As a youth pastor, when you get the call to head up to an elder’s office or the senior pastor hits you up with an email asking for a meeting, your mind races. What’s going on? What is this about? Is everything OK?
I don’t think I’m alone in this … so right or wrong, let me be honest and share with you what I think as a youth pastor when someone higher up asks for 15 minutes:
“Man, what did I say? My mind races, I quickly rehearse the conversations I’ve had recently. I concede some moments where I overstepped good boundaries and said something stupid. I think about interactions with parents and wonder if my mouth got me in trouble. I concede that it probably did. The torment grows with each minute that passes between that first contact and the actual meeting.
“Shoot, did someone get hurt?”I don’t remember anything off hand, but maybe someone broke an arm last night at killball. I forgot all about the release forms. Or is it possible we accidentally left a few kids back at that camp after the retreat? Come to think of it, the pastor’s daughter wasn’t in youth group last night. Interesting.
“Argh! Am I going to get fired?” The panic refuses to settle down. I try to pray about it. My mind is racing – why would they want to meet with me? We have a healthy understanding – they don’t talk to me much and I don’t upset the ship. So I send a reply to the email, asking if there’s anything I can do to ‘prepare’ for the meeting, hoping to get a clue as to what we might be meeting about, and hoping it isn’t me losing my job.
Whew! Sigh. It was nothing like that after all. But the lack of a relationship with the elders and leadership of the church created a rabid insecurity inside of me. If you’re a youth worker and anything like me, here’s what you can do to avoid these feelings:
- take your supervisor out for lunch to build a relationship
- ask for regular feedback from your boss
- keep your conversations in check, stay out of trouble in the first place
- don’t leave kids at camp
- ask the leadership to attend youth group on special weekends and events, so you don’t freak out when they just show up
- keep the elders in the loop so they don’t get hit with surprises
If you’re a pastor or elder, here’s a few ways to save your youth worker from getting an ulcer:
- spend relational time together outside of tasks
- tell your youth worker why you want to meet with them in the original ask
- drop into youth group occasionally, without an agenda
- call meetings when something good happens, so we’re not conditioned to think something bad happened
- be honest with your youth pastor when something really is up
JG
Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
yes! number two for me especially, but not in the way you think. mostly, it’s been things outside of church– this past year we’ve had a student and minister pass away, two students involved in a car accident, one got kidney stones, and a parent got cancer…. just alot of crazy stuff has been going on and everytime i get that call, i hold my breath and hope nothing bad has happened
“come see me please” was the text I got Monday morning from my Executive Pastor. I’m pretty tight with this guy, and we love each other, but even still I couldn’t help but have that “sinking feeling”. It didn’t help that I had just asked permission to cut out of our weekly staff prayer meeting a little early to get to a lunch appointment. Gulp.
Like you, Josh, I couldn’t help but dig for some info on what could be up. “Is there a problem?”, I asked in my follow-up email.
No response. Gulp.
Turned out that he wanted me to lead the prayer time that I was asking permission to leave early from. He came up to me at my desk, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Did you think you were in trouble, or something?” (Uh, heck yeah!) He laughed and told me I need to cut out my worrying.
That’s a long way to say that even though I’m tight with my “boss”, I can’t help but feel that “peon” feeling when we’re “called in”. I’m competent, I’m confident, and I’ve been at this a long time–but when its all said and done, I’ve still got people “over” me that I need to answer to. And I guess anybody with a vested interest in keeping their job would have a similar reaction.
this same exact thing happened to me yesterday. the pastor asked if i had a meeting and i did. he said he was going to take me out to lunch which sounds innocent but it has never happened in the 3 months i have been here and he has never taken our music minister to lunch in the 3 years he has been here. it made me nervous and made me question wha was going on. lol
Dude, this is totally me! I have been in the process of transitioning out of the ministry at my current church. I get called into the pastor’s office a lot these days…. You would think I’d be use to it by now!
Weird, I too had this experience. Those terrifying words of “step into my office when you have a minute.” But this was the #2 guy, not the #1. I almost feel guilty for having those fearful feelings spring up. But I wasn’t in trouble… this time : )
I agree about the insecurity that comes with disconnect from the top dogs. I know I should take initiative, but shouldn’t the minister of 30 years try reaching out to me, the minister of 7 months?
Man, I wish I had the “step in to my office” talk at least then I’d be able to prepare. For me its pastor walks in with no warning, sits down, and closes the door behind him. We’ve got a pretty small staff, but connecting with the boss is really tough.
gotta admit, i don’t know how much it matters how close you are to the boss(my dad is our church’s pastor and we’re close) and I still get that “I think I’m gonna puke” feeling in my stomach everytime I’m asked to meet….
I’m glad I’m not alone in this! Makes me feel a lot better, wasn’t sure how honest I wanted to be when I started writing this one.
JG
Unfortunately, for me #3 is the one that I have frequently had to deal with in my current position. From the moment I have gotten here at my current position, my head has been on the chopping block. When the Senior Pastor invited me to meet (almost always a week or two after the request, leaving me to twist in the wind for a while), I asked what the meetings were about like you did, but the response was “nothing bad, we’d just like to meet with you” and then when the meeting happens, they lower the boom on me for one reason or another. I think I have pretty good reasons to be skittish about a meeting. That being said, I wish my Senior Pastor had read the comments at the end of your post. It would have saved a lot of torture.
As someone who supervises others, I like to lighten the stress by leading the email (or the verbal conversation) with a really positive intro in addition to explaining what the meeting will be about.
For example, “I’ve been hearing some great buzz about how things are going – very exciting! I need to grab some time with you to talk about how to publicly communicate the upcoming change in X. Let me know when you’re free tomorrow or the day after.”
Sentence 1 makes sentence 2 much less ominous.
UNEXPECTED APPLICATION POINT: Remember that your students feel freaked out in the same way when you ask to grab a minute with them after the meeting. So do for them what you want your leaders to do for you.