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On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, addresses the paradox of loneliness in ministry leadership—how pastors and ministry leaders can feel deeply isolated despite serving in highly relational, Christian communities. He explains why loneliness is an “occupational hazard” and then offers practical strategies for facing it.
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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, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Today on the podcast, I wanna talk about something that seems almost paradoxical in its, presentation as a problem. I want to talk today about dealing with loneliness in ministry leadership. Now, the dilemma of loneliness, the reason I say this is paradoxical, the dilemma of loneliness is really perplexing when you consider that Christian leaders work in Christian communities.
Jeff Iorg:We work with people. Oftentimes groups of people, sometimes large groups of people. We work in Christian communities. Second, we emphasize relationships. We we believe in connecting with people, in working in committees and task forces and staff work groups, and in other ways, coming together to get things done, and and we value Christian fellowship.
Jeff Iorg:In fact, if you're in
Jeff Iorg:a Baptist church, usually the second room constructed in a Baptist church is
Jeff Iorg:the fellowship hall. And by fellowship hall, mean place where people can gather to eat, to talk, to enjoy various kinds of programs, to do things together. So this is why loneliness in ministry leadership is such a dilemma, such a perplexing paradoxical issue. We work in Christian communities, we emphasize relationships, we value fellowship to the
Jeff Iorg:point that we even name buildings with that purpose. And yet, loneliness seems to be an occupational hazard
Jeff Iorg:of Christian leadership. In the midst of these communities of relationships and fellowships, we find ourselves feeling isolated,
Jeff Iorg:alone.
Jeff Iorg:In fact, when I wrote a book a few years ago called The Painful Side of Leadership, I I sent this chapter out to half a dozen or so ministry leaders and asked them to read it and to give me honest feedback so I could shape it into the best message possible at the time. One of them wrote me
Jeff Iorg:back and said, this needs to be chapter one. And then he told me of his own profound struggle with loneliness.
Jeff Iorg:If I told you that person's name today,
Jeff Iorg:you would say, that cannot be true. No one that popular, that beloved, that respected could have felt that lonely, but he did. So loneliness might need to be chapter one. It might need to be considered even more often than it is. So on the
Jeff Iorg:podcast today, I wanna do two things. I wanna walk you down a path of reasons why Christian leaders are lonely, and that's gonna talk us into kind of a dark place. So I'll try to get there fairly quickly, but it'll take me a minute. And then I wanna spend the balance of the podcast talking about some strategies you can put into place to help deal with loneliness as a reality in ministry leadership. So let me give you four reasons why loneliness is, as I like to say it, an occupational hazard of ministry leadership, meaning it just comes with the territory.
Jeff Iorg:First, leaders are often isolated by information, which can be very lonely. For example, you may have personal information. You may have demoted a volunteer or an employee based on private information that only you have. They may go out and tell their version of the story, but you're prohibited from doing so either by ethic or even by human, resources law. You can't always tell everything you know about why you made a personnel decision.
Jeff Iorg:While they're out telling their side of
Jeff Iorg:the story, you remain quiet. That can be lonely. Professional responsibilities or information can also create loneliness.
Jeff Iorg:May be in a situation like I was once. I I had a a chronic professional gambler in my church, and I knew that. He knew that. No one else really knew it. He was a person of means and a person that was generally respected, and so I was often asked if I would consider putting him on the finance team of our church, and I always said no.
Jeff Iorg:People thought it was because I was intimidated by him or because I didn't really like him or something. No. I just didn't trust him to be anywhere close to the finances of our church.
Jeff Iorg:I knew that. No one else did. That was a lonely
Jeff Iorg:decision to make. Another time, I had a couple come to me for a premarital counseling and found out during the context of that that there was some physical abuse going on in the relationship. And I said, well, we can't have a wedding. We we just can't go forward with this. And the girl who was the one being abused said she was very grateful and all of that until she had to start telling people why there wasn't going to be a wedding.
Jeff Iorg:And then she had a different story than the truth, and that different story didn't make me look good to be quite frank about it. But I was not willing to do the
Jeff Iorg:wedding, and, she had
Jeff Iorg:to spread some reasons why because she just couldn't admit publicly what she had already told me privately and which I was responding on. That was a lonely time in our church back in the day. So leaders are isolated by information. We know things about people. We make decisions based on that information.
Jeff Iorg:We can't share the information for various reasons, and what comes back on us can be very isolating and lead to feelings of real loneliness. Another reason that we're lonely is we're isolated by obedience. We have to take a moral stand, for example, on the sanctity of life or on the, on the the biblical definition of marriage, or we take a doctrinal stand like on the exclusivity of the gospel, Or sometimes we have to take a an obedient stand on leading a spiritual commitment. Like, for example, your church is going to start a building fund. You have to give first.
Jeff Iorg:Your church needs to go into time of fasting and praying, so you must fast and pray first. You're setting the pace in spiritual commitments, and that can be
Jeff Iorg:lonely.
Jeff Iorg:So sometimes we're isolated by obedience, whether it's a moral stand or a doctrinal position or a spiritual commitment. We have to be out on the front edge of obeying God in a particular area, and it can feel lonely out there. A third reason for our loneliness is we're isolated by job demands. Spending time alone, for example, in preparation is a frequent part of ministry leadership. You may spend time studying to preach or studying to teach.
Jeff Iorg:You may spend time alone planning or in other ways doing your work by yourself in an office or in a study. For some of us, traveling alone is also a time of isolation. I easily spent, last year over a hundred nights on the road, and that's just part of my job. Well, that's a that's a lot of alone time. And then even when I'm here in an office, I I have a private office where I work, and I have actually an assistant who makes sure that people don't bother me without appointments and things like that.
Jeff Iorg:Why? Because of the efficiency of needed to get as much done as possible. I I get all that. Well, all of those job demands, time alone in preparation, time alone traveling, time alone in your work setting, all of those things can contribute to a sense or a feeling of loneliness. And then the last reason, we're isolated by information and obedience and job demands, but we're also isolated by what I'll call emotional depletion
Jeff Iorg:from doing your job, from the burden
Jeff Iorg:of spiritual responsibility. One of the quotes that I included in my book, The Painful Side of Leadership, when I wrote about this topic is from a prominent pastor who said this, 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. Man, doesn't that resonate? Just the burden
Jeff Iorg:of being responsible for the spiritual lives of people is a cause of loneliness. And then a part of
Jeff Iorg:that is also spiritual warfare where we find ourselves spiritually on our knees, praying through and doing battle on behalf of the people that we love and care about and are trying to lead forward. Spiritual warfare along with spiritual responsibility. Well, I warned you at the beginning of the podcast I was gonna talk us into a dark place,
Jeff Iorg:and I have. Here's what we've said so far.
Jeff Iorg:Loneliness is an occupational hazard of ministry leadership. It seems paradoxical because we focus on Christian communities and relationships and even have a fellowship hall in a church building. But
Jeff Iorg:nevertheless, leaders often experience loneliness.
Jeff Iorg:It's a part of the job because we are isolated by information and obedience and job demands and the emotional depletion of spiritual responsibility and spiritual warfare. When you find yourself in that context, what can you do about it? Well, let me give you three suggestions now of what you can proactively do to address loneliness in your life as a ministry leader. And then I wanna give a couple of comments at the end on some special situations or perspectives on this problem. First, three strategies.
Jeff Iorg:Number one, have realistic expectations about loneliness. And by that I mean, accept these real realistic statements. Number one, you will be lonely.
Jeff Iorg:And number two, you can get through it. There's not anything wrong with you spiritually if you are going through a time
Jeff Iorg:of loneliness as a ministry leader. It's part of the
Jeff Iorg:job. You haven't failed. You haven't lost your faith. You aren't substandard as a ministry leader. You haven't done anything wrong.
Jeff Iorg:A realistic expectation of ministry leadership is there will be seasons, days, periods of time, moments of loneliness. It's part of the job. But a realistic expectation is not only that it will come, but that it will also come to pass.
Jeff Iorg:You can get through it. Loneliness is temporary. It comes, it may stay a while, but it goes. So let's have realistic expectations. You
Jeff Iorg:will experience loneliness. You can get through
Jeff Iorg:it. Second strategy, cultivate your awareness of God's presence.
Jeff Iorg:Now, in order to do this, I want you to first take an honest look at biblical leaders like Jesus, Paul, David. And as you take an honest look at them, you will find that they experienced profound periods of loneliness, profound seasons of loneliness. These biblical leaders, the people we most look up to as the models of what we all aspire to be,
Jeff Iorg:experienced loneliness. But in the context of doing that, they each one reaffirmed God's presence in their lives and how vital that was to getting them through the season, the day, the period, the week, the month of loneliness they were experiencing.
Jeff Iorg:Now, how do you increase your awareness of God's presence? Well, I think you do it best through consistent devotional practices. And here I'm talking about the simplest ones, bible reading, prayer, scripture memory. Focusing on these things as regular habits that build into your life an awareness of God's presence. That's why as I continue to advocate, it's essential that you wake up most mornings and start your day with Bible reading and prayer.
Jeff Iorg:That you expand that to include Bible study and scripture memory, and then periods of intercession in prayer meetings or other groups as you move on through your ministry. But start with the foundation. I'm gonna get up in the morning. I'm gonna read the Bible, and I'm gonna pray, and reestablish that God is present in my life, that God is with me as I begin my day, and that he's going to be part of of me and working with me throughout this day. Now you say, well, but theologically, isn't God with us all the time?
Jeff Iorg:Notice I did not say
Jeff Iorg:cultivate God's presence.
Jeff Iorg:I said, cultivate your awareness of God's presence. When you're in a time of loneliness, the problem is not God has abandoned you. The problem is you have forgotten that God is present with you and lost focus on this ever present theological and spiritual reality. So by spending time each day in Bible reading and prayer, expanding that into scripture memory and Bible study and in prayer times throughout your day and with other people, these disciplines of word and prayer, these disciplines increase your awareness of God's presence in your life. Now, another thing that I've done over the years that's helped me is prayed a very simple prayer.
Jeff Iorg:In fact, I've taught about this in other contexts. You may have heard me say this before.
Jeff Iorg:I think probably my most frequently prayed prayer in my lifetime has been, Lord, give me wisdom. But my second most often prayed prayer is probably this little prayer. Lord, here we go.
Jeff Iorg:Now I know you're wanting something a lot more spiritually, complex. I mean, after all, you're thinking, Jeff Orge, come on. You were the president of a seminary, administrative leader of a large denomination. Surely you can do better than that.
Jeff Iorg:No. That's that's really all I've got. Lord, here we go. I've prayed that prayer hundreds of times in my lifetime.
Jeff Iorg:When I'm about to walk into a difficult meeting, I often stop at the door with my hand on the handle and just pray, Lord,
Jeff Iorg:here we go. When I'm about to stand up to preach, that last song is being sung just before I get up, I often find myself praying silently, Lord, here we go. That little prayer reminds me that whatever I'm about to do, someone's going with me. Whether I'm going into a tough meeting, stepping into a significant pulpit, whatever it is that I'm about to do, Lord, here we go.
Jeff Iorg:That's not a prayer of asking God to go with me. He's already going with me. This is more of a prayer of reminding me of who my partner's gonna be
Jeff Iorg:in the process. Lord, here we go. So when I challenge you to cultivate an awareness of God's presence, I underscore strongly, theologically, God is with you. That's not the problem. Problem is, do you have an awareness that God is with you?
Jeff Iorg:Have you cultivated that sense of his presence, and do you maintain it by the word and prayer as it courses through your life?
Jeff Iorg:So number one, have realistic expectations. You will be lonely. You can
Jeff Iorg:get through it. Number two, cultivate an awareness of God's presence. God is with you. That's not the problem. Your awareness of God being with you is the challenge.
Jeff Iorg:Cultivate that through word and prayer, especially this little prayer I've taught you. Lord, here we go. And then number three,
Jeff Iorg:another significant resource to help you during lonely times is what I call a friendship team. Some people also call this a ministry support team. Either title works for me. There are really four kinds of people I want you to put on a team around you. Now let me say before we go into those four kinds, you may not have all these people at all times in your life.
Jeff Iorg:You may not have all of them equally at all times in your life. You may find that you need one of these more at some points of life than you do others. That's all fine. I'm saying though that if you build around you this relational network of support consisting of these four kinds of people, you will find the relational strength you need and a resource to draw on when you're going through a lonely time that'll sustain you through whatever it is you're facing.
Jeff Iorg:So what are the four groups? Number one, you need a mentor. A mentor is a person who's been down the road a little farther than you
Jeff Iorg:have, who has experiences that you don't yet have, and who can help you to know how to move along through life because of the guidance they can give you along the way, a mentor. Second, you need what I call a colleague. A colleague is someone who shares the work with you. So if you're fortunate to work in a church that's large enough to have a staff of people or not if not that, maybe has deacons and elders, These are the people that work with you. They're your colleagues.
Jeff Iorg:They're the people that are in the battle with you on a daily
Jeff Iorg:basis. Third, you need what I call peers.
Jeff Iorg:Now peers are different than colleagues in that peers are people who do what you do or who know the life you have, but in a different context or organization than the one where you serve. So for example, practically speaking, if if you're a youth pastor, your peer is a youth pastor in a different church or a youth pastor even from a different denomination. If you're a professor, your peer your peer is a professor at a different school. You get the idea. So get the difference between colleagues and peers.
Jeff Iorg:Colleagues are people who work with you, that are emotionally invested in what you're doing, that are involved in it on a daily basis, that are in the battle alongside. But peers, on the other hand, are people who do what you do but with a bit of an arm's length distance. There's no emotional engagement really with what you're doing on a daily basis other than that this person is your friend and cares about you in that regard, but they're not really in the battle with you. They're a peer. They're in their own battle, and you have shared battles because you have similar perspectives and responsibilities, but they're different than you.
Jeff Iorg:They're a peer. So we have mentors and colleagues and peers, and the last one I just called everyday
Jeff Iorg:friend, or as I like to say, a fishing buddy. Just a guy, or if you're
Jeff Iorg:a lady, just another lady,
Jeff Iorg:just somebody that you share life with. And hopefully, someone who
Jeff Iorg:invests in you personally more than they think of you in terms of a ministry leader or a ministry partner. I'm fortunate I have a couple of men like this. One particularly, been my friend for about forty years. We've hardly lived at the same state for any of those years, but we met years ago, formed a good friendship, and we maintain that friendship by phone calls and emails and occasional trips that we've gone on together, mission trips and some vacations, things like that. Our wives are friends, and so that makes it even easier for
Jeff Iorg:us to be together. This guy is what I call my everyday friend. For twenty years, I was
Jeff Iorg:the president of Gateway Seminary, and for most of that time, we did stuff together periodically, talked on the phone, etcetera, took a few vacation trips, that kind of thing. Do you know the one word that never came out
Jeff Iorg:of his mouth the whole time? Seminary. He said, well, didn't he care?
Jeff Iorg:Sure he did. He occasionally was a donor to our school. I was very interested in what we were doing. Frequently would comment about things he had read as he read our newsletters and magazines and kept up with our emails and things like that. But when we would get together for a vacation or something like that,
Jeff Iorg:he didn't wanna talk about seminary. He made sure we talked about
Jeff Iorg:family, talked about God and how we're growing in that relationship,
Jeff Iorg:talked about his ministry and work that he might be doing in his church. But he wanted me to know that that I could be with him and just have an everyday friend.
Jeff Iorg:So these are the four categories of people
Jeff Iorg:that'll keep you going when you're lonely.
Jeff Iorg:You say, well, do you need all four? Not necessarily. Are they all four equal all the time? No. Of course not.
Jeff Iorg:Take me for example. I I don't really have any any mentors left. I I got really good colleagues right now, and I've got good peers, and I've got an everyday friend or two. But the mentors, well, they've all pretty much passed on to heaven or gotten to a point in life where I no longer feel comfortable burdening them with my problems, my situations.
Jeff Iorg:So think about building these people into your life, investing in relationships so that
Jeff Iorg:you have mentor, colleague, peer, and everyday friend
Jeff Iorg:around you. Now it'll take some investment to build these relationships. It takes time to build them, but they're worth building because when a dark day comes, when loneliness is your experience, it's good to be able to pick up the phone and call one
Jeff Iorg:of these guys and say, hey, have you got a minute? And know that they will take your call, and in the moment, provide the ministry that you need to make it through the loneliness. So here are three strategies I want you to put into place to build the resources into your life that you'll need when the inevitable periods of loneliness come in ministry leadership. Number one, have realistic expectations. It's real.
Jeff Iorg:Loneliness is real. You'll get through it. Second, cultivate an awareness of God's presence. God is with you. I know that.
Jeff Iorg:You just need to be reminded. You can do that through his word and through prayer. And then build a ministry support team or a friendship team, mentors, colleagues, peers, and everyday friends, people around you that will support you and that you can draw on when those times of loneliness do come. Now, in the context of all of that, one of the questions I get asked when I teach on this is, well, what about my spouse? What about my spouse?
Jeff Iorg:Well, I would certainly add them as a resource, but the reason that I don't put them on my priority list of those top three is because I don't want you to put too much emotional pressure on that one relationship. You know, my wife, Anne, is, is, my dearest, dearest, friend and companion and partner. Love her with a with a blinding passion, frankly, and we have a very close relationship. But neither of us believe that it's healthy to depend on each other for our soul emotional support. That's why I was delighted today that my wife said, this week, I'm having lunch with two different friends.
Jeff Iorg:And I thought, that's fantastic. Go and share life with them. Debrief the concerns you have. Pray about your mutual concerns. Talk about me if you need to.
Jeff Iorg:I'm glad she has people like that that build into her life and she builds into theirs. It's important that you have in your spouse a confidant, a friend, a supporter, and someone who'll stand with you. I get that. I want that. I have that.
Jeff Iorg:But I think it's also unhealthy to put all our emotional eggs, so to speak, in that one basket and to expect that person to be our rock, our bulwark, the strength of our life. I want Anne to be one of those people in my life, but
Jeff Iorg:I don't wanna put it all on her. So I would say, add that to the mix, but let's not let that be the sole focus of what it's gonna take to get us through lonely times. As we come
Jeff Iorg:to the end here, let me talk about what I call special circumstances. There are at least three of these that I wanna highlight as we close out. Number one, what do you do when loneliness turns into depression?
Jeff Iorg:Go see your physician. You need a medical evaluation. And sometimes, what you
Jeff Iorg:may even think of as depression is actually something that's physical that needs to be treated medically. I certainly had this after my cancer surgeries and my thyroid and other things were not working properly. I was really low on some hormonal levels, did not know that. I was almost in cat I was almost catatonic. I I was so depressed.
Jeff Iorg:I went to the doctor. Even there, I wasn't able to make coherent sense of what the doctor was asking me or what I was explaining, but Anne was able to say, he's not normal. Here's why he's different. The doctor changed the number of my medications, and within just days, I started coming out of it. Now, I'm not telling you that that's the solution for everyone's depression.
Jeff Iorg:I'm just telling you that sometimes what feels like loneliness and starts turning into depression isn't really a spiritual problem, it's a medical one. So get medical help and see if that's part of the solution to what you're experiencing. Second, loneliness can also be a problem when ministry settings are very isolating. And I'll say isolating in two ways. Number one, isolating, isolating physically or geographically and also isolating spiritually, meaning that they're you're in a very difficult place where you're working.
Jeff Iorg:The solution for both of these is the same. Whether it's a physical isolation or geographic isolation or whether it's a spiritual isolation, the solution is the same. You gotta pull away. You you've gotta step back and refresh perspective in order to deal with the loneliness that may be overwhelming you in that moment. I had an experience like this a few years ago with missionaries who work remotely in the Amazon.
Jeff Iorg:The I went to speak at a meeting, and I just by God's providence, sat down with this missionary couple. And the minute the woman sat down in the seat across from me, her mouth started moving, and it didn't stop moving about the next forty five minutes. And I thought, I have never heard such a torrent of words in my life and frankly, anything more annoying in this moment than having to listen to all of this. But because, you know, I'm trying to be polite, I'm just sitting there sort of stunned, soaking it all in. And after she had gone on for what seemed like a long time, she finally took a breath and said, I'm so sorry, but you have to understand.
Jeff Iorg:This is the first time I've been able to speak English to anyone outside my family in a year.
Jeff Iorg:They got real quiet at our table. I said, what what do you mean a year?
Jeff Iorg:She said, where we live and work, it's so primitive that it's just our family and everyone around us speaks native dialects, and we're learning those and communicating with them as best we can. But we only get to come out once a year. And when we come out to this meeting once a year, we have a week to ten days here of just refreshment and rejuvenation, and I get to speak English to people who aren't my own family.
Jeff Iorg:Listen. That kind of loneliness, I thank God that the organization pulls them out every now and then and says, come out, rest, reconnect,
Jeff Iorg:find some relational infusion to deal with this loneliness you're experiencing. Similar situation with a friend of mine who works in a very challenging spiritual context. A lot of demonic oppression, a lot of spiritual warfare is hard. He pulls out from time to time, gets into a physically different location, reconnects with Christians and with Christian friends and Christian supporters, rejuvenates himself in that context. If your ministry setting is particularly isolating, geographically or spiritually,
Jeff Iorg:pull back and get the help that you need. And this third situation is similar and that is when your ministry setting is very toxic, meaning that you're in a place that's really hard. You're in
Jeff Iorg:a church that's had great division or turmoil, you're trying to bring it back. You're in a ministry context where there's no church and you're trying to plant one. You're in a place where things would you would describe as toxic. Doesn't mean you get to abandon, but it does mean from time to time you need to pull back. So if you find yourself in a situation where the loneliness is profound and you feel like it's leading to depression or it's leading to deep isolation or it's leading to even some toxicity in your life, get the help you need.
Jeff Iorg:Pull back, check with a physician, get some professional input, find whatever help is necessary to get you through that particularly taxing time. Well, we're talking today about dealing with loneliness in the ministry. It is a paradox, I know. We emphasize relationships and fellowship and community, but still we find ourselves experiencing profound loneliness. You can address it with realistic expectations, cultivating a sense of God's presence and building a friendship team around you to support you when you're lonely and then in these unique situations I've highlighted at the end, pull back if needed, get the help you need to deal with what I call profound loneliness when it settles in.
Jeff Iorg:God will sustain us. Jesus, Paul, David, and countless other biblical leaders tell us their stories of how they went through profound times of loneliness, but at the same time experience God's presence and God's sustaining power to get them through. He will do the same for you today as you lead on.