Important Info About Senior Pastors

I just got done reading a great SHORT article entitled, “What I Wish I Knew About Senior Pastors….Before I Started Youth Ministry“.

Here’s a quick excerpt of the article:

When I began, over 20 years ago, in my current ministry, my senior pastor said, “We don’t care about numbers. All we want is a quality program.” But as I went about building a numbers-ignoring “quality program,” it wasn’t long before my boss started hearing complaints.

This is a very great article and fits well with the post that I wrote HERE about being a rookie in youth ministry.

My personal experience with senior pastors is that they really need to be in the know on stuff. The article mentions that they don’t like surprises and I would have to agree with that. Most of the scenarios listed on there made me laugh out loud - I think I’ve done every one of them.

If you want a good working relationship with your senior pastor, I suggest the following:

• Keep Him in the know- Do some work and explain to them what’s coming up. If you want them to have your back -they simply need to know what’s going on so your covered when a complaint comes flyin in.
• Mention the Good - Sometimes all we hear is this went wrong, or that went wrong and it’s all negative stuff. Tell your senior pastor often of all the good things you see happening in the youth ministry. Tell him about the student that turned his or her life around and is walking with Christ - again this will keep him in the know and help ward off the negativism.
• Spend some non-work time together- I know, I know ministry isn’t an 8 - 5 job so what I’m talkin about is if your senior pastor likes to bowl - ask him if it would be ok to join him in a few games of bowling. What this is doing is allowing you to build more rapport with him. He will really get to see the real you and you should be able to see the real him. Activities like these help let down your guard and allow you to begin building bridges.
• Don’t talk bad about him - Let’s be honest - you may not like your senior pastor. Maybe you just don’t click together. I will warn you not to talk bad about him though. You can never know for sure that the information you share with someone will remain there - you just never know and if that info gets back to him somehow it’s probably going to further separate the relationship. He may never ever tell you that he knows, but it’s just not good. If you must complain - go right to him with it as hard as that may be.