Book Excerpt: I Was Watching

Below is an excerpt from my new book, No Perfect Time: Brief Essays on Life and Faith.

I’m a preacher’s kid. Before you go assuming things, I’m a preacher despite being a preacher’s kid. Some people might think that my career choice is the natural thing based on my upbringing. 

I’m not mad at anybody for their assumptions. But if you think you know why a preacher’s kid entered the ministry themselves, you should ask them just to make sure.

My father’s ministerial career was what you might call a mixed bag of experiences. It’s really his story to tell, so I won’t bother with a full recap. But I do need to tell you that by the time we wound up at a church in northeast Ohio I was old enough to pay attention, and I can tell you what I saw.

Picture this: a 12-year-old boy in the living room, watching cartoons or playing with LEGOs or doing whatever else 12-year-olds do, with little sense of the world outside the one he’s creating for himself on the carpet. When the phone rings, he does exactly what he has been taught: he meanders over to answer and asks to take a message since his father isn’t around.

It is at that point that the older lady on the other end who never did happen to give her name says to the pastor’s son, “You tell him that if he doesn’t change his tactics, he’s not going to have a church.” 

Make sure that you hear those words spoken so simply, so matter-of-factly, as if reality has just been defined for you and you have no room to question it.

While you’re picturing that, think about what you might say to this child about how the church is full of wonderful, loving, accepting people who are only interested in serving Jesus and building up the Body of Christ. Think about how you might try to reassure him that stories about good Samaritans and sayings about loving one another are still true in the face of an anonymous threat that he, all of 12 years old, is supposed to relay to his father. What words do you have that will warm his spirit after hearing such a cold declaration spoken from afar?

Still think that it’s obvious why I’m a pastor?

I hadn’t watched the church’s actions a whole lot up until that moment, but at that point you can bet that I was paying attention. I watched the night two other trusted church members dropped by to talk about the phone call and options about how to respond. I watched the hurt and determination in my parents’ eyes the day they pulled me aside to explain that they’d fight what was going on. I watched the day the congregation gathered to take a vote on whether he’d remain as their pastor. 

All the while, I watched the changes in my father’s mood toward the whole ministry enterprise: how deeply this latest ordeal had injured him and how off guard this had caught my entire family. I watched a community professing one thing acting out something completely different, and as I watched I wondered what kind of people Christians really are and what kind of a place the church really is.

This type of experience doesn’t exactly get people eager and anxious to sign up for seminary.

As we moved to yet another community and yet another school system, I brought a lot of resentment with me. In fact, out of some hopeful longing I told myself over the first few weeks that this was all a temporary thing: that my parents were looking for a house back closer to where we lived before, that we’d soon be back with old friends and that becoming too comfortable or familiar with our new situation would be a waste of time because I was sure that it would be over soon. 

I cried over my morning cereal the day this illusion came crashing down. 

Now, you have to understand something else about preacher’s kids: the people who raised them aren’t just preachers. And you have to understand that the determination with which people tell their children that they’re going to fight the church’s darker elements is the same determination with which they resolve to ensure the well-being of their family.

That determination can cause a former pastor to work third shift at a factory for a time.

That determination causes them to sit patiently with their oldest son crying over his Cheerios when he realizes that he needs to settle in at his new surroundings.

I was watching then as well, and when you watch during those moments, you see that people of faith transcend the church. You realize that the real possibility exists for people to rise above power players, above traditionalism, above arguments over “tactics.” You bet your ass that I was watching when this happened, and it was one of the many things that helped me figure out that this was one church, perhaps even one small group within one church, that causes these types of injuries.

It’s because I watched the entire thing, from beginning to end, that helped renew my own faith in the church’s possibilities. It was one of the many things that I watched that helped me decide that I wanted to take a chance on those possibilities myself.

So when preacher’s kids go into the ministry, it’s because they were watching.  They saw it all, they knew God was calling, and they answered “yes” anyway.

No Perfect Time: Brief Essays on Life and Faith is available in electronic format on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Apple Books.