If you’re a youth pastor, chances are you have experienced or are experiencing a bit of a disconnect with your senior pastor.  It’s a common issue.  Even if you a volunteer leading your youth team, sometimes the disconnect can happen.  When I hear about it from youth pastor friends, it has usually gone something like this: “My pastor and I don’t see eye to eye. I wish he would meet me in the middle.  How come he doesn’t take initiative to reach out to me?”

What’s interesting is that if you ask the senior pastor, he says almost EXACTLY the same thing.  It’s almost like a marriage where each spouse is waiting for the other to come to them.  But just like marriage, any relationship, especially one as important as pastor/youth pastor, requires 100% from both parties, not 50/50.  Romans 12:18 is sometimes misused here because people say, “Hey I did my part, now I’m just waiting for them to do theirs.”  But the sense of the verse is more like, “You do whatever it takes to live at peace with others.”

When it comes to the disconnect between you and your pastor (or other way around) can you honestly say you’ve done everything it takes?  You’ve gone the extra mile?  That’s the key.  Let’s break this down a bit.

If you’re a youth pastor, you need to do these three things:

Take Initiative

Do the stuff you know you’re going to be asked before it’s asked.  This builds trust.  Come to your meetings prepared and go the extra mile to show your senior pastor you are on the ball and ready to participate. Find out what your pastor expects and over-deliver.

Be Open

Be completely open to accountability in your personal life, your quiet time, how you handle youth funds, how you run events, etc.  Don’t get defensive at all.  Just open up and be straight forward and honest.  Let your first reaction to your pastor be one of trust.  Trust that he really does care for you and is really trying to help. Be teachable too.  Remember you can always learn something from ANYONE.

Share Your Heart

Let your pastor see your heart.  Go out to coffee with him and let him see your passion.  Talk to   him about spiritual stuff.  Share your burden for the teens.  Invite him to an event where you know students are probably going to get saved.  Share your Quiet Time and ask him about his.  Also, have fun.  Go hang out just for fun with your pastor and invite him into your world.  Let him see your heart.

So what if you’re actually the senior pastor?  What do YOU do?  We’ll tackle that in the next post.  Stay tuned.

Anyone have more ideas about how to connect with your senior pastor?