Children of Promise: A Steward Leaders Approach to Discipling Children of the Clergy
Children of Promise: A Steward Leaders Approach to Discipling Children of the Clergy
Tara A. Birkett-Bramble I 2024
Abstract
The Children of the clergy are individuals who have been planted in the soil of biblical principles without choice or revelation. The complexity of their plight requires the wisdom and grace of God as church leadership lives faithful and authentic lives before their families. The calling to become a conduit of God’s love and deliver the promises of God is a task one accepts as one grows in the grace of God. The Steward leadership approach serves as an exceptional extension of church ministry to the children of the clergy as it benefits the church community overall.
The approach addresses the various needs for discipleship to children raised in the trenches of ministry. The twenty-first century Church is fortunate to have benefitted from the experiences of four generations of children of clergy members, gaining a plethora of wisdom from their perspectives. The study of children whose parents have devoted their lives to ministry reports and testifies to God’s faithfulness, contributing diverse foresight to benefit the future state of the body of Christ. The children of the clergy are the carriers of the promise to be nurtured and prepared appropriately to serve the body of Christ according to God’s agenda for their lives.
The steward leader is expected to restore the mishandling and misrepresentation of servanthood. The plight of the child of the clergy raises the need for a delegated role of one who would answer the call to commit to the discipleship of the carriers of God’s promises. The stewarding leader comprehends the reality of clergy children from a holistic perspective; one trained and fully embraces the reality that the children of the clergy are a population favored by God to deliver the resolution of his agenda. Children of the clergy are individuals who have been planted in the foundational principles of servanthood, yet without choice or permission.
By the grace of God, the clergy parent can demonstrate prudence and collaboration with a stewarding leader who will exclusively give attention to their children as they inherit the promise in some manner. Acts 7:20-44 narrates the life of Moses, one who lived carried a promise and a plan of God.
The mastery of any calling of God is in the way God executes his promises and plans through his faithful servants. A steward leader who can understand how God’s intentions play out in the lives of the clergy family is vital. This study reexamines the dynamics of the church community, how the Church contributes to the development of children of the clergy, and how they can better honor the clergy serving their church community. This proposal does not suggest relinquishing parental responsibility but becoming the gatekeeper of a systematic structure that will preserve the child, the ministry, and the local church community to finally fulfill God’s desires for the body to fitly joined together (New King James Version 1982/2022, Ephesians 4:16).