Sprinkle,  Pour, Or Hose

Growing Up As  A PK


Bonnie Crandall

 
© Copyright 2026 by Bonnie Crandall




 Photo courtesy of the author.
Photo courtesy of the author.

My ten-year old voice was firm and full of authority. "By the power invested in me by the church, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

As usual, this was the point when the giggling started from the lawn chairs in the back of the play-yard, and Bryan, who was the most sought-after "husband," would begin to redden from the neck up. Whoever was the lucky bride that day (which meant she had the quarter to pay my "honorarium") would draw back the veil on my mother's old pillbox hat and pucker-up! Bryan, or who ever got up enough nerve to be the groom, would make a kissy sound and motion in the direction of his bride, and then take off running! If the neighborhood kids were playing church, you could pretty well count on us being in my back yard.

Now, we also played school, but that happened at Margaret's house, because her mom was a teacher. Hospital was played at Connie's, the nurse's daughter. It made perfect sense to us. In the back corner of the yard, I had developed a small animal pet cemetery and had ashes to ashes and dust to dust for a wide variety of guinea pigs, birds, and gerbils; all for the reasonable "honorarium" of 10 cents. (Weddings were more expensive since you got to kiss someone...)

Probably the favorite service was the baptismal service, especially on a sticky hot day. We offered sprinkling and pouring without any problem. A full glass of water from the kitchen did the job. But when we had a Baptist move onto the street who declared it didn't count unless you got wet all over, we had to be more creative. Solution! We now offered sprinkling, pouring or hosing! We would put it on full spray, and all of us loved to get close to the one being baptized and join in the "blessing" of the Spirit in the form of cool wet hose water! This was the only service I didn't get an "honorarium" for, since I did get a chance to get good and wet.

My friends didn't know what an honorarium was until I "educated" them on the term. I was a preacher's kid and I knew all about honorariums. In our house we didn't get an allowance. However, if my father had a wedding or a funeral and got an honorarium (which didn't happen all the time), he would share it with his family. If it was a wedding, he gave it to my mother to buy herself something special. If it was a funeral, my sister and I got to split it. This caused some temporary value distortion in our young lives. When my father would go visiting the sick and shut-ins, we would often greet him at the door inquiring as to the well being of those he visited. He was pleased we cared so much. Little did he know we were just hoping for a funeral!

And I had a double reason to hope. As a eight-year-old, I often played in the backyard in a sandbox; and since I enjoyed singing, I would entertain myself with song. Our parsonage was next door to a funeral home, and one of the morticians heard me singing a hymn one day. He knew a member of our church was to be buried the next day, and her family wanted a child soloist - a request he had been unable to fulfill. He spoke to my dad; my dad talked to me, and the next day I sang for my first funeral. I sang Over the Sunset Mountains if I remember correctly. But what I do remember clearly is the five dollar "honorarium" I was given for singing. After that, I would look for the hearse to drive up and then run to the fence and begin to belt out a hymn!

Not your typical childhood story, you say? Well, perhaps not for you, but it was for this preacher's kid. We lived in a parsonage right in the middle of Detroit, on a major thoroughfare. Often panhandlers would stop by for a handout. Each panhandler would mark our step with a cross as a sign of an easy handout. It then became my job to keep the the front step chalk cross washed off - just a "regular" one of my chores! Our telephone was answered with our name, followed by "Methodist Parsonage." Our personal calls were never to last more than three minutes, so the phone could be free for members who might need to call. To this day, I have a problem being on the phone for any length of time!

Other memories include playing the wedding march on our home piano for a high school friend as she was married in our living room. (Yes, I took piano lessons from age 8 on just to be prepared for moments like this.) My friend was four months pregnant, and at that time, marriage was expected before sex and definitely before childbirth. I also recall times when a member would show up drunk or crying, saying his wife had left him and he didn't want to live. And when John Kennedy was shot, a mentally unstable member of our congregation was sure my father had killed him. She called my dad and told him that as soon as she got her hands on a gun, she was coming to shoot him. We waited anxiously until the police called and told us they had arrested her as she was leaving her home with a loaded shotgun. Welcome to the life of a clergy family.

Being an example to the community also often became an extended responsibility of a preacher's kid. For instance, on PE days when we danced, this PK had to take a note to school saying, "Due to religious convictions, Bonnie is not to dance." I wasn't sure what that meant, except I went to the library instead of PE on dance days. The exception was on square dancing days, when I would wad the note up and throw it away. Square dancing was fun!

Others often called the church building The House of God, but I had a very different experience of it. I discovered that the altar rail made a great horse for playing ride’m cowgirl while waiting for my dad. The church was not a place we went to just on Sunday. For me, it was the place where my father worked and it often felt like an extension of home - so in some ways it lost much of its awe. Communion Sunday was always good since we got to take the leftover grape juice home and had it for breakfast the next day. I considered it my reward for washing all the glass communion cups the day before. Irreverent, you say? Not really. Just the observations of a PK.

And, because my dad was a clergy, people assumed that I knew a lot about the Bible - perhaps through osmosis! Even my parents did this sometimes. Every Sunday, my dad would stand up before the offering and ask for TIES and offerings. Or at least that was what I heard. I was confused! Dad had a whole bunch of ties in his closet, why did he need more? Plus, I noticed that people only put in money, and my dad never got the ties he obviously wanted. So I secretly saved up some money, and one Sunday I proudly placed a semi-lovely wrapped tie (I was only seven and limited in my wrapping abilities!) in the offering plate. I was so happy! Dad was going to finally get a tie in the offering! That day at lunch, we were talking around the table and he said, "There was the strangest thing today in the offering. Someone had wrapped a tie and put it in there." I excitedly burst out and confessed "It was me!" To my dad's credit, he gently asked why, and as I explained, he fought back a guffaw, replacing it with an unavoidable wide grin. He thanked me, and then went on to explain what the word "Tithe" meant. This was a conversation that only a PK could relate to!

What does all this mean? It means that growing up in a pastor's home is unique. Serving as the minister of a congregation is one of the few jobs where we, his children, were directly involved in his occupation. Plus, the lifestyle of a pastor does not reflect a 9 to 5 job. Members have emergencies, people die, meetings have to be attended, sometimes even vacation plans have to be altered. All of these can conflict with the plans of family and offspring. Pastors by calling, are representatives of God to the congregation. But if they have children, they also carry the holy responsibility of being a “parent.”

So . . . what did this seasoned PK do? She foolish married a man who had committed to be a clergy. I would often remind my husband that the only members of his congregation that would move with him from one church to the next were his family. So, if he needed to please some of the people most of the time, it was us! Also, I occasionally reminded him that in our home, he was husband and father -- a different role than minister. God gives us children as a statement of trust. We are biblically called to raise them in the way they should go. One of my counseling professors said that a parent is a child's first image of what God might be like. For our children, we are the all powerful being in the early years (by teen years, they believe this has reversed!). Parenting is heady and somewhat daunting work; and like marriage, it is enriched if God is the sustaining focus. And I realized my early “training” as a PK was a great help in translating it into a PS (preacher’s spouse).

I still play the piano and direct choirs (my first was when I was 12); and when I look back, I am thankful for the ultimate “honorarium” of being eternally, a Child Of God.


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