3 Emotions I Feel When I Get Called into the Office

on December 2nd, 2008

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


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Gabe at 2:15am December 3

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

Glen Davis at 11:55am December 4

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.