Posted October 21, 2010 By Amanda Conner
Do you have the “other sister” syndrome in your house? As a preacher’s daughter I grew up feeling sometimes the church was my other “sister”. You know, the feeling that church life had a place setting at every dinner table and every event. Even my ball games in school sometimes were interrupted because my Dad or Mom were attending to the “other sister”. It took many years to allow God to process a part of me that wasn’t the result of anyone’s failure just a reality of being a preacher’s kid. Today, as a pastor myself I am rekindled with those feelings sometimes when I look at my own kids and evaluate whether I am inviting another family member into the house.
A Pastor’s kid isn’t more special than the next kid but there is a demand and perseverance required that some may not realize. Growing up I can remember friends categorizing me according to my family not my friendship…leaders living with expectations that were almost unrealistic. You know your Dad is the pastor therefore you must want to be one too, to be just like him! You felt sized up not against God but against a man. There were times I continually felt like I needed to just not live in the “glass house” for one day! I remember my folks trying very hard to shield me and my siblings from the onset of church politics and disgruntled people…but as hard as they tried it’s amazing what perception and observation will skill you in.
It didn’t take long until I knew who was for us and who was against us. In fact the greatest struggle I had as a preacher’s kid became about trust. Who can I trust? Who really loves my family or even more my folks? Who cares about me without church and without my dad as the pastor? Who expects me to do my best but doesn’t condemn me in failures? These became the inner questions that drove my relationships with people in the church and outside of the church.
I saw people come and go…connect and disconnect …love you one day and hate you the next and it all seemed so painful that I couldn’t imagine why God signed me up for this. It wasn’t that I was upset with church…it’s that I had no one to identify with me and where I was except my parents. I didn’t have another preacher’s kid older and wiser to look at me and say, “I know what you are going through and you can make it”. Community that understands is vital to a pastor’s kid. We needed someone who could identify. As a parent now I often think I am pretty great and my efforts to minimize the “other sister” must be enough. I am simply saying sometimes it isn’t…what we have to remember is trust is our biggest wall as pastor’s kids so we need a safe environment to be “real”. I knew how to hear people but I needed a safe place of encouragement to hear God.
From a young age I knew the call of God was on my life to preach the gospel…I just knew as my mom says, “In my knower” that is what I was created to do. Yet even with this inner knowing I fought against this call because I was continually compared to my dad. For some teenagers this may be awesome for me that was far from awesome…it was downright scary! My father is a phenomenal preacher and the last thing I wanted was people putting me into “his box”. It wasn’t long before I too was heeding their advice above God’s purpose and I began trying to please and represent my father on earth more than my Father in heaven. It was in their and my innocence but it brought definition to my life. I will never forget one day I was living away and God spoke to me and said, “Amanda, I have called you by name you are mine!” This compassionate word freed me. Pastor’s kids can feel compared…it was important for me to learn to compare myself to Christ alone.
Now as I am a Pastor myself, there is never a day that I can imagine doing anything else than what I am doing. I am in love with Jesus and with people and that is only because of God’s grace! I believe the call of a Pastor is a call to the dying process and challenges the most intimate parts of your life. Dad always said, “If God called me…He called you too!” I believe that God’s hand is upon our children and that as Pastors we must never forget He loves them even more than we do…He protects them even more than we can and if He called them than He knows what is needed to sustain our families.
A. Conner
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