On Being John Piper’s Son: An Interview with Barnabas Piper

Barnabas Piper, son of Pastor John Piper, shares the positives and negatives of being a pastor’s kid.

First thing’s first, Barnabas. Why did you feel the need to write a book about being a pastor’s kid?

My inclination didn’t start out as a need to write a book. It started with a request from Table Talk magazine to write an article about the pressures of being a PK.

As I wrote the article it took the lid off a whole well of experiences and feelings and realizations. Then when I started hearing from PKs and pastors around the country in response to it I realized what I felt and wrote was not in isolation.

Most PKs relate to it, and nobody had written or said anything to help them sort through the hard things.

What was the best part about being a pastor’s kid? The worst?

The best thing about being a PK, as a kid, was being part of the church family. As much frustration as it could, and did, cause, it was the center of my social life and where I made my closest friends. I enjoyed being part of youth group, the chances to go on missions trips, and in general the centrality of church community in my life.

The worst part was the pressure and the expectations. Behave perfectly. Know your Bible. Have strong faith. Be in lock step with our parents. Be practically perfect in every way.

Your dad is John Piper, a pretty well-known pastor and author. When did you first realize that your dad was not a “normal” pastor?

I started to see that in junior high and high school. That was when he began to really gain fame nationally. But even through those years my experience with his ministry was almost exclusively in our local church. It wasn’t until college that I really began to intersect with his fame outside of Bethlehem Baptist Church.

You write about being a pastor’s kid, but was …