The other day I spent a few minutes talking to a pastor who I'd never met before. We chatted as we waited for a meeting to start. It was great to find out a little about him, his family and his journey. He and the church was doing great but he described the loneliness he felt in the role. It is certainly not the first time I have heard this from church leaders. In fact if you get behind the front that many of us project, it is a deep struggle for so many of us.
I have spent all of my leadership life at MKCC as part of a leadership team, so to be honest this feeling was foreign to me. My journey as a pastor has never felt lonely, challenging, but never lonely. But he was in a very different situation. He was the only pastor from what he described as a small church.
No matter the size of church leadership can be lonely and I am sure this can be magnified for Senior Leaders. It's not that leaders do not have great friends but they also need great friends that understand the life of a leader. But I don't believe leadership in the community of believers should be lonely. So here are some thoughts on things we can do to reverse this feeling of loneliness.
- Your No. 1 relationship is with God.
- Develop a healthy relationship with your family.
- Pursue a hobby and cultivate the friendships you find there.
- Deal with your insecurities they kill relationship, its about Jesus not you.
- Deal with your insecurities they kill relationship, its about Jesus not you.
- Take the mask off and be authentic.
- Purposely develop and release other leaders.
- Develop a leadership team built around the meal table as well as the boardroom table.
- Stay at the table, no matter what.
- Pursue relationship with leaders you admire.
I'm going to dive into each of these in more detail over the next few days.
Maybe you can suggest other ideas?
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