I wonder about this myself quite often: Do pastors struggle dropping their “role” as pastor when they come home? When they are talking to their children and neighbors and spouse? Are pastors, as it were, always “wearing the collar”? Did you have a pastor for a parent? Here’s a brief note on this by our friend “PW”:

I heard comments being made regarding a devout Christian, who I knew to be quite a force of a personality, and who often mixed her faith right into her personality. A family member of hers mentioned to me, “…just once, I wish she would have shown up in my life as just my grandmother. That’s all. There was always this false front. A wall. I wished that the harping, preaching, truth-spewing Christian, who had to have the last word on all truth on this side of heaven, would just take a rest and be my grandmother.”

Maybe we ministry people have our own moments when we may confuse our passion for ministry with our family responsibilities and relationships.  Ministry families could probably fall into the same category as above.

Is the pastor able to just show up as a husband, a dad, a son, or a friend? How do you make room for important relationships in your life as ministry people and as ordinary people? What do you do to make sure you are “not the pastor” in certain relationships? Or, do you think you are always a pastor?