A Family That Risked the Relationship
It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you will get neither.
C. S. Lewis
One of the ways to begin helping people who don't want help, as we've already seen, is developing a relationship they value. At times, however, that very relationship must be risked. Perhaps no place is this more painful than within the pastor's own family.
No matter how solid their relationship with their children, most parents still feel a tremor of anxiety as a son or daughter leaves the nest. What kinds of choices will he or she make? What if those choices are foolish or self-destructive? What if the young people need help to avoid a terrible mistake but don't want help — or don't have the strength to accept it? The years after high school can be a time of awkward transition — a twilight world between accountability and independence.
What follows is the story of one family that agonized over that tension. Not all pastoral families would choose to handle this situation the same way. But this family's story holds some vital clues for others in similar situations.
Bill and Maryann Harris had worked hard over the years to show their children that being raised in a pastor's home not only meant certain responsibilities, like being a perennial example in the youth ministry, but also afforded some privileges, like enjoying a privileged relationship with the church's guest speakers and visiting missionaries.
Their two oldest children apparently enjoyed life in the parsonage. After going to college on a football scholarship, Martin went to seminary and became a church planter, and Brenda attended a Christian college and ...
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