The Loneliest Seat in the Church

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the emotional toll of isolation faced by lead pastors. He addresses why pastors often feel lonely despite being surrounded by people and offers practical strategies to combat this isolation, emphasizing the importance of connection, vulnerability, and self-care for maintaining a healthy leadership role.• Lead pastors can experience deep isolation despite their perceived influence.• Isolation stems from a lack of true connection and fear of vulnerability.• Overcoming isolation involves finding safe connections outside of the church.• Building peer-level community and practicing vulnerability are essential.• Encourage honest check-ins within the church team.• Prioritize self-care and spiritual activities beyond church duties.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Hidden Loneliness of Lead Pastors
• 0:44 Why Busyness Isn’t Connection
• 2:00 Barriers to Trust and Peer Support
• 3:52 Practical Ways to Fight Isolation
• 6:00 Healthy Leaders, Healthy Churches
• 6:29 Invitation to Connect and Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

Being a lead pastor can be deeply rewarding, but it can also be brutally lonely. And today on the Healthy Church Death Podcast, we're going to talk about the emotional tool of carrying the weight of leadership without a true support system. And we're going to unpack why this isolation happens, how it affects the church, and what you as a pastor or your team can do to help foster real connection and health in your church and in your role. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com, and you're listening or watching the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. You're known by everyone, but truly known by no one. You ever feel like that? That's reality for a lot of lead pastors right now. From the outside, it looks like influence and spiritual strength, but on the inside, often it feels like isolation or fear or just fatigue. So today we're going to talk about the loneliness in leadership and what to do about it. Because being a senior or a lead pastor, or even a solo pastor, can just be in an incredibly lonely position at times. All right, let's talk about the weight of the role. Lead pastors carry a unique burden, right? The buck stops with you, at least in most churches. At least if it if the buck doesn't stop with you, at least it comes up to about 99 cents. So much of the burden of the leadership of the church ultimately falls on the leadership of the senior pastor. And because of that, everybody wants a piece of your time. You're expected to have answers, even when you don't have any answers, even when you're empty. And sometimes just because of your position, your vulnerability can feel really risky. The fear of losing credibility keeps many pastors kind of stymied and kind of silent. Why does this isolation even happen? Even with a full calendar, everybody, we've already said everybody knows you, a lot of people, your calendar is full. Everybody wants a piece of you, a piece of your time, right? Why, how in the world does this isolation even happens? It's really simple. Because being busy isn't the same as being connected. Lead pastors often spend time around people without experiencing the withness of people, if that makes sense. Let me say that again. A lot of times lead pastors, just because of their role, and sometimes even more because of their personality, sometimes lead pastors often spend tons of time around people, but they experience a lot less time experiencing the withness of people. And there are a lot of reasons from that. Maybe you're in a position where you don't have a lot of peers. Everybody else kind of sees you as the boss. So you can't really have any of those honest, frank, what should I do here type conversations? Because you don't have any peers around, at least in your church, that you can have those conversations. So that isolation begins to creep in. Maybe there are ministry wounds that make trust really hard for you. Maybe it's a fear of gossip or betrayal. Maybe you've been stabbed in the back a few too many times, and you're just like, it's not worth it. There are few places sometimes where it's safe to be broken. And one of those roles in the church, unfortunately, is the senior pastor role. And the result over time can be quiet, almost unexpected. You just it happens over time. It's a quiet soul drift that really nobody notices. Even you might not notice it at first until it breaks something. And then it's a problem. So how do you fight this isolation monster?

unknown: 3:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 3:52

Let me give you a few tips here that I think might be able to help. First, we talked about not leading in isolation. If you can find one person outside of your context, that means somebody, if you don't have any peers in your church, find somebody outside of your church. Maybe it's another senior pastor. Maybe it's not even somebody that's local, because again, still that can be difficult. But maybe it's a coach, maybe it's another senior pastor in another town, maybe it's a college roommate that's a pastor, maybe it's a counselor, maybe it's a longtime friend. But find one person that's really safe out of you outside of your role, outside of your context, outside of your church, that you can really have honest conversations with. And then build over time, build peer-level communication and community intentionally. Don't wait for that to happen naturally because many times it just doesn't. So any way that you can build into, you might not have any peers right now, but some peer-level relationships, maybe not even inside your church, but inside your community, that you can start to have some of those conversations. Maybe you don't share everything, but you allow at least yourself to open up a little bit. And a couple other things. Maybe you can normalize vulnerability in your leadership. Authenticity breeds trust, not weakness. Now you can overshare, absolutely, but as a leader, try to normalize vulnerability as much as you can so that they don't put you up on that pedestal to where you're around everybody, but you don't know anybody. And then invite your team to ask how you're doing. This could be painful, but it's really necessary. Invite your team to ask how you're doing. Just not just how the church is doing, okay? They're gonna they're gonna tell you that anyway. But ask them how you're doing. And make time for soul care that's not connected to your output. That means do something other than sermon prep in your spiritual life. Do some things that bring you spiritual vitality that are not even connected to your role. As a Christian, not as a pastor, as a Jesus follower, not as a vocational worker. Okay? Here's the bottom line for today leadership does not have to be lonely, but it often is. Unless you fight for connection, you have to fight for the connection. Or else you'll end up being bully. And that's not what we want. Final thought for today the loneliest seat in the church doesn't have to stay that way. Healthy churches start with healthy leaders, and that includes making sure that you, senior pastor, you, senior leader, that your heart is healthy. Hey, if you're in a position where you're like, Todd, I just need to talk somebody because my heart is not healthy. I'd love to have a conversation with you, or if there's any way that I can help your church, particularly a way of helping build a healthy team, reach out to me, please. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com is my email address. That's podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And I'd love to hear from you today. What's helped you fight pastoral isolation? Love to hear from you, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. We're here every Monday through Friday, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow.