Crush On Pastor

Please don't judge.

I have settled into a church that I enjoy going to and want to be more a part of. The issue is I feel guilty because more than a few weeks ago on Sunday. I felt an immense amount of love during worship service for everyone around me and suddenly felt this intense romantic love for the pastor. I began in the moment to feel as if he was mines. He's married and has kids, mind you... So these feelings were so odd and I felt perplexed because they came about during a moment in church service when we were worshiping. I then felt this strong desire after church to just be single my entire life, and I was mentally okay with that.

Weeks later, I am here thinking about that and feeling bad about it. I feel like I am disrespecting the wife and even the pastor with the thoughts that I had. I don't even know if I should include myself in the church honestly knowing what I felt. Just out of respect. I was thinking about becoming a member of the church and really offering myself, but I honestly don't want to interact with the pastor because I feel like a weirdo about what I have felt. Like, almost a sense of shame, if that even makes sense. Is it disrespectful for me to not want to interact with the pastor at all? I mean, the entire point of him being a pastor is to know everyone in the church and guide us all. Plus, in order to become a member, I have to have an interview with the pastors and I just feel internally ashamed to interact with him. I know any interaction in my head I am gonna see it in a romantic sense or yearn for it.

Hi there! Welcome to CC. Honestly, I've been there! I haven't had feelings for a pastor of mine but I have had little crushes on guys and then later found out that they are taken. So I think it's somewhat normal, but you need to realize that you're just infatuated with the person you think he is. He might act super nice and friendly and Godly at church...but you don't really know how he is outside. You're having these feelings because you only see the really good parts of him. So keep in mind that he's not perfect like he might seem at church.

If you feel that that doesn't help, then I would look for another church and stay away from that one. You don't want to get deeper and deeper into this infatuation. It's sinful and can become really unhealthy. Just ask God to forgive you right now and ask him to help you get over this man. Ask him to guide you in what you should do. Also, forgive yourself. You are human and it's normal to develop feelings for others. The trick is that you can stop the thoughts you have about him. Focus on other things and eventually you won't think about him anymore.

It's unlikely you're that truly interested in him, but rather he represents an ideal that you're desiring. In other words, you don't know him well enough to be that genuinely attracted to him. How he presents himself fits who you'd like to be with. So you're attracted to the qualities you perceive, or possibly even assume, to be him.

If you're unable to talk yourself down from this then I'd stay away. Feeding it (by seeing him regularly) will only make it worse. And that has the potential to lead you to take action.

As far as the fact you feel some level of attraction to him, to me, is not shameful in and of itself. People find people attractive. It happens. We can't control that. But we can decide what to do after that point. To act on it, or if need be, run from it.

I've come fo a revelation tonight that I'm confusing my desire for a father figure with romantic attraction. I've seen him plenty of times before that moment and I just thought he was a cool pastor. But I think the fact that I looked up to him in a way that is fatherly. Made me feel a bit confused emotionally. I'll honestly go back to God about this because this suddenly cake to my mind when I was listening to worship music.

It's just the flesh being retarded... nothing to dwell on for too long.

Unfortunately, it misattributes and conflates everything- it doesn't know why it feels or does what it does;

It's not uncommon; and it's the simplest tool in the devil's bag of tricks- get the flock to idealize, romanticise, and/or glorify the man of God instead of God himself.....

Not to get you paranoid; but there is a cult-tactic that deliberately uses overly-romantic-sounding "worship music" to arouse the flesh.... if you notice that this is a continous pattern in your church, have an escape plan.