There was a season when Wai Jia and I attended a missions conference with our two-year-old and our baby. We have always loved missions, so being there stirred something in me again. I remember sitting in that environment and feeling the old desire rise up in my heart. I wanted to go back into ministry. I wanted to serve the Lord in a more visible way again. But at the same time, I also felt the Holy Spirit leading me down a different route, the stay-at-home dad route.
To be honest, that was hard for me.
The Struggle of Being a Stay-at-Home Dad and Missing Ministry
As I stepped into being a stay-at-home dad, I struggled with my identity and sense of purpose. I wrestled with questions I did not always say out loud, but they were there in my heart. Is my purpose now just to watch kids and change nappies? Is this really what God has for me? I wanted to do ministry for Jesus. I wanted to serve. I did not just want to look after my children.
That was the tension I lived with. I felt torn between family and ministry, as though I had to choose one or the other.
One of the hardest parts of being a stay-at-home dad was feeling like I had no time to serve as I wanted. It felt like I had to choose. I was either a parent or a minister. I could not be both. At night, I could not just go out and teach because I had to stay home and look after my girls. Opportunities that I would have said yes to in the past now had to be turned down because my family needed me. And if I am honest, there were times when that felt deeply frustrating.
The Lies I Began to See
It was in this tension between parenting and ministry that God began to expose some lies I had been living with.
One of those lies was the idea that serving God always means going out to serve elsewhere, even if it costs you time with your wife or children. I think many Christians quietly believe this. We may not say it that directly, but the mindset is often there. If you are serving God, then it must be worth sacrificing family time for. If you are busy in church or ministry, that must automatically be more spiritual than staying home and loving your family well.
To be fair, I think the church sometimes helps reinforce this idea, even if unintentionally. I get it. Church programs do not run on their own. Ministries need volunteers. Events need people. Children’s ministry needs helpers. Worship teams need musicians. Small groups need leaders. So there is often a constant call for people to step up and serve. On the one hand, I understand that. The church needs people to serve. But on the other hand, when that message is repeated often enough without much nuance, it can slowly shape the way we think about faithfulness.
In my experience, it can make us feel that if we are not visibly serving in church, we may not really be putting God first.
I remember how people, often with good intentions, would tell us to just bring our kids and join a fellowship at night. The assumption seemed to be that the value of fellowship was so high that it outweighed everything else. It did not seem to matter that our children were small, that it was their sleep time, that dragging them out would make them miserable, and that it would also cost us our sleep. Somehow, the cost to the family was treated as acceptable because, after all, it was for fellowship.
And I get it. I know people meant well. They were not trying to harm us. They were encouraging us toward Christian community, which is a good thing. But sometimes I felt like the unspoken message was this: if it is for the church, then the sacrifice is automatically justified. I did not go to any fellowship at night because I am not going to sacrifice my kids’ sleep for it. It may sound like I am a bad Christian for prioritising my children’s sleep over fellowship. I discovered that I can ‘fellowship’ with other Christians during day time and not following a program.
That is where I think we need to be more careful.
In church, we often preach that we must put God first. That is true. But many times, almost without noticing it, we equate putting God first with serving in a program, volunteering in church, or showing up at more ministry events. What often gets left unsaid is that putting God first may also mean obeying Him in the responsibilities He has already given us at home. It may mean caring for our wives. It may mean putting our children to bed. It may mean staying home in this season instead of saying yes to another ministry opportunity.
That does not sound as spiritual to people, but it can be just as obedient.
Serving and putting God first are not always the same thing. You can serve for many reasons. You can serve out of love for God, yes, but you can also serve out of pride, insecurity, envy, guilt, people-pleasing, or the desire to look good in front of others. You can serve because it gives you identity. You can serve because it is easier to be needed in church than to be faithful at home.
That is why this issue goes deeper than volunteering. It is really about the heart.
What the Great Commission Changed for Me
God had to show me that my duty as a father and husband is not a distraction from spiritual life. It is part of my spiritual life. Taking care of my family is not me putting God second. In many moments, it is exactly what it means for me to put God first.
When people talk about parenting, we often go straight to passages like Ephesians 6:4 or Deuteronomy 6:6–7, and those verses are important. But during this season, God kept bringing me back to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20. We usually think of that passage in terms of missions, church ministry, and going out into the world. But what if we applied it to fatherhood, too? What if part of making disciples begins right at home?
That thought went deeper into me as a stay-at-home dad. I began to see that my role as a father is not just to provide, protect, and keep the house running. My role is also to disciple my children, and that discipleship happens in very ordinary ways. It happens in the unseen moments, in the repetitive moments, in the moments that do not look spiritual from the outside. It happens in the daily rhythms of being present, of talking, of correcting, of comforting, of praying, of showing them what the love of God looks like in real life.
I also came to realise something that hit me quite hard. Church Sunday school is not mainly where my children learn about Jesus. They learn Jesus through me. Through my life. Through how I speak to them. Through how I treat them. Whether I am present or distracted. Through the tone in my voice, my patience, my repentance, my love, and my faith. Put it another way: how will I disciple my children if I am not around and out doing ministry? The truth of that is, I won’t disciple my children. At least not in a positive way. I will, in fact, be doing negative discipleship by being a neglectful father.
I No Longer See My Children as Obstacles
That realisation changed the way I saw my girls.
I no longer see parenting as an obstacle to serving. To be more specific, I no longer see my children as obstacles to serving.
That line is important to me because it gets to the heart of what God has been changing in me. My girls are not the reason I cannot serve God. They are part of the very ministry God has given me.
In fact, one of the other truths I have discovered is that my family is my ministry team. They are not a burden. They are not a liability. They are not something standing in the way of my calling. They are part of my calling. And because of that, I need to take care of them well. I need to slow down. I need to stop acting as though real ministry is always somewhere else.
When the Guilt Still Shows Up
That does not mean the tension has fully disappeared.
Even now, when a pastor says that everyone must serve, or when there is a call for volunteers, I can still feel that pull inside. I can still feel guilty. There is still a part of me that wants to jump in and do more. But the guilt is not as strong as it used to be, because I understand my season more clearly now. At that time, my girls were still so young, a toddler and a baby, and my role in that season was to look after them.
I remember WJ saying something to me once that really stayed with me. She said, “What if we spent the first few years with our children so their foundation in life is filled with love? Wouldn’t that be worth it?”
My head said yes immediately.
But my heart was slower to agree. If I am honest, my heart still wanted to serve in church. That was the wrestle. I knew the truth, but my desires were still catching up. And I think that is often how God works in us. He shows us what is true, and then over time He reshapes our hearts to align with it.
It Is Easier to Serve in Church Than to Be Faithful at Home
I also remember a pastor friend saying something that stuck with me. He said that some elders look good in ministry, but they should go home and spend time with their children. He reckoned that many people serve for the prestige while the home front is a mess. His comment was blunt, but there was truth in it. He said, “It is easier to serve in church than go home and deal with issues.”
That line stayed with me because it exposed something real. Public ministry can look impressive. Loving your family faithfully in the hidden places often does not. But hidden faithfulness matters deeply to God.
Family and Ministry Still Feel Hard to Juggle
As the years went on and my girls started school at five and three, I did get more time back. I could serve more. I had more space. But interestingly, the tension did not completely disappear. It was just not as strong as before.
I began to realize that in church’s eyes, people often evaluate whether I serve in ministry or not. But in my family’s eyes, the bigger question is whether I am there for them when they need me. Am I present? Am I consciously discipling them? Am I loving my wife well? Am I building something at home that reflects the heart of God?
It is still not easy to juggle family and ministry. That tension is still real. But it is not as hard as it once was, especially now that I understand more clearly how important it is to spend time with my children and my wife.
What This Stay-at-Home Dad Season Taught Me
Looking back, I am thankful that God led me down this stay-at-home dad path. It exposed things in me. It brought hidden assumptions to the surface. It forced me to wrestle with my identity, my ambition, and even my definition of ministry. And in doing so, it helped me focus on what is truly important.
Sometimes the ministry God gives us does not look like what we expected. Sometimes it looks like nappies, bedtime, ordinary conversations, and simply being there. But that does not make it less spiritual. It may actually be one of the deepest forms of discipleship we will ever live out.
