You can't lead well alone

Genuine friendships are one of the most important elements in a lasting ministry. God created us for community. Sadly, though many pastors in ministry never experience the joy of authentic relationships that help the pastor thrive in ministry and become healthy. Daniel Goleman in his book Primal Leadership notes that healthy friendships literally keep you alive when everything inside of you wants to die.  He writes “Whereas three or more incidents of intense stress within a year (say serious financial trouble, being fired or a divorce) triple the death rate in socially isolated middle-aged men, they have no impact whatsoever on the death rate of men who cultivate many close relationships.”   

Many pastors will exercise daily, watch their fat intake in regard to their diet, take an aspirin every day to prevent a heart attack. But cultivate friendships?  Who could have imagined? 

At its core, pastoral ministry is relational. When a pastor cultivates healthy, respectful, and authentic relationships with congregants, it creates an environment where both the leader and the church body can flourish. Conversely, strained or distant relationships can erode not only ministry effectiveness but also the pastor’s personal well-being.  Healthy pastoral relationships begin at home. The relationship with your spouse and family are paramount in cultivating healthy relationships in ministry. From the beginning in Genesis chapter 2 God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so God brought forth a suitable helper to man in woman so that they could be one flesh together. 

Maintaining a healthy marriage and family dynamic will help you show your congregation that your number one responsibility is to lead well at home.  By creating this distinction first, you are modeling the biblical mandate to be one with your spouse. Your ministry hinges on how well you lead in your home.  Consider what Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:5 “for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?”  1 Timothy chapter three is famously about the qualifications of overseers and deacons in the church. Very early in his list of qualifications is called to be a husband of one wife, and one who rules his household well.  When you model a healthy home relationship, you are showing your church what matters most.

In addition to a healthy marriage a pastor must also have friends in and outside the church, Consider the Proverbs in Scripture that emphasize friendship built on loyalty, sacrifice, and mutual growth. We are told in Proverbs 27:17 "iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another".  This means that others improve, strengthen and refine our lives. Elsewhere in Proverbs describe friends as loving at all times (Proverbs 17:17), offering counsel (Proverbs 27:9), and providing support when one falls (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). True friendship often involves selfless love, with Jesus as the ultimate example who laid down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Elsewhere in the New Testament, Jesus pairs the disciples together and sends them out in pairs to do ministry.  We need to also consider the dynamic duos of Acts; Peter and John, Barnabas and Saul, Paul and Silas, Paul and Timothy. Scripture is clear that we are made for community and we need others in our lives and ministry so that ministry can thrive.

Perhaps one of the factors as to why pastors struggle to build healthy relationships is because there are few peers in the church that they serve. If the pastor is younger than the congregation he serves it may be harder for him to feel connected to families that share similar life commonalities.  The pastor may also feel as though his life is “too public” already and may be motivated by fear to keep boundaries on his personal life from his public one.  The fear that someone close to him would betray him, or his family causes him to build a barrier around himself and others.  These motivations are not healthy and often formed by insecurities.  Healthy pastors see others through the eyes of Jesus, as image bearers of Christ, and as a gift that God has put in our lives to further the mission of Christ.

When we become too guarded in our relationships with others, we run the risk of becoming isolated from the very relationships that God intends to use to grow us. Isolation is multi facet, one can isolate themselves emotionally, spiritually and even physically. Isolation means we carry the weight by ourselves of ministry and is often too much for one person to bear. (lawless) When we are in isolation, no one is asking us the hard questions about our own walk with the Lord. Even we who lead, need others who help us test our hearts. We are all too susceptible to misread our own souls in doing ministry work. Isolation can devolve into depression and self-pity. The more we find ourselves in isolation the harder it is to pull ourselves up when ministry is hard.   

We must remember that God did not call us to live in isolation, God has called us to live in community. Community with Him and community with others. In order for us to lead well, healthy relationships must become a priority in our lives. God desires us to spend time with Him in prayer, and Scripture reading in order for us to understand His precepts, and we readily open up ourselves in prayer for God to see the deepest parts of our lives. In the same way we need authentic relationships that provide emotional support to our lives.

In his book The Meaning of Marriage Tim Keller describes four elements of friendship that speak to the four needs that every human has, including pastors.  Friendships consist of Intentionality since a friend “stays close” to you (Proverbs 18:24). We need brothers who intentionally stay close to us, check in on us, pursue us and desire to get an update on our lives. Second, friendship is Constant, loving at all times, especially in the difficult ones (Proverbs 17:17) We need friends who love us at our worst – when we’ve sinned and failed and have turned away. Third friendship requires Transparency with open reproof and correction rather than flattery (Proverbs 27:5-6). A pastor needs friends he can be vulnerable and open with, whom he can trust. Finally, good friendships have Sensitivity, where they know how to empathize with pain and rejoice in our victories (Proverbs 25:20). 

Practical Helps:

As you begin to consider how to create a healthier relational side of life.  Start with your most important relationships and work your way out. In these helps I am assuming that you are taking the necessary steps to care for your own soul. That you are spending quality time with your Heavenly Father, regular, consistent time in God’s Word and prayer. 

Your next priority is your spouse and family. Once a week you need to pull back and invest in the health of your marriage and family. We may call this the sabbath invitation. There is a two-fold purpose of a weekly sabbath as an opportunity to pray and play. In other words, observing a once a weekday to rest gives us the opportunity to pay attention to God and the things that nourish our spiritual health and to invest in the things that “fill up the bucket” for us emotionally, physically and relationally. 

You can use this Sabbath to include spending time with your spouse and children. Get outside, play a board game, take a short trip somewhere, ride bikes, swim in a pool, do something fun together. Maybe it is a date night with your wife, or something simple like grabbing a cup of coffee.  It’s not about the activity; it’s about being together with your spouse and family.

Your next relational connection should be time with a trusted friend or mentor. I have been fortunate to have both trusted friends who are in ministry and those who aren’t to have a relational connection with. For the one who serve in churches, we have a unique understanding of challenges and pressure points that my non-minster friends have. But on the other hand, I still need friends whom I share other interest and hobbies with. Those friends help provide an outlet to help me decompress and relax in ways that my ministry friends can’t.  The point is that I need both to stay relationally healthy.  A key to leading well is acknowledging that you can’t lead well alone, and that you need accountable relationships to assist you in ministry and life. 

Sources: 

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Harvard Business Review Press.  Pg 6-7

Keller, Timothy. The Meaning of Marriage: A couples devotional (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2019) 152.

Lawless, Chuck  9 Dangers of an Isolated Mnistry, Blog post on Church Answers 2021.