Pastors who have other pastors as trusted friends have found special nurture in these relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to panelists on a recent session of the Barna Group’s “ChurchPulse Weekly” podcast.
Friendships that helped pastors maintain emotional health amid the fears of being closed down in 2020 and of the trauma of members not returning in 2021 continue to guide pastors wrestling with hybrid church models, preaching and other challenges that remain, said Dave Lomas, teaching and vision pastor at Reality San Francisco.
Dave Lomas
“When I think of the last two years, really it has been friendships that have gotten me through,” he said. “I have some really close friendships with pastors, and the commiseration that happens is so invaluable. To be honest without holding anything back or trying to impress this other person, and still be loved, is huge.”
The podcast was moderated by author, speaker and former Canadian megachurch pastor Carey Nieuwhof, who was joined by author and Barna CEO David Kinnaman. Together with Lomas, they discussed the spiritual and emotional vitalities church leaders experience from solid friendships.
Kinnaman said 60% of pastors recently reported feeling lonely, while only one in five rated their satisfaction with friendship as “excellent.” Meanwhile, 12% rated their satisfaction with their friendships at “below average” or “poor.”
Kinnaman also reported that 58% of pastors told Barna their closest friends include pastors who live in other cities while only 31% say their closest friends reside in their own city. Additionally, 44% reported having close friends within their congregations.
Pastors must be creative in finding spiritual and emotional nourishment and they must be honest about their struggles, he said. “Paying attention to that interior world is just really important. We must find resilience in the Lord, first, and in friendships and in our callings.”
Carey Nieuwhof
Nieuwhof said he’s concerned for pastors who are living without supportive friendships as the church and society move into a third year of crisis.
“To me, deep, authentic friendships are like a reset,” he explained. “You have some really good quality time and say, OK, I can live to see another day. And I think that’s one of God’s gifts. That’s my hope for leaders as we head into 2022 that they would find some more friendships.”
Among the most difficult realities to endure is the on-again, off-again nature of the pandemic, Kinnaman said. “It feels like when we finally have a little glimmer of hope and maybe a big glimmer of hope, that we have turned the corner and the tide is going out, that the rug is pulled out from under you.”
The result is that many pastors are more depleted going into 2022 than they predicted.
“There are many who are doing well, but there are many challenges. People have left. They haven’t come back. People just disappeared,” Kinnaman said. “It takes a toll on leaders when people we thought we were close to us just sort of vanish.”
Yet the Barna leader said he does see some positive signs emerging from two years of crisis.
David Kinnaman
“In light of all the mental health challenges, in light of all these relational challenges and social isolation that we’ve been through, I think one of the great aspects of our current environment is that people are pretty honest. Leaders are pretty honest. … I think it’s actually a huge opportunity with Millennials and Gen Z that they are pretty willing and pretty open to talk just about anything and they don’t see mental health and some of these questions as taboo, which I believe is such an important opportunity for the church.”
Lomas credited his existing close relationships with other church planters as helping him weather the challenges of 2020 and 2021, but he added that those long-term connections are needed even without a pandemic.
“If we want to be doing this into our 70s, we have to be around people who will be like guardrails to us to keep us theologically faithful and faithful to the ministry and faithful to our vocation,” he said.
Pastors who are missing those relationships should reach out to and collaborate with ministers in church situations similar to their own, Lomas said. “If you have a starting point where you are all trying to figure it out together, that is like this glue that binds you together.”
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