Isolated Pastors?

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about the isolation of leaders and some of the reasons for it. I did a quick survey of pastors. The response was low and probably not very broad in terms of geography, denominations, etc. But here are the results...…there’s good news and bad news.

Dr. Henry Cloud found that 80% of leaders don’t have someone they can confide in, don’t have someone totally committed to their development and struggle with clinical symptoms of anxiety/stress, depression, sleeplessness, inability to concentrate, addictions, etc.

In my sample, pastors are significantly more connected and have someone or a group with whom they can be 100% honest and vulnerable about weaknesses, failures, doubts, etc. More than half strongly agree that they have someone they can confide in. Only a third said they didn’t. This is a statistically significant difference from Dr. Cloud’s results. The actual proportion of isolated pastors, if we surveyed all of them, could be really low (3 out of 100) or close to two-thirds. (The only way to narrow this prediction is to have more respondents to the survey.) It is appears at least in this limited circle of pastors, that the level of isolation is not as high as Dr. Cloud’s group.

However, there wasn’t a significant difference in the survey group on the question of support and mentoring. More than half of the pastors said they didn’t have someone or a group that was totally committed to their development as a leader. With a larger surveyed pool, we might the proportion to be as low as 25% or as high as nearly 9 in 10 pastors don’t have someone in their corner to help.

In the last year, this set of pastors are just like other leaders in that they’ve experienced burnout, loss of energy, difficulty with motivation, concentration/focus loss, anxiety/stress, depression, addiction to damaging behaviors, sleeplessness, etc. More than two-thirds reported some experience of these issues. Almost a quarter of them reported it on a monthly basis. Another quarter reported they’ve suffered on a quarterly basis. (As a business owner, I know sleeplessness was my bugaboo when things weren’t going well.)

Though pastors seem to be connected and can share their struggles, they don’t seem to have a place to turn for help. As Dr. Cloud writes in The Power of the Other, “…the leaders who accomplish the most, thrive the most, overcome the most are not afraid to say they need help.” (author’s emphasis).  

We need to help pastors overcome the inability to ask for help to grow as a leader and deal with the church issues that “drive them to drink” and “keep them up at night” (euphemistically and literally). It’s helpful to tell others their struggles but to overcome the isolation, they need to have a partner to get them through the tough times.