The Practice of Friendship
By Dr. Jake Thurston
The Loneliness of Leadership
Let’s face it. Pastoring can be lonely.
In 2022, Barna conducted a study that found 65 percent of pastors either frequently (18%) or sometimes (47%) feel lonely or isolated in their work. [1]
The irony that emerges in these stats is that despite how much pastors preach about the importance of Christian community, we seem to struggle with practicing it ourselves.
There are a number of reasons why pastoral ministry can feel so isolating, but here are three possible contributing factors:
1. The “Set Apart” Nature of Pastoral Jobs
Certainly, our callings are to be set apart—but is that not the case for all Christians? Yet for some reason, we pastors hold on to a commonly held belief that we simply cannot be close friends with our parishioners because we can’t let them see our sin, weakness, or vulnerability. We are “set apart,” after all, and we can sometimes trade authenticity for admiration. [2]
2. Our Friendships Are “Professional”
Many may know us as a pastor without knowing us as a person. [3] Most of our relationships are more like “professional friendships” due to the requirements of our ministerial job descriptions, rather than the free nature of personal friendship. [4] So the majority of our “friends” in our congregation are utilitarian in nature—our parishioner needs our “friendship” to help them. But it’s rarely reciprocated. [5]
3. Most Of Us Work Alone
Another Barna study revealed that 42 percent of people meet their closest friends at work. [6] When it comes to staffing a local church, best practices suggest there should be at least one full-time staff person per 150 people. [7] However, when the majority of congregations contain fewer than 100 people, small church pastors cannot reap the benefits of being surrounded by coworkers or other staff pastors during a 40-hour workweek. [8]
Those are just a few of the obstacles to pastoral friendships.
But should this be the case?
Is this just the nature of the vocations God called pastors to?
I think there’s another way.
The Call to Spiritual Friendship
Relational neuroscience tells us that we are a gregarious species hardwired for connection with others. [9]
Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist, says:
“We are an ultra-social species, full of emotions finely tuned for loving, befriending, helping, sharing, and otherwise intertwining our lives with others.” [10]
He goes on to say:
“Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life expectancy (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders.” [11]
We need friends. Literally!
We need friends to be at our best physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Here are three tips pastors can put in place to remedy our loneliness and live into our God-given design for community:
1. We need close friends
The deepest relational satisfaction comes from having one to five friends who know us intimately. For many married pastors, our only close friend is our spouse. But we need a network of others who can know our struggles, celebrate moments of joy, and share our vulnerabilities with us.
Loneliness doesn’t only ensue from working by ourselves in our church offices on a Monday morning.
Loneliness results from not being known.
The only way we can cultivate deep friendships is by sharing the deep parts of ourselves.
2. We need to be face-to-face
FaceTime will never compare to face time.
The close friends pastors do have are often long-distance friends from high school, college friends they studied ministry with, or fellow staff pastors at the large church they worked at before going into church planting.
As amazing as FaceTime and digital connections are, they will never come close to being as beneficial as in-person relationships.
Further, spending time in digital connections will tempt us to not pursue in-person spiritual friendships right where we are.
Is there an elder you can get close to?
Or a fellow pastor at another church in town, you can connect with?
Or can you try being a bit more vulnerable with the small group you lead?
3. We need to trust them
In order for us to develop close friends with whom we can meet face-to-face, we need to trust them.
We need to be done with the myth that we can’t be friends with any of our parishioners.
That obviously doesn’t mean you should spill all your darkest secrets from the pulpit.
But you can—and you should—trust some of them with the deepest parts of you.
If Jesus brought his three closest disciples with him into the Garden of Gethsemane when he was at his all-time low, who are we to think we can’t do the same?
John Wesley would remove pastors’ credentials if they weren’t meeting with an accountability partner or a Band Meeting where they could fully process the intricacies of their lives.
It’s like he knew the importance of confession and vulnerability—not just for the health of our ministries, but for the health of our souls—to be fully and truly known.
While I’m not suggesting a denominational mandate to meet with accountability partners for ordination requirements, may we at the very least demystify the thought that we can’t get close to people?
We need friends.
And our souls will thank us if we live into our God-given design for community.
Sources
[1] Barna Group, “7-Year Trends: Pastors Feel More Loneliness & Less Support,” July 12, 2023, https://www.barna.com/research/pastor-support-systems/
[2] Bob Wells, “It’s Okay to Go There: The Place of Friendship In Ministry,” Sustaining Pastoral Excellence: Duke Divinity School, 2003 (https://faithandleadership.com/programs/spe/resources/dukediv-friendship.html)
[3] Ryan P. Whitson, "Occupational Hazards: Navigating Six Challenges that can Harm Pastors and Shorten their Tenure,” Order No. 3617447, Biola University, 2014. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1527009124?accountid=6363, 11.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Who Are the Lonely in America?,” Barna Group, May 15, 2017 (https://www.barna.com/research/who-are-the-lonely-in-america/)
[7] Gary L. McIntosh and Charles Arn, What Every Pastor Should Know: 101 Indispensable Rules of Thumb for Leading Your Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013), 163-6.
[8] Whitson, “Occupational Hazards,” 12-13.
[9] Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 134.
[10] Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, 134.
[11] Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, 133.
