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The relationship between pastor and
youth pastor

One of the many good gifts God has given me in my life is the opportunity to work with some men who have shaped my faith, family, calling, and understanding of ministry. In 1980, when I arrived in Wilmore, Kentucky, to serve as youth pastor at the United Methodist Church, I already knew of David Seamands. In a sense, I looked to David Seamands as a "spiritual grandfather." After working with him for four years, I came to think of him as a comrade, a friend, and a mentor (although he always joked that he was my "tor-mentor").

With David's death this past summer, I had a chance to look back on that relationship and reflect on what made our pastor-youth pastor relationship so positive for me.

1. He treated me as a professional, not as a pastor in training. I remember one occasion when we were finally ready to burn the mortgage on the Wilmore church building. It was a pretty big deal. The bishop came to morning worship services to celebrate with us "what we had done together" (I always thought it mildly humorous that we hadn't seen him up until that time, but now here he was celebrating "what we had done together"). When I met the bishop prior to the service and introduced myself, I told him that I was the youth pastor. I still remember his response, "Oh, so you're not really a minister then." It was an interesting comment because it reminded me of where youth pastors usually rank in the ecclesiastical food chain.

David, on the other hand, always treated me as a colleague. He was my boss, and we both knew that. But, he never made me feel that I was anything other than a real minister. In fact, he went out of his way to ratify that notion in personal conversation and in front of the congregation.

2. He went out of his way to include me in the life of the church. David invited me every week to take part in the worship service, symbolically affirming for the congregation my status as a pastor. I remember one week, in fact, when he asked me to pray the commissioning prayer for "Pop Seamands," his own father, as he was leaving for a mission trip to India. I was deeply moved by this honor. He also encouraged me to preach about once a month in the regular services. You can imagine, perhaps, that it was intimidating for me to preach in David's pulpit (all of my best sermons I had already stolen from him!), but it certainly raised my profile as a pastor in the congregation and in the community.

3. He didn't pull the alarm at the first smell of smoke.I remember one year, when the Cincinnati Bengals were playing in the Super Bowl, I cancelled youth group that night and invited kids over to my house to watch the game. One very prominent member of our congregation with several kids in the youth group wrote to me (and copied to David) a three-page single spaced letter warning that this was outrageous, and that it was sending a horrible message to our students about television, worship, and the importance of youth group-and that I was obviously too worldly to be a good youth pastor.

I walked into David's office wounded and worried, shell-shocked by the salvo. David smiled, and said, "Well, he gotcha, didn't he?" I thought he would be upset, but it was clear he was amused more than anything. He knew the accusing father and assured me that this kind of attack was neither rare nor surprising. We talked about the decision, and why I had made it. And he felt it was a valid decision. And I'll always remember asking him, "Should I write the father back?" And with the voice of a seasoned and secure pastor, David answered, "No. This is not a letter open to response. He's written this letter to make accusations, and any defense would only give him fuel for his fire. Just take the hit and let it go."

I recall another occasion when a woman in our congregation had gotten upset because I was playing Ultimate Frisbee with some of the kids in town on Sunday afternoon. She felt that was an egregious breach of the Sabbath. David's response was classic. He said, "Oh don't worry about her. She's what I call an 'Assistant to the Holy Spirit.' She's there to convict you of stuff that God misses. You be with those kids. I'll keep her off your back."

That's not to say I never did anything wrong. When I made a mistake or overlooked a concern, he told me about it. But David was secure enough to know that his boat wasn't going to be capsized by my mistakes and the congregation would stay afloat even if I made it tip occasionally. That made for a much more stable crew when the storms blew in. And it made the whole voyage an adventure for which I still have great memories.

In the next issue of Good News, we'll look at a few other lessons that might be worth learning from our working relationship as pastor and youth pastor.



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