I was explaining my new obsession, the Sacred Ordinary Days planner, to my husband. I tried to sell him on why we both needed one immediately. “It’s like if the Erin Condren planner went to seminary! It has space to plan, calendar stuff, reminders for all those practices. We need it!”
He bought it. But he first reminded me that we need no better reminder that we live in the “sacred ordinary” than to look over at our preachers’ kid. Our three year old was sitting on the floor of the pastor’s office, making a game out of stacking and then knocking down a bunch of votive candles from a recent worship service. The boundaries between the sacred and the ordinary blur pretty often for ministers’ children.
I would love to say that our schedule and practices chart as neatly as the pages of this beautiful planner would suggest. Most of the time, however, the lines on a page cannot corral the weird and wonderful rhythm of ministry.
I have been a preacher’s kid and we are raising a preachers’ kid. He will know that we make mistakes. He will know that we laugh, often. He will know that his parents call each other out. I noticed, recently, that my Pinterest-inspired Fall decor of candy corn jars were growing smaller each day. Our oh-so-holy conversation went something like this:
Me: “Would you please stop eating all of the Fall decorations?”
Husband: “You know your decorations are food, right?”
Me: “Pretend it’s like the pretty displays on the communion table at church.”
Husband: “Those aren’t made of candy corn.”
Our son will know that the man who sees through symbol and metaphor from the pulpit is the same guy who argues that it’s just a bowl of candy. The woman who can lead a group through a creative prayer experience on Wednesday night gets impatient with her child’s bedtime prayers. The person who offers sermons, sunday school lessons and conversation all Sunday morning has no words left by afternoon. The person who teaches Jesus’ forgiveness truly struggles to forgive church members for what they said.
Our ordinary happens in the grand privilege of holding hands beside deathbeds and stepping into baptismal waters. Our sacred comes in the grace of backyard swings and bath time giggles. The lines blur.
In those blurred lines, I wonder if words like balance and boundaries would add more to our days. Yet, I think the beauty of being a family that lives out ministry is that balance is not the point. Intentionality is what shapes our days. Our intention is to offer grace to each other and trust the good news we proclaim. Our intention is to answer phone calls at night that bring holy interruptions and hit the pause button when the most important thing is playing Legos or making dinner. We are far from perfect. We have to be the blurred-line people we are: the priest, the penitent and the parent all at the same time.
If the person we show to our child is anything less than the snarky, anxious, flawed follower of Christ that we really are, we might miss the most beautiful lesson a minister can offer their own child: that God calls regular people.
As a preacher’s kid, I saw that the man who was impatient with my teenage attitude still got to stand and proclaim God’s grace. I saw the man who was hurt in the crossfire of church conflict be able to forgive, move forward and serve the body of Christ. My son will see that the person who stood fussing about small things in the kitchen that morning still gets to stand and pronounce a benediction to the people. My son will see the real mom and dad paying bills, rushing around, fussing, and worrying. He will know that those ordinary people can be called to the holy moments of ministry.
Our son will know that the sacred and ordinary come to life in the lives of real people.
