Okay so for people out there who aren't PKs (or missionary kids/MKs) and haven't experienced what's it's like, I'll give you the run down of how our lives tend to go.
We enter a world where from the moment we're born we begin to be taught the truth and how to do ministry. Once you're old enough to volunteer in kids ministry you sign up and then begin to go to multiple services so that you can both serve and listen to the pastor (for me, my dad) preach. When you reach semi-maturity you're expected to join a small group, where an entire group of well-meaning individuals will poke and prod at you for information on you, your family and more importantly your father and why he has yet to do X, Y and Z. And then the next step that I have yet to experience, but have been informed about, is that eventually if you're male you become a pastor and if you're female you marry one. And the cycle continues.
Okay so right now I need to say that being a pastor is one of the hardest roles you could ever have. Years and years of study go into becoming a pastor and then once you become a pastor you're handed an entire flock to shepherd and take care of, all the while often times becoming really burnt out to the point that 3 out of 4 pastor's debate quitting. And it's a job that can sometimes be given the stereotype of not being a very big job, and one that doesn't take much intelligence to do. This is just so not true.
Personally, my dad was valedictorian twice in college and if he could be given the same title in his doctorate program he would have it.
With all of that said though, it's not a calling that everyone will be given. And for those of you who do feel called to it, you're in for an incredibly difficult, but rewarding journey.
For me, I am absolutely in love with my Jesus, but I've struggled throughout my life, and other PKs do as well, with the expectations that get thrown at us.
Sometimes they're placed on us by our parents, though mine always encouraged me just to go after what I dreamed, a LOT of times by church members, whether they realized it or not and then the weighty feeling of the world looking over your shoulder. Not to mention the most important person that you never want to let down - God.
Our whole lives we feel like we're being bred to go into the ministry and fulfill a plan that must be the right one because it's a honorable and good thing to be in full time church ministry. We feel at times that if you don't end up a pastor or married to one you have failed life. Game over.
Though this is being pretty dramatic since we do love what we're a part of, it can just be really hard.
We want to (hopefully you have this view) live a life honoring to Christ. It's not just something that was drilled into us, but something that stems from a longing for His Kingdom and the betterment of it, but it's dang hard when it's put there by expectations and outside pressures instead of from within your relationship with the Holy Spirit.
God uses each of us for a certain purpose, to reach out to people that no one else can because he created each of us in a unique and beautiful way.
But all that to say about what a more traditional approach looks like, that a whole lot of congregation members and PKs are called to structural ministry.
Here's the deal PKs - He has a plan.
You never need to worry if you're doing enough or serving enough or making enough of a difference. That isn't your job.
Your job is to use the gifts and talents that He gave you in your own special way, and in doing so bring glory to Him with each little moment.
He doesn't necessarily want huge supernatural acts (not to mention that you're nothing without Him). He just wants all of who you are, in your unimpressive humanness that drives hard towards loving Him.
So, you don't have to be a pastor, you don't even have to marry one. But there will likely come a call, an invitation, to participate in His story, and when it comes you won't want to send it to voicemail because it will radically rock your world and you'll be in for the adventure of your lifetime.
