The Tales of a Pastor’s Daughter 

This month, we are taking a look at pastor’s kids. The life of a kid raised in a ministry home can be an incredible blessing. But truth be told, it is a huge pressure on our kids. Until recently, I haven’t understood this. In the next few posts, we will release and repost articles that touch on this role of ministry, which we often sideline or dismiss. This first article is close to my heart as my own youngest daughter, Rachel, writes it. She is precious to us, and we are so proud of her. Read, and I encourage you to discuss it with your children, too!

Rachel Nix, the pastor’s daughter, universally labeled P.K., a simplified abbreviation of an all-encompassing identity that many children of ministry homes have carried since the day they were born into their father’s church. As a child, I did not realize how much this label would identify my existence as I ran up and down the pews and hallways of my church. I did not know the responsibility I carried as my father lovingly introduced me on the pulpit as his daughter on Sunday mornings or at conferences and conventions. To me, this was my reality; these were my parents, who woke me up for school and church in the morning and drove me to my various extracurriculars. This man was my dad, who played cards with me on his church office floor and put bandaids on my cuts and scraps after a long day at the park. This woman was my mom, who helped me paint my room the obnoxious fuchsia-pink color I determinedly wanted to be surrounded by and who cooked my favorite meal on my birthday. To the congregation, this couple held the title of pastor and pastor’s wife in high esteem, but to me, these two people affectionately held the simple but life-altering title of mom and dad.

I continued to grow up identifying as the pastor’s daughter. No matter where I went as a teenager, that title followed me, and when I was faced with morally challenging choices, that title rang louder than it ever had as a young girl in my father’s church. There are many stereotypes when it comes to the pastor’s kid. Some of these stereotypes are morally good, painting us as ethically upstanding, angelic people, always doing what is right in the name of the church and family. However, other stereotypes assumed quite the opposite picture. Outside the church walls, this identity brought the reputation of rebellion. As if the more holy the title, the more rebellious the daughter. I’ve experienced this assumption almost every time I shared my lifelong identity after flying the nest. “Oh, a pastor’s daughter. You must be trouble!” I would hear that facetious statement, not knowing the true impact my choices would hold on the perspective of God to those around me in my adult life.

You see, the truth is I had gone through my own pain and trauma outside of my parent’s knowledge or control by the time I graduated high school. I coped with my secret pain while carrying the great responsibility of being born into ministry. And, unless you have been a pastor’s kid, no one will understand what it feels like to exist as one in a world where the word ‘church’ is nothing but a location to attend on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve. In my early twenties, I moved far away from my parents, the church, and the identity that raised me into the woman I am today… To be completely transparent, I have lived both stereotypes of a P.K. while in the world that existed outside of the Southern Baptist bubble I grew up in, going out on Saturday nights and waking up for church the next morning. Maybe one day, I can dive into the details of my pain and past experiences to share further encouragement with my fellow pastor’s kids and ministry families, but what I want to highlight is the moment I realized that this label I had lived with my entire life was not the way my parents saw me.

There was a night when I ended up on my father’s doorstep, beaten down and battered by the world outside my bubble. I was trying to navigate on my own, and my night out ended with tears on my parent’s welcome mat and a pain in my tired cries that I was trying to hide from my unexpecting father. I cried at the front door, expecting him to answer and look down to see the pastor’s kid. But my dad opened the door, and all he saw was the person who affectionately held the simple but life-altering title of daughter.

After forty-plus years of ministry, I am still my parents’ daughter. I am not a moral trophy held to unreachable standards and expectations. I am broken, flawed, precious, and human. That evening, my father showed me exactly who I had been my entire life, and it crushed any stereotype that I have heard or continue to hear in my adult life. My father showed me exactly how God sees us. He sees us, scars and all, whether we are living a life of ministry or a life of the mundane normal, and He loves us just the same. He picks us up off the front porch and brings us inside, regardless of where we came from that night, and He listens to our cries, joys, and confusion.

Although I have not been the perfect P.K. since that night, my father has loved me just the same. So, my encouragement to the pastor’s wife, the pastor’s kid, or whoever might be reading this small part of my story is to realize that the perfect pastor’s kid does not exist.

The perfect ministry life does not exist.

Perfection does not exist except in God.

There is freedom and grace to move forward through my recent failures or choices that I am not proud of.

Love those around you with the same grace and nonjudgment that our God gives us every day, especially your children.

I am so thankful my parents do, and now, as an adult, I am grateful to be a pastor’s daughter, scars and all.