:29):
…to be perfect.
Mark Clifton (29:30):
That’s so good.
Dan Hurst (29:30):
I have to give them some leeway and understand that a lot of these things that I want them to learn, they’re going to have to learn on their own.
Mark Clifton (29:39):
And guys, this may be the most powerful thing we say in this podcast, so I do hope you’re still listening. Your kids know when you get angry not because you care about their behavior but because you feel like it impacts on you and your opinion people have of you and sometimes, especially younger, even teenagers, younger kids and teenagers, they’ll misbehave just because they want to give back at you because they know how much it hurts you because they know that your first priority is not really their behavior, it’s how people perceive their behavior and how that makes them think about you as a pastor. How are people going to feel when they see … You got to care more about that kid than what people think about you.
Dan Hurst (30:19):
Exactly.
Mark Clifton (30:20):
You got to care more about your wife than what people think about you. I mean,
(30:23):
If your wife isn’t feeling good on a Sunday morning, she’s not had a good week and she’s got a headache and she doesn’t feel good, the last thing you want to do is tell her, “Honey, you got to get there and got to be at church.” If she doesn’t feel like going, if she’s not feeling well that day, she needs to have all the permission in the world that she can rest that day and not go there. And if people look at you and wonder what’s wrong, then just let them. You take that for her is what I’m saying. And you take it for your kids because both your children and your spouse will soon realize you care more about what people think about you than you care about them.
Dan Hurst (30:57):
But don’t do what I did.
Mark Clifton (30:58):
Which is what?
Dan Hurst (30:59):
One time when Marsha had to stay home and I went to church and it was worth Marsha.
Mark Clifton (31:02):
And
Dan Hurst (31:03):
All I could think of to say was, “Well, we don’t think she’s pregnant.”
Mark Clifton (31:07):
Yeah, of course that was when she was 63.
Dan Hurst (31:12):
Oh, you are so much in trouble now. You are so going to get it now.
Mark Clifton (31:16):
Oh, that’s about it. Please, please, please, I beg you. Tune in next week because I promise it’ll be so much better.
Dan Hurst (31:23):
It has to be. It can only go one way. What are you talking about?
Mark Clifton (31:26):
We’ll have Mark Hallock here. We’ll actually have something to talk about. No, we do care about you and your kids and being a pastor’s a kid is not an easy thing and raising children as a pastor is not an easy thing. Love them, love Jesus, have fun with them. Do those things, all right? Take care.
Dan Hurst (31:44):
Thanks for joining us today on Revitalize and Replant. This podcast is brought to you by the North American Mission Board, where we help dying or struggling churches regain health for the glory of God and the good of their communities. If you found this conversation helpful, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform. To learn more about becoming a replanting pastor or to explore resources about revitalization for your own church, visit churchreplanters.com.
