Headaches & the Spiritual Wellbeing of Our Children

Headaches are the worst. Headaches that don’t go away feel like death. Unending headaches in a foreign land make life difficult, very difficult. It began on a spring day during a Chinese listening class and followed as I raced home. Lights and noises ate me alive, disrupting life as I knew it—classes, sleep, and relaxation. My life in a foreign land already possessed unique challenges without any added stress. Yet these unending headaches sprang themselves upon my life without consent. Within a week, I went to a doctor. These headaches were debilitating. Doctors initially were uncertain what to make of the headaches. They ran tests and scans eventually determining the headaches were a form of cluster headaches. 

 When we’re sick, we make a visit to the doctor. We want the doctor to check our bodies for infections, diseases, and abnormalities that threaten our wellbeing. While visiting the doctor, she’ll often remind you to return for regular checkups. Why? Regular checkups help the doctor anticipate encroaching diseases. The doctor wants to know your health, and you want her to know it too, just as you expect your accountant to understand tax law or your lawyer to understand case law.

 As a pastor, the fundamental nature of my responsibility is to know your child and how best to minister to your child and family. While the nature of my responsibility is the spiritual wellbeing of a child, this responsibility extends into the life of the whole child and family. Spirituality invades the life of the whole person. Faith and spirituality cannot be healthily compartmentalized. Your child’s relationship with others affects his affections. Your child’s interests affect her affections. Your child’s successes and struggles affect his affections. Your child’s affinity for her education affects her affections. The more comprehensively we are in relationship with one another gives pastors an opportunity to minister to your family holistically. 

 Since I began serving God’s people as a kid pastor, I have observed a disconnect between parents and the church that I believe is obstructing the wellbeing of the whole child and family: a lack of communication about the individual child outside the church. What is happening in a child’s life is paramount for me, as a pastor, to best minister to your child and family.

 The question aggravating kid ministry leaders all over the United States is: how do kid ministry leaders connect and partners well with parents? Don’t believe me? Explore kid ministry social media groups and conferences! It’s all the rage, because very few have a solution that satisfies them. It seems like we have tried EVERYTHING: emails, text messages, websites, apps, take-home papers, mini-conferences with parents, and the alike. Some are a hit for a while; others are duds, but nothing seems to catch long-term. The disgruntled, burnt-out kid ministry leader will blame parents, but I think it’s bigger.

 The contest for our time and energy has always been at issue. Fourth century bishop and theologian John Chrysostom writes, “In our own day every man takes the greatest pains to train his boy in the arts and literature and speech. But to exercise this child's soul in virtue, to that no man any longer pays heed.”[1] Innate within us is a desire to see our children succeed. Yet success takes on many forms not always recognizable. Through my faith journey and international travels, I have come to see that our views of success are often culturally constructed and even more often taken for granted and unquestioned.

 This worries me. If our views of success are culturally constructed and are often taken unquestionably for granted, what else do we adapt without question? The answer is too much. Why would the Christian want to adapt without question cultural practices and norms? I am not sure that we intend this. Nevertheless, we have. It is inescapable to shed all cultural conditioning, nor should we necessarily shed all cultural conditioning but that which fits not within a kingdom ethic as manifested through Scripture.

 It seems to me the reason we would never question visiting a doctor for our medical needs or a lawyer for our legal needs is because we expect these professionals to perform services to meet our needs. We expect the same of pastors too; yet, my assertion is that the expectations we have for professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and the alike are different than those we have for pastors and the larger Christian community. This requires a conscious philosophical adjustment for both kid ministry leaders and parents to act on behalf of their children’s holistic wellbeing through holistic conversations about holistic wellbeing of the child and her family.

[1]St. John Chrysostom, Address on Vainglory and How to Bring Up Children.