The Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor Relationship: Lead Up

Here's the third point of our Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor series of discussions.

You need to lead up.

The idea is from a talk Bill Hybels used to give at Willow Creek, and it transformed my understanding of my leadership role.  I had a top down approach to leadership.  My pastor was boss, he lead me.  Each staff member had a ranking of who was over who, and each lead the next, either officially or unofficially.  Then each ministry had it's volunteers, and the staff member lead them.  So I was always trying to figure out where I was on the totem pole with each staff change, and would honestly jockey for better spots depending on the season of ministry I was in.

Then Bill helped me see that servant leadership is 360 degrees, not top down.  It's my job to be a servant leader for my volunteers.  Provide direction, encourage, educate about our roles, pray for them, and help them succeed.  I wasn't always good at it, but I understood the concept.

Then he pushed me to see that I had to play the same roles with my peers on staff.  I wasn't the worship pastor's boss, I wasn't the small groups pastor's supervisor, but I had a responsibility to provide servant leadership for them.  I needed to provide direction, encourage, educate about our roles, pray for them, and help them succeed.  I needed to share where we were going as a ministry, and work with them to join with where God had them going.  We weren't parallel silo's a the church.  We were a family, pushing together in one direction.

The big challenge for me though, was not just to lead "down" to my volunteers, not just to lead "sideways" to the other pastor's on our staff, but to lead "up" to my senior pastor.  With him as well I need to provide direction, encourage, educate about our roles, pray for him, and help him succeed.  The direction I provide comes in the way of communication about what God is doing in our ministry, how the church is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of families, where my leaders are growing in their faith, and tie it all back into the bigger picture of the church at large.  He has SO much on his desk in a given day, he doesn't always have time to look for what God is doing around the church.  As I communicate that to him (email, casual conversations, etc.) it helps him do his job better.  I'm not leading him in the sense of telling him what to do, or trying to steer him in a direction favorable to me.  Those are NOT my roles.  But I am providing a easy window for him to see where God is at work beyond his daily responsibilities.  It's servant leadership.  And when I make changes to my ministry direction, I try to communicate it AHEAD of time with him in a clear, positive way so that he knows what is going on BEFORE everyone else knows.  That way he isn't caught off guard and left wondering what is going on.

So, whatever your age or position, lead 360 degrees from a servant's heart.  It communicates family, trust, love, encouragement, and support.  And what senior pastor couldn't use a little more of those?

The Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor Relationship: The Myth of "Feed Me"

Lesson #2 - They Are Not Your Private Mentor

Honestly, a lot of times when I'm teaching college students who are ready to leave school and begin in ministry, they have this unspoken idea that when they get to a good church, the senior pastor is going to mentor them, shape them, and pour tons of time into them.  They have this picture of them and their senior pastor taking long walks, eating ice cream together, spending hours exegeting Numbers 14, and having their wisdom tank filled up and over running.  In this dream, birds sing, a rainbow appears in the sky, and Jesus comes down and plays disc golf with them as the light fades.

End scene.

Uhh.....no.  Let's be perfectly honest here.  I love my senior pastor today.  He has poured into me, and taught me more than I can imagine.  I owe much of who I am as a pastor to him.  I am completely grateful for him, he's my brother, and he's an amazing man of God.  But we don't eat ice cream and study ancient texts together.  We are brothers and friends.  But his role in the church is to lead the church, and to train the people to do the work of ministry.  He is not my personal mentor.  The pastor in my previous church wasn't, the pastor before that wasn't either.  It's not their role.

I do learn from him, and he does pour into me from time to time.  But the reality is, in most churches, there isn't enough time or resources for the senior pastor to give you that much attention.  Your growth is up to you.  I do have friends with very different relationships with their senior pastors.  Some are very close friends, some aren't.  Some are very discipleship focused with their staff, some are more hands off.  It varies, just depending on the church's size, values, the pastor's personality, and the stage of life of the youth pastor. 

One thing I try to pour into everyone I send out into ministry is that their personal spiritual growth is up to them, not anyone else.  It's their responsibility to figure out who to learn from, and their responsibility to be sure they are learning and growing.  God is our mentor.  But don't look to your senior pastor to do that for you.  It's an unfair, unrealistic, and sometimes selfish idea.

So, how do you grow?  Read.  Alot.  Pray.  Alot. Attend conferences, listen to podcasts, get around leaders who know more than you do, and admit to them and yourself that they know more than you do.  Be a life long learner.  We are all disciples.  We all need to grow and change everyday.

Just don't dump that weight on your senior pastor's shoulders.

God doesn't.

The Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor Relationship: Don't Make God Torch You

Sometimes the relationship between a youth pastor and a senior pastor can be a tricky tightrope to walk.  There have been dozens of articles and books written on this already.  But yet, it continues to be tough spot to be in.

From the senior pastor side, they have a ton of responsibility on their shoulders.  They have to do ministry, and be something of a CEO/manager position.  They aren't trained for it, and honestly most aren't hard wired for it.  They became pastors to work with people and teach God's good news, not manage staff meetings and juggle budgets, building issues, and counsel everyone in town.  It's a tough gig, and they often feel somewhat alone in their role.

Youth pastors are in a tough spot as well.  They are often seen as "almost" a pastor, the person on staff who either hasn't quite yet made it, or doesn't quite have what it takes.  They can get blame for everything that goes wrong in a building, and seem to be trying to manage ministries that are under attack from every other organization on the planet (school calendars, sport teams, teens jobs, family events, etc.)  They often find themselves stuck between the world of adults (not quite yet) and teens (a little too far past).  It's tough.

So, as youth leaders, what can we do to navigate this issue?

I've had the privilege of working for three pastors over the last twenty years.  The men I've worked with and for have loved Jesus, loved the church, and supported me to the best of their ability.  My current pastor and I have worked side by side for a decade, and I love and respect him like crazy.  I thought maybe I'd throw out some of the lessons I've learned over that time.  If you can take one or two of my mistakes, and avoid repeating them, then it's all worth it.

Lesson #1 - God gave them their job.

If you are in a church that loves Jesus, and tries to follow Him at some level, then you can rest assured that God has put your pastor in the role he is in.  Yeah, your pastor has faults and weaknesses.  I know.  You can list them out quickly, precisely, and with footnotes.

That's the problem.

You're disrespecting the man / woman that God has appointed over the church.

Stop it.

I'm not saying you need to swing the pendulum and worship the senior pastor, or put them on a pedestal.  It's the exact opposite.  You need to do away with the pedestal all together.  You're judging them by a standard that isn't fair, and you're forgetting God's wisdom and plan in all of this.  Your pastor is in the role they are in so that they can grow, love God more, and be used by Him to confound the wise in this world.  They don't measure up to your expectations, but your expectations are likely unfair.  At times I have judged my senior pastor by standards I myself would never want to live up to.  I justified it by saying "But they're the senior pastor.  They are supposed to be so much more that I'm supposed to be."  That's incorrect, unfair, and a lie.

Now, if you're in a church where the church isn't chasing after Jesus, but is just coasting as a social club, you have deeper issues than that of your relationship with your pastor.  These articles may not apply to you, but you definitely need to talk.  Contact any of us on this blog, and let's talk about where you're at.

But if your church wants to follow Jesus, and your pastor is trying to live a life of obedience, then get over yourself.

Read Numbers 16 where people come and complain about Moses.  God doesn't put up with it.  He burns the 250 dissenting staff members alive.  Literally.  Don't go there.

Support your pastor.  Pray for them.  Fight the thoughts between your ears.  Don't dwell on negatives, and don't allow stupid, unfair expectations and idealism cause you to complain about your leader.  Love them, show them grace, cheer for them, and support them.  All the time.

God calls us to it.

Tomorrow, we'll look at some more pieces of this relationship between senior pastors and youth pastors.