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In this episode of the Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, discusses the perplexing problem of loneliness in Christian leadership, despite leaders being embedded in communities and relationships. Iorg explains that loneliness is an occupational hazard due to isolation by information, obedience, job demands, and emotional depletion. He shares personal experiences and emphasizes the importance of having realistic expectations, cultivating an awareness of God's presence, and building sustaining friendships. He also highlights special circumstances, such as when loneliness turns into depression or when ministry settings are particularly isolating or toxic, advising leaders to seek necessary medical, psychological, and spiritual help.
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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
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From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, hearing on our continuing conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. If you're new to the lead on podcast, thank you for joining us. This podcast is a opportunity each week to talk about some slice of life of ministry leadership. This is not really a preaching podcast or a denominational promotional podcast.
Jeff Iorg:This is a podcast about the practical issues of day to day life in ministry leadership. For pastors, youth pastors, directors of ministry programs, professors, school administrators, any 1 of us who finds ourselves working day to day in Christian ministry in some capacity, trying to advance God's kingdom all around the world, this podcast is for you. Today, I wanna talk about the issue of dealing with loneliness in ministry leadership. Now loneliness in Christian leadership is a perplexing problem. We work in Christian communities.
Jeff Iorg:We have friends, brothers and sisters, fellowship. All of these concepts and words are very important to us, and yet, while we're in communities, we can often find ourselves experiencing profound loneliness. We also emphasize relationships. We believe the Christian faith is a relationship between us and God and that the Christian community is a set of relationships between others, between us and others that we love. So it's a perplexing dilemma that loneliness is a part of leadership.
Jeff Iorg:In fact, I've gone as far as to say that loneliness is an occupational hazard of Christian leadership. That means if you're ever going to be involved in Christian leadership, you're going to be lonely. Now, a few years ago, when I wrote my book, the painful side of leadership, I included a chapter on loneliness and I sent that chapter out to a number of leaders, pastors, denominational leaders, school leaders, and asked them to reflect on the chapter with me and giving give me back any suggestions they might have. Now I don't remember exactly, but it's not chapter 1 in the book. It's more like chapters 5, 6, 7, something like that.
Jeff Iorg:When I sent the chapter out, I remember 1 prominent leader wrote me back and said, this is such an important chapter. This should be chapter 1. That was a sobering response. Here was a person who's well known, well liked, well respected, who's telling me that loneliness is such a pers perplexing problem in his life that he felt the chapter should be chapter 1. You may be feeling that way today.
Jeff Iorg:Loneliness. It's a part of Christian ministry. It's a difficult part to manage. It can be a perplexing issue to address. So let's talk about it a little bit more today.
Jeff Iorg:I've said that loneliness is an occupational hazard of Christian ministry. And so the question then would be asked, why? Why? When we emphasize community and relationships and fellowship, why is loneliness a part of our lives? Well, let me give you several reasons.
Jeff Iorg:1st, leaders are isolated by information. We know things that other people don't know, and we know things that we can't say to anyone, And we have to make decisions based on the information we have, and when we do that, sometimes those decisions can be lonely. For example, you may know personal information about people you're working with that cause you to make decisions relating to them. You may have to demote a volunteer or an employee based on private information. You may have to make a decision about someone's involvement or your investment in them in ministry leadership based on what you know about them privately.
Jeff Iorg:What does this mean? Well, here's an example. Number of years ago, there was a man in our church who was, at least from outward appearances, very successful with money. He had a beautiful home, drove nice cars, took good vacations. From the outside, it appeared that he was a very successful businessman, but he confided in me.
Jeff Iorg:He confided in me that while his businesses were moderately successful, where he made the most of his money was as a professional gambler. No 1 in our church knew this except me. And as a pastor, I was responsible to keep that information confidential. I was counseling with this man. I was trying to help him overcome his, his addictive habit of gambling.
Jeff Iorg:We were working to connect him with the right people in the right places to help him get the help the the, the to help him change in the way that he needed. But every year, while this process was going on, people would suggest to me, hey, this person is really good with money. We need them on our church finance team. We need them helping make decisions about our money. We need them to have access to our church finances and to be able to help us manage them effectively because he obviously look at his lifestyle.
Jeff Iorg:He obviously is good with money. And each year, I had to say no. And when I said no, I was frequently criticized and people said things like, well, are you just afraid that he's gonna have more influence than you have or that he knows more about money than you do or that he's gonna wanna make decisions differently than you would wanna make them? Why are you so reluctant, pastor, to have this person who's so obviously good with money not involved in our church's financial decision making? And my answer was simply, I just don't think it's best.
Jeff Iorg:I think we need to find someone else to fill that role. It was lonely to make that decision. I was isolated by information. I knew things that no 1 else knew. And it was painful to be lonely in in those moments, but it was necessary.
Jeff Iorg:At another situation where information was isolating for me as a younger pastor, I had a couple come to me for premarital counseling. They wanted to get married and wanted me to do their wedding, and so everything seemed fine. At 1 point though in the counseling as I normally did, I asked to see them separately. And in doing so, I discovered from the woman that she was already being physically abused by her fiance. And when I discovered this, I brought him into the conversation and confronted him with this information and he admitted that it was true.
Jeff Iorg:And so I told them, we need to stop in this process and we need to address this problem first. And until we've successfully addressed the issue of your physical abuse of this woman that you're planning to marry, we we can't go forward. We can't have a wedding. Well, the woman was relieved and the guy, was at least agreeable to working on the problem, although, obviously, not happy that I was confronting him in this way. But then they went out and told everyone that the wedding was off because pastor Jeff didn't like the groom.
Jeff Iorg:Well, that was not true. But this couple could not publicly admit the reason for the wedding being postponed. And so they said instead and so instead of saying the truth, they simply said, we're not going to get married because pastor Jeff doesn't like the groom. Well, this spread like wildfire through our church as you might imagine, and then through the community as well. And suddenly, I'm the bad guy.
Jeff Iorg:This couple was never willing to publicly admit why we were delaying the wedding, only saying, pastor Jeff doesn't like the groom, but I knew the real reason. And despite the pressure that I was placed under, the hard things that were said about me, the difficult questions that were asked, and the public criticism I endured, I was unwilling to change my position because I knew that marrying this couple while physical violence was already going on in the relationship was not right. So loneliness loneliness in those decisions. Leaders are isolated by information. That makes us lonely.
Jeff Iorg:We're also isolated by obedience. Leaders have to take a moral stand on issues like gay marriage or take a doctrinal position like an on an issue like the exclusivity of the gospel. Leaders have to lead in spiritual commitments like giving first to a building program or fasting and praying before asking a church to join them in a period of fasting and praying. Leaders are isolated by obedience. We have to take moral stands, hold doctrinal positions, model spiritual commitments.
Jeff Iorg:And when we are obeying in these ways, we may be the first or even the only person in the moment who's taking that position and finds ourselves in that role of obedience. And when you're the only 1 or the first 1, it can feel pretty lonely. Here's another reason leaders experience loneliness. We're isolated by job demands. What do I mean by that?
Jeff Iorg:Well, leaders, especially Christian leaders and spiritual leaders, often have job demands which require them to be alone a lot of the time, which can, doesn't have to, but it can facilitate feelings of loneliness. For example, those of us who preach and teach and speak, we spend a lot of time alone in preparation for those events. It's not uncommon for a pastor who's speaking every Sunday to spend 15 to 20 hours a week, I himself studying the Bible, preparing to preach. Every 1 of us who has any kind of public speaking responsibility from this podcast to preaching on Sunday to teaching in a Sunday school or teaching at a school or college or seminary, we all spend significant time alone in preparation. For many of us in ministry leadership, there's also a lot of time spent traveling alone.
Jeff Iorg:For me, it's mostly traveling by airplanes, but also sometimes in cars on long trips to get to places where I need to be for meetings or speaking engagements or other activities. Traveling alone, that can also isolate us by job demands. And then a lot of people in ministry leadership also work in private ministry settings, are in work work settings that have a lot of privacy. I've, for years, been an executive leader, which meant that I had an assistant and sometimes more than 1. And those people protect my time and actually prohibit people from just walking in or coming in to see me without an appointment or an announcement.
Jeff Iorg:And I respect that and I appreciate it. But the fact that they isolate me to do my job can also contribute to this feeling these feelings of loneliness that we have. So I'm giving you reasons why Christian leaders are lonely and why it's a occupational hazard of Christian leadership. It's something you you can't get away from. You're going to be isolated by information or obedience or job demands.
Jeff Iorg:And those are a natural part of the work we do and a natural vehicle by which loneliness can arise. There's 1 more. Leaders are also isolated by the emotional depletion from job performance. The level of spiritual responsibility we have and the isolating and cause us to feel lonely and alone. Again, when I was writing the book, The Painful Side of Leadership, I sent this chapter as I said out to, this chapter on loneliness out to many people to listen to read and think about and critique and give additional insight.
Jeff Iorg:1 pastor wrote me back this quote. He said, there isn't a night I lay my head on the pillow without thinking about how to reach someone who needs the Lord, how to help a troubled marriage, how to better lead my team, or how to disciple someone in my church. Just the burden of being responsible for the spiritual lives of people is a cause of loneliness. Get that last sentence. Just the burden of being responsible for the spiritual lives of people is a cause of loneliness.
Jeff Iorg:Do you feel that burden? You have a church or a Sunday school class or a staff or a team, people that you're responsible for, that you feel a burden about their spiritual development, their spiritual growth, their spiritual safety? If you do, that spiritual burden can move you toward loneliness where you feel isolated and alone bearing up with that challenge. This is what I mean when I say we're isolated by emotional depletion from job performance. It comes to us because of the work that we do, burden we have, the weight of caring for people that rest upon us.
Jeff Iorg:Well, enough about the reasons for loneliness. Now let's shift gears on the podcast and talk about some strategies for handling loneliness. Now let me underscore, you can't avoid it. If you are in Christian leadership, you will have seasons of loneliness, times of loneliness, moments of loneliness. And And when that happens, what do you do?
Jeff Iorg:Well, first, have realistic expectations. You will be lonely. It comes with the territory, but also, you can get through it. It is temporary. Feelings of loneliness come.
Jeff Iorg:We expect them. We're not frustrated, angry, or surprised when they arrive, but we also know that we can get through it. If there those feelings are temporary and addressed properly, can be managed well. The second strategy, besides having realistic expectations, is to cultivate your awareness of God's presence. Just take an honest look at biblical leaders like Jesus and Paul and David, many others as well.
Jeff Iorg:They all reported times of profound loneliness. They wrote about them in the bible. They told their stories and were honest about them. They felt lonely. But also, also, their biographies are full of stories of God's amazing presence manifest in their lives when they were at their lowest points of loneliness.
Jeff Iorg:Cultivate your awareness of God's presence. Recognize that God is with you. He's always with you. And no matter how lonely you may feel, god never abandoned you. How can you increase your awareness of god's presence?
Jeff Iorg:Well, first of all, through consistent devotional practices like bible reading and prayer and scripture memory. It it's amazing about this. When I wake up early in the morning and, do my normal routine, I brew a cup of tea and I sit down in a comfortable straight backed chair so I can stay a little more alert. And I open my bible. I read his God's word.
Jeff Iorg:I let it settle on me. I think about it, and then I bow my head and pray over what I'm reading, it reinvigorates my sense that God is with me. It gives me a fresh awareness of his presence, and in a sense, starts my day with me coating myself in a perfume, if you will, of God's presence that lingers with me as I go on throughout the day. So the first way to increase your awareness of God's presence or to cultivate your awareness of God's presence is to have consistent devotions, which reinvigorate this sense of god's presence every single day. And then second thing you can do is learn 1 of my, most favorite prayers.
Jeff Iorg:Now, if you've heard me on the podcast before, you know that I like short prayers and I like, prayers that become very meaningful to me that I can use over and over again. And so here's 1 of my favorites. Are you ready? It's deep. It's long.
Jeff Iorg:It's theological. It's hard to understand. Are you ready? Here's 1 of my favorite prayers. Lord, here we go.
Jeff Iorg:That's it. That little prayer helps me cultivate a sense of God's presence, where I pray just before I walk into a difficult meeting or just before I step on a stage to preach or just before I walk into a classroom to teach, Lord, here we go. Reminding myself in that moment that God is with me, God is going with me, and that God is going to be working with me and through me in the moment. I can't tell you how many dozens, if not hundreds of times I've prayed that prayer over the years. Putting my hand on the doorknob before I walk into a conference room, or sitting there with my head bowed during the last notes of a song before I stand up to speak and just praying, Lord, here we go.
Jeff Iorg:Knowing that in that prayer, I'm cultivating an awareness of God's presence. I'm not asking God to be with me. He's already with me. I'm just confessing in my prayer to him. We're going into this moment together.
Jeff Iorg:Lord, here we go. So to deal with your loneliness, I want you to have realistic expectations, And then second, cultivate your awareness of God's presence through daily devotions and short prayers like, lord, here we go. And then 3rd, another strategy for handling loneliness is to cultivate friendships to sustain you through low times. Again, take an honest look at biblical leaders. Jesus had his disciples.
Jeff Iorg:Paul had his traveling team. David had his mighty men. This has been 1 of the biggest changes in my life in ministry over 40 years. When I started out as a pastor, I was a lone ranger solo guy. I didn't want anybody's help.
Jeff Iorg:I didn't wanna depend on anyone. I didn't want anyone to go with me or work with me. I just wanted to forge out there alone and do it all by myself. That was lonely. But I stayed with it for years, determined to be a solo leader.
Jeff Iorg:Then 1 day, I was reading the bible, and I started noting how often Christian leaders in the bible did things in pairs or groups. In fact, I later discovered that the only time Paul was alone in his public ministry recorded in the book of Acts was in Athens, which in many ways was his least effective evangelistic and ministry site. Think about that. When he was alone is when he was at his least effective. But when he was paired up with a partner or traveling with a group, he recorded so much more ministry success, which motivated me to think about Jesus and his disciples, the 3 in the inner circle and the 12 who surrounded him, and then thinking about old testament examples David and his mighty men who traveled and protected and supported him.
Jeff Iorg:As I started studying the bible and looking for these patterns, I discovered that most leaders most leaders had a partner, a friend, a teammate, a colleague, or a group that they traveled with and made a difference with in the bible. This revolution as my approach, No longer did I wanna be a solo leader, now I wanted to do ministry with other people. What kind of other people do you need? Well, there are really 4 kinds of relationships to cultivate to help you especially during low times. 1st, a mentor.
Jeff Iorg:That's someone that you look up to who's been in ministry a little longer than you and that you can go to for guidance and counsel and encouragement. 2nd is a colleague, someone you share ministry with, someone that you work alongside of, who's on your team, who's in your group, a fellow elder, a co teacher in your class, someone like that who's working with you. 3rd person to develop is a peer. This is a person who does things, that you do, but in an organization or a way that's different than you. So if you're the youth pastor of the Baptist church, make friends with the youth pastor of the Presbyterian Church across town.
Jeff Iorg:It's okay to do that. You'll find that you have a lot in common because you're doing the same work just in different context or locations and you'll find support in that kind of friendship. And then there's the last 1, the 1 I just call an everyday friend. That's the person you go fishing with. Someone that you just go get a coffee with.
Jeff Iorg:Someone who doesn't wanna talk about ministry, who doesn't need to know everything that's going on in your work or in your world, just wants to be your friend. Now you don't have to have all 4 of these people all the time in your life. In fact, you may not. I certainly had mentors when I was younger, and now I don't have those any longer. Now I'm looking people look to me more as a mentor.
Jeff Iorg:And I have colleagues and friends and peers, but those who've ever, are ever changing and morphing over time. As most of you know, I've just recently gone through a pretty major change in leaving the presidency of Gateway Seminary and coming to the executive committee. So my whole colleague pool has changed significantly. And now I'm working to develop new relationships to provide that kind of support network I need here with my new team. All I'm trying to say is, 1 of the ways that you can be sustained when you're lonely is through the support of people who know you, believe in you, love you, share the work with you, and who befriend you.
Jeff Iorg:And so the time to develop these relationships is right now, not when you're going through a low time, not when you're feeling lonely and isolated and struggling. No. That's when you pick up the phone and call 1 of these people. But in the meantime, work on developing these relationships now. And let me also say, work on being 1 of these relationships to someone else.
Jeff Iorg:Be someone's mentor or colleague or peer or friend so that they can call on you when they're going through a low time too. So so far on the podcast today, we've talked about some reasons why loneliness is an occupational hazard of Christian ministry, and we've talked also about these 3 strategies to help you deal with your loneliness, have realistic expectations, cultivate an awareness of God's presence, and cultivate friendships to sustain you through low times. Now as we come to near the end of the podcast, let me talk about some special circumstances related to loneliness. There are 3 of them. The first 1 is when loneliness turns into depression.
Jeff Iorg:Depression is more than just a few low days or some discouraging moments or feelings of low of isolation. Depression is something that requires medical evaluation and may require a combination of medical, psychological, and spiritual care. A number of years ago when I had cancer, I had to have, medication to replace the hormonal imbalance in my body that was caused by the cancer. The first few weeks after I had the cancer surgery, I was, almost catatonic. I was so low.
Jeff Iorg:I had no energy. I wasn't interested in talking to anyone. I certainly had no interest in anything like work. I was almost in a daze. I was so out of it and Anne was concerned enough that we went to the doctor and the doctor asked me a series of questions.
Jeff Iorg:And and, I thought I was just discouraged or depressed from the surgery or feeling low or disappointed that I was having to, you know, not able to do my work and be fully engaged with my family. And the doctor examined me and said, yes. All those things are true, but your problem is, it's medical. You you have a hormonal imbalance in your body and we need to fix that. So he prescribed some medication for me and I went home and took it.
Jeff Iorg:And about 48 hours later, I am a different person. Alright? And I've been taking that same medication for these decades now, to sustain me and to keep me functioning relatively normally emotionally. Because if I don't take the medication, my physical body starts to slow down and gradually slows down to the point that I feel lethargic and depressed and lonely and isolated and disengaged. Now, I'm simply telling you this story to say that if you've moved from loneliness to depression, don't be embarrassed about getting a medical evaluation to define to find out what's really going on with you.
Jeff Iorg:That you may need psychological or spiritual help, but you may also need medical help, and that's what I needed. And that made a huge difference in my perspective and moved me back to a more of a normal perspective because I got the treatment that I needed. So if your loneliness is turning into or has turned into depression, don't be embarrassed or shy or afraid. Seek medical help. Start there and then get the other kind of help you may also need.
Jeff Iorg:Another special circumstance about loneliness is when your ministry setting is isolating. If you're a missionary working in a faraway place or a a person who's in a very challenging ministry setting, you may need to pull away from time to time and recharge yourself in a place where you're going to be reinvigorated by spiritual nourishment, by spiritual relationships. A few years ago, I was invited to speak at a meeting in, Brazil for all the missionaries in South America. I arrived at this event and this 1 woman came and, sat across from me and started talking. Now I'd flown 24 hours to get there and I was already exhausted.
Jeff Iorg:She starts talking and I mean, it's nonstop talking. And after a while, I'm thinking, I can't take any more of these words. This woman is driving me crazy. But I was quiet and polite and tried to let it go. And finally, at the end of an extended couple of hours of listening to her, she smiled and said, thank you for listening.
Jeff Iorg:My husband and I live at the most remote outpost imaginable in the Amazon. Once a year, we get to come out to this meeting and I get to speak English. And I appreciate so much you listening to me this afternoon. I was humbled and a bit humiliated. This woman's ministry setting was so isolating that she didn't even get to speak English to anyone except once a year.
Jeff Iorg:How lonely that must be. If your ministry setting is isolating, come out from time to time and get the help you need to recharge yourself spiritually, emotionally, and relationally to go back into that challenge. And I would also say, if your ministry situation is particularly toxic, you need to pull away from time to time. If it takes you into depths of loneliness and discouragement, pull away and get the help you need. You're in a very, very challenging situation.
Jeff Iorg:You may say, well, you just need to leave. No, you don't. You need to step away for a little while and get recharged because we need people who will work in toxic situations to help make them better. If you're 1 of those people that's gotten that assignment, well, pull out for a while if you need to. But don't be afraid to plunge back in when you get the help.
Jeff Iorg:Today, we've been talking about loneliness in ministry leadership. I've given you several reasons why loneliness is an occupational hazard of ministry leadership. I've given you some practical strategies to handle your loneliness, and I've given you some encouragement here at the end if you're in a special situation where your loneliness is leading to depression, where you find yourself in an isolating or particularly toxic situation, you need to take extra precautions and special steps to deal with the loneliness you may be feeling. Loneliness in ministry is real, but it is not something that has to debilitate us. It is something that can motivate us and can help us to move forward in ministry recognizing that we have come that we're going through a difficult time, but that God will see us through.
Jeff Iorg:I've been lonely in ministry leadership. I know the depths of it. And yet God has sustained me through it. He'll do the same for you. Put these principles into practice as you lead on.