Also I decided it'd be fun to insert GIFs for once. I admit two of the items stumped me for gifs though.
1. You're automatically great at singing, acting, public speaking, and whatever else the church requires.
Whether you actually are or not. The church needs it, so you can provide it. Now, I've spent a good amount of time acquiring acting and singing skills. However, unlike most of my siblings, I stink at public speaking in general. But don't tell some people at church, they won't believe you.
2. Over the course of your life you get to learn pretty much the entire hymal
3. You get to know the inside of a church/lots of churches/every church
I'd like to say that I've been in so many churches now that I can automatically figure out the layout of any church. While some things are consistent in most churches, fortunately churches really are all designed differently so there's always something new to find. I love exploring churches. And playing hide and seek in churches.
4. You learn a lot of patience (and how to entertain yourself)
"Oh, Mommy is busy so you guys need to come with me? You can come sit in on my trustee meeting!"
All right, Daddy was always very understanding and let us go amuse ourselves in the nursery or something. But between meetings and visiting and tons and tons of services you do develop a high tolerance for long slow things. Services aren't usually a problem but when you have two services and you have to go to both eventually it gets to you. I'm not saying I doodle constantly in church but maybe you shouldn't look too closely at my bulletin. Or look at my bulletin from a great distance. Ignore my bulletin.
5. You're expected to know the answer to every question in every lesson. Ever.
I mean, I'm not going to deny that in general you can depend on my siblings and I to have an answer to everything. Whether it's right or not. (Okay, that's mostly me.) But it gets a bit tiresome when the teacher and all our fellow students automatically stare at you during the awkward silences when no one is answering. That's what you get for breaking the awkward silence one too many times, people start to depend on you.
6. It feels like you're automatically either the coolest kid or the least cool kid in youth group, Sunday School etc.
So this is just from my personal experience, I don't know about my siblings. It's also an exaggeration, don't take it too seriously. The thing is, you get a lot of "street cred" so to speak from having influence in the church. Your friends can depend on you to answer all the questions (ahem), know where everything is in the church, and convince the youth leader that playing laser tag will be highly beneficial for your spiritual lives. But, quite simply put, at the same time your friends assume you're going to be shocked and scandalized if they do anything slightly against the rules so if they want to do something slightly different you get excluded.
I admit that as a teenager I totally would have been scandalized. Good call, friends. But it still got depressing to get excluded, I have to admit. (It's all right, friends, I still love you.)
7. There is apparently at the very least a 60% chance that you're going to end up working in ministry
That highly scientific number is taken from the number of my siblings who are old enough to have a job and how many of them are doing something ministry-related at the moment (whether paid or unpaid). I didn't even count the fact that my every weekend is filled up with church goings-on and Bible Quizzing. Please, take my scientific number as fact, it will amuse me.
But the point is, it's in your blood. You can't escape it, and in general you don't really want to either.
8. People automatically assume that you're either really awesome or really messed up
So far from my experience, they aren't wrong. (My family is all in the really awesome category, for the record.) I like to point to the entertainment industry; you would be amazed at just how many singers, actors and famous people in general have at least one parent who is a pastor. Notable examples: Katy Perry, David Tennant, Denzel Washington, the Jonas Brothers, and pretty much at least one member of every Christian band ever. Being a PK does lend itself to the performing arts a bit. If you want something exciting done in certain churches you have to do it yourself, or at least start it yourself. (Then you end up running it forever, so it amounts to the same thing.)
9. You get to know some of the coolest people ever
I mean, you also meet the crazies, but you get those anywhere. You just can't beat the church for the most awesome people. This is where you find the bikers and addicts turned evangelist, the little old ladies whose families have been in the same church since before the church actually existed, the little kids who have more talent than you have on your best day, and all the rest.
Did you know that L.M. Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, was a pastor's wife? While she didn't get married until after the first two books in the series were published, you can see all throughout her works what a perfect grasp she has on human nature in general. Her wonderful portrayal of over-the-top characters remind me of people we've run into at various churches. I can definitely see how many of her humorous vignettes were probably inspired by her experiences being married to a minister.
10. You learn to stick a point on the end of anything
When you're writing last minute skits incorporating the entirety of the Emperor's New Groove or making up a children's sermon on the spot you have to learn to get a moral out of anything. "I've got some toothpicks in my bag, what sort of moral can I get out of those?" While it sometimes makes you feel a bit like Marmee in Little Women (Oh, you've gotten yourself into some sort of trouble, daughter? Here's what you can learn from it.) it's really a very helpful skill to have in life. At the most unexpected moments when I think I'm about to go absolutely crazy I suddenly get this big-picture view of life. I see, yeah, this is terrible now, but look what I've learned from it.
If I were to tell you everything I've learned (and am still learning) from being a PK I would have to write at least a six volume encyclopedia. As it is I may have to do another one of these because I had a few ideas I didn't use. But at the moment it seems this is one of the biggest lessons I've learned: God is always working in your life and no matter what the situation you can always find him.
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