When I was in Christian college some of the most rebellious, seemingly fallen away students were the so called "P.K’s " and "M.K’s", standing for "Pastor’s Kids" and "Missionary’s Kids". These were often the students who got caught committing sexual sins, using drugs or alcohol, swearing or smoking, etc. They were by no means the only ones caught up in these kinds of activities but, on the whole, they seemed to represent a larger percentage of the "backslidden" than their small numbers on campus seemed to justify. Apparently this has always been true among Evangelicals. Why?

The conventional wisdom is that these kids are brought up under the moral spotlight of churches because of their parent’s positions. They grow up with so many rules and regulations, designed to safeguard their family’s public reputation, that once they leave home they "let their hair down" and go off the proverbial deep end. It is a rebellion against legalism, or so goes the theory. This is no doubt true, to a point. However there is far more to this story.

The calling to be a pastor or missionary is a difficult one. Such individuals take on huge responsibilities in the Kingdom and the lion’s share of their lives must be dedicated to the ministry they have been entrusted with. Very few of these men and woman would disagree with the reality of the devotion and personal sacrifice required. These are, in many ways, "24, 7" vocations. There is often little downtime for pastors and missionaries if they are fully engaged in the tasks required of them.

The same could be said for "full-time" parents. Children need to be a huge priority in mother’s and father’s lives for the first several years of their existence. While parenthood becomes somewhat less demanding as kids mature it never becomes something that can be easily done well. A child needs a lot of love and attention to grow up to be a healthy adult, and that does not magically become unimportant when they hit puberty. In truth parenting requires major effort until a son or daughter finally leaves for college or ventures out to find a job and live elsewhere (and unfortunately, in today’s world with today’s kids, that often isn’t exactly the end of the task either).

Is it possible that you cannot "have your cake and eat it too" when it comes to being both a pastor or missionary and a parent? We Protestants have so demonized the Roman Catholic requirement for a celibate clergy that we forget that not every reason for the practice is necessarily wrong. Many of the great saints in the early church were celibate, and that long before Catholicism per se even existed. A large number of the first Christians took Paul’s advice about the divided devotion involved in being married to heart and this was probably especially true for those who went into what we would today call "full-time ministry". For them it was one or the other, not both/and.

We tend to distrust unmarried or married but childless clergy in the Evangelical Church today. This should not be.

I’ve heard testimonies from M.K’s and P.K’s about how their father’s put a ministry’s demands first at the expense of being a decent parent to them. These stories are common today and they are usually being given by men and woman who have been profoundly affected by childhood neglect in the name of "putting the ministry first". Many leave the faith altogether. We don’t hear their testimonies at all and this is tragic beyond words.

Perhaps it is time to seriously rethink the advisability of encouraging people to go into pastoral ministry and missions who also deeply desire to be parents. Could it be that God wants the majority of these individuals to ask whether they are truly called to both vocations? This might sound like a radical approach but it was not considered so for much of the Church’s history and it would save a lot of children from being sacrificed on the altar of "having it all".