COMMUNITY OF SPICE a newsletter for clergy spouses by clergy spouses

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What is it like for your children?
 
PK Responses
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PK questionnaire
Below are the questions we asked PK's (Preacher's Kids) from around the world.  Most of the responses were not from subscribers.
  1. How old are you?
  2. What is the denomination in which you grew up?
  3. Do you still count yourself as a part of that denomination?
  4. Which parent is ordained and what was your age when s/he was ordained?
  5. How often did you attend church as a child?
  6. If you are married, did you marry someone involved in the church?
  7. Was that a consideration when you looked for a spouse?
  8. Do you attend church, now?
  9. How often?
  10. If you don't attend now, do you believe that having children will change that (or did having children change your involvement in the church)? 
  11. If you're not active in church now, what do you see as some of the reasons?
    12.  
    In regards to church attendance:
  12. What will you do (or do you do) differently with your children than your parents did with you?
  13. What did your parents do well?
  14. What do you wish your parents had done differently?
  15. What did parishioners, parishes, dioceses do well?
  16. What do you wish parishioners, parishes, dioceses had done differently?

30 year old, female, Episcopal Church

1.-3.  30 and female.  I grew up an Episcopalian and still consider myself an active member of the denomination.

4.-5.  My father was ordained when I was 12.  My mother was ordained under Canon 9 while I was in college.  We were required to attend church regularly as children until the age of 16, when we were given the choice to be confirmed or not, with the understanding that if we chose confirmation we would have to keep attending regularly.  I chose to be confirmed and continued to attend church regularly until I left for college.  There were a couple of years in college when I stopped attending church, but then I became active again with the local Episcopal church until I graduated and moved away.

6.-11.  I originally didn't care if my spouse was involved in church or not and ended up marrying (and then divorcing) a rabid Catholic.  For several years after we were married, I didn't attend church, but once I started doing so regularly again (about 5 years ago), I wanted to be able to share my faith with someone.  Because I lived in an area where there is an Episcopal seminary, a lot of seminarians did their field work at my church and I just happened to fall in love with one of them.  We were married two years ago.  It was never my intention to be a clergy spouse, but I did want to be married to someone who shared my beliefs.  We recently moved to my husband's new call to be the rector of a small mission church.  I feel lucky to have a lot of good examples of clergy spouses, most of all my mother, to turn to for support. 

12.-14.  I have three children, two of whom were born into my previous marriage.  Because I agreed that their father could raise them in the Catholic tradition, they will have a different religious upbringing from mine, but when they are with me they attend my church with me and I plan to do just as my parents did and encourage them to follow their own path once they are old enough to choose.  My youngest child will be raised as an Episcopalian in much the same way I was.   I like the fact that my parents helped us find our own way while always being available when we had questions.  They involved us in worship at home and allowed us to participate as much or as little as we wanted in church, as long as we were always present.

They didn't tell us what to believe or think.  As a young adult, I came to a point in my own struggles over what to believe when I realized I had absolutely no idea what my parents' beliefs were beyond what I could glean from their behavior toward others, but I think not knowing was part of what allowed me the freedom to formulate my own opinions rather than just adopting theirs.

15.-16.  Parishioners were very accepting of my desire to be an active participant in all aspects of the life of the church.  They let me acolyte, read, serve as chalice bearer, become a licensed L.E.M. (Lay Eucharistic Minister), as well as preach, all while I was still in high school.  Since most of them were retirement age or older, I think they may have wanted to ensure that there were young people to carry on the ministry.  I don't recall any lack of support from them, although I wouldn't have minded opportunities for Christian formation.  Since I was the only young person interested in this, I don't think they saw any point in it.  At one point I participated in an adult formation program with the parish, but I didn't completely understand it and felt too intimidated by being the only teenager to really participate in the discussions.  I don't know how they could have solved this without creating a program specifically for me. 

The diocese did a very good job of offering opportunities for the youth of the diocese to get together.  Youth Rallies and Happening were formative experiences for me.  I would have liked a diocesan-wide Christian formation program (maybe weekend workshops) for those of us in small churches with few youth.
I don't remember ever feeling singled out for any reason, good or bad, because I was a PK.

I think my experience as a PK was different from some other PK's because my father was not a rector and because our region did mutual ministry.  This meant that my father wasn't around very much, and that everyone in the congregation was encouraged to participate in very active ways in the church's ministry.  If I was an insufferable goody-two shoes (which I must admit I was) it had more to do with my intense fear of terrestrial authority than any religious beliefs I held.  In retrospect, I do think that I took it for granted that all Episcopalians had the level of knowledge and education in the ways and beliefs of the Church that I did, as well as the opportunity to participate in any way.  I have since learned that both of those phenomena were more related to my being a PK in a mutual ministry church than I ever realized.


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Karen D. Powers
Publisher and Senior Editor

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