Building Bridges to Your Senior Pastor - 2

Continuing off the first post in this series I've found it extremely helpful to DTR (Define the Relationship) with my senior pastor. It's been very important for us to determine what our relational style is going to be with each other: Best Buds, Partners or Ships in the Night. Best Buds hang out all the time together outside the context of church stuff. Partners share a mutual respect for each other while they are in the office and work together to be a part of a team that is moving forward, but don't spend hardly anytime together outside the context of church stuff. Ships in the Night never communicate and it takes a student ministry pastor 3-4 weeks to set up a meeting and when the meeting happens it's about 30 minutes.

Knowing your relational style is very important to this relationship succeeding. For example, if a student ministry pastor wants a Best Bud and the senior pastor wants a partner then there is going to be tension. I've heard many student ministry pastors say that their senior pastor doesn't care about them, but it's because they are viewing the relationship from a Best Buds perspective while their boss is looking at them as a Partner. I am grateful for the Partner relationship I have with my senior pastor. I want a Partner. He wants a Partner. Knowing that we aren't Best Buds or Ships in the Night allows us to be loyal Partners to each other.