Today we welcome Aaron Hlavin to the podcast. Aaron is the District Superintendent of the Michigan District of the Assemblies of God. He previously served as a Lead Pastor for thirteen years, and an associate pastor for ten years. We invited Aaron to talk with us about a serious subject today: how the craziness of the past two years has impacted pastor’s children.

Here are the show notes:

• There will come moments in ministry when you want to quit, and you have to hear the voice of God who called you in the first place
• Ministry is a long journey of saying “yes” to God
• Four realities of churches in 2021
  • The suffering stage – due to challenges from the past two years
  • Persevering stage – pastors are encouraging themselves to keep at it
  • Character development stage – who are we going to be as a church moving forward?
  • Hope stage – deciding it’s time to move forward organizationally
• Watch your self-talk – your self-talk often lies
• The impact of the last two years on pastors’ kids
  • Pastors’ kids have one of two perspectives: The church is either a wonderful safe place or a terribly threatening place
  • Church people were fighting more the last two years than at any time in recent memory
  • They’ve heard more criticism of their parents from parishioners
  • Pastors have been required to have more difficult conversations with their kids in the past two years, because their kids are asking harder questions than ever before
• What can we do about this impact?
  • Talk about the good things of ministry with your kids
  • Normalize the ministry as much as possible for them. Let them be kids, let them be goofy and have fun
  • Encourage your congregation to pray for your kids
  • Put your kids first
  • Don’t only talk about church – talk about other areas of life
  • Attend your kids’ events
  • Congruence between your private and public life
  • Avoid involving your children in negative conversations about people at church
• Be spreaders of hope wherever you go
• If we focus on what’s right in the world, we’ll have the energy to fix what’s wrong