Drugs, Partying and Teen Motherhood: 'Preachers' Daughters' Exposes Faith-Based Family Struggles Behind the Pulpit

Reality TV show exposes faith-based family struggles.

ByABC News
March 11, 2013, 4:02 PM

March 11, 2013— -- If you believe that following the seemingly humdrum life of churchgoing families wouldn't hit the entertaining reality TV mark, your faith in television is about to be tested.

"Preachers' Daughters" tells the real -- and at times jarringly lustful -- stories of three preachers' daughters and their pastor parents' struggles to rein them in. The show premieres on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

In an interview with "Nightline," seemingly typical teenager Olivia Perry from Oceano, Calif., offered a healthy dose of what it's like to grow up with everyone thinking you must be "good."

"When I say, 'Oh yeah, my dad is a pastor, they are like, 'Oh, OK, you must be the good girl,' or 'you don't do anything wrong,'" she said.

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Anxious to prove her classmates wrong and fit in, Perry spent a good chunk of her teenage years living a life filled with "sin."

"I was hanging out with the wrong people, doing drugs, drinking, going to parties all the time, seeing boys, doing things with boys," she said. "I honestly loved the reaction that I would get when I would be like, 'Yeah, my dad is a pastor,' and people would be like, 'Oh my gosh, you're a pastor's kid and you're at a party.'"

In a very unchurchlike but perhaps very reality-TV-like moment, Perry's straying from her faith, and her parents came with a most unexpected consequence: The 18-year-old is now a single mother living in her parents' house with her 11-month-old daughter, Eden.

Perry said her life, despite being turned into a reality show, is finally back on track thanks to one unforgettable weekend fueled by drugs and alcohol.

"I got my license suspended after I got in the car accident, and then the next day I found out that I was pregnant," she said. "It was just a weekend of 'whoa.'"

Today, Perry's parents see baby Eden as only a blessing, but getting to that point, watching their daughter stray so far, wasn't easy for them.

"I never questioned my own faith," said her father, Pastor Mark Perry of Everyday Church. "I felt sad ... disappointed with Olivia's choices, but I would say my faith really helped me get through that."

But when his daughter told him she was pregnant, he said he couldn't help but take a hard look at himself.

"I don't think any parent could watch their kids so through difficulty and not go, 'Did I contribute to this?'" he said.

"Preachers' Daughters" is filled with these sorts of tough family struggles. In another family on the show, Ken Coleman, the pastor of City of Refuge Pentecostal Church in Lockport, Ill., is worried that his daughter Taylor will turn into a porn star. And then there is Nikita Koloff, a former WWE wrestler-turned evangelist preacher, who embarrasses her daughter Kolby with a sex sermon.

In an upcoming episode, Olivia Perry and her family face the uncomfortable moment when she has to tell her parents she isn't sure of the identity of her baby's father.

And the critics are pouncing already.

A group called "One Million Moms" is calling for a boycott of the show before it has even aired a single episode, saying in a statement: "This program is not only offensive to pastors, their daughters and families all across the country, but to all Christians ... to publicize someone's struggles for a buck and belittle pastors' daughters in the process is despicable."