Important Relationship #4

The next Relationship on our list is with the Pastoral Team you work with in your setting.  For me, that includes the following:  a counseling pastor, a care pastor, a media arts pastor, a worship pastor, a youth pastor, a missions pastor, an operations pastor, and an executive pastor.  My relationship with each of these individuals has to be on the right path, or Adventure Kidz will not be working at it's full potential.  Let me give you a few examples:

  1)  The Executive Pastor and the Children's Pastor:  In our setting the Executive Pastor handles all of the financial decisions, all dealings with the admin team, and a whole bunch of other "fun" stuff.  If we are not working well together, or if I am not communicating clearly with him, there could be delays in purchases and other issues for Adventure Kidz.  I am thankful for a good relationship with Mark.  It helps to have an executive pastor who cares about kids ministry and sees its value/importance in the grand scheme of things here at Hope.

  2)  Youth Pastor and the Children's Pastor:  This relationship tends to be very strained in most settings.  Usually this stress is brought on by one of the following factors:  competition for space, competition for resources (including but not limited to people and money), and a really ugly thing called jealousy!  It is foolish for me as a kids pastor to allow any of these things to come between me and our Youth Pastor.  Let's think about this for a minute.  Each year where do the kids who graduate out of Adventure Kidz go?  Duh, the Youth Ministry!  So shouldn't I, if I truly cared about the kids, be doing everything I can to make their transition as smooth as possible.  How do I do that?  Simple answer is that I become his biggest fan (I might go into this more in future posts).  I have to allow the kids in our Kids Ministry to see that he and I are good friends and we are working together.  Anything less than a great relationship here does a severe disservice to our families and kids.

I have to be able to work hand in hand with all of the members of our Pastoral team.  They can't be successful without kids ministry and kids ministry can not be successful without them!