The Gospel Coalition published a version of this article on September 26, 2022.
Last fall I reached a saturation point of loneliness in ministry. I felt achingly, painfully alone. My body let me know it every time I was at church. For two months I could not focus on sermon prep, though preaching has been my ministry passion since the late 90s. Unable to function in my role, I took an emergency Sabbatical and quietly planned to walk away from the pastorate.
Loneliness is suffocating. Crushing. God declared Adam’s aloneness “not good” and created Eve for a relationship in which they could be naked and not ashamed, fully known and fully accepted. Yet since the fall we have covered ourselves up, such that loneliness can happen in a crowd, like dying of thirst while surrounded by ocean water.
Moses lamented, “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me” (Num. 11:14). Elijah cried from a cave, “I only . . . am left” (1 Kings 19:10). Despite the 70 elders among the wilderness wanderers or the 7,000 who hadn’t bent the knee to Baal, both men felt such bitter isolation that they pleaded with God to take their lives.
Like Moses and Elijah, I am surrounded by solid ministry friends. I attend a monthly pastors’ group with wise, compassionate brothers. I have an accountability partner. My relationship with my wife and siblings is rich and sweet. But carrying loneliness in ministry is like carrying the grief of losing someone close to you. You can call your friend once or twice and bring it up occasionally to fellow church leaders, but you’re never quite sure when it’s appropriate to broach to subject. When my dad died unexpectedly four years ago, I gave space for the pain by joining a GriefShare group where I knew a few hours each week were designated for feeling this loss. So when I hit the low point of loneliness I joined a local, weekly group led by Christian therapists that was focused on being known.
As we told our stories and weekly updates in the group, the leaders frequently pushed the pause button to ask what others were feeling as they heard that person share. Hearing that emotional resonance (“I feel angry that he said that to you!” or “I feel so much joy that you were able to do that!”) was like binding one heart to another with needle and thread. The connection doubled back when the facilitator asked the person who initially shared to reflect on how those emotional responses made him feel. Yet another round of threading the hearts happened when the other participants reflected on how they felt, knowing that their words had such an impact. The depth of relationship we experienced was profound.
This “liturgy” in a Confessional Community is spelled out by Curt Thompson (one of the group facilitators) in his book, The Soul of Desire. When I asked my therapist, the other facilitator, what practices I could put in place to avoid tasting this dreadful loneliness again, he encouraged me to start a group like this with other pastors.
My criterion was simple: Who is longing for connection enough to spend an hour together each week? With prayer and time I asked three pastor friends who immediately said yes, though they had their suspicions about this approach. Talking about our feelings? Telling our stories? Needless to say, our immersion in conservative evangelicalism had not conditioned us for this sort of thing. One member admitted his early logic that, since the meeting was over Zoom, he could simply bail if it got weird. Not only did nobody bail; a few weeks in there was a unanimous consent that we needed to meet for an hour and a half each week. The group quickly felt indispensable, fostering connection and emotional ballast none of us has experienced in other groups.
We have discovered together that, for all our skill with the hearts of others, it can be difficult to unearth our own feelings, desires, motives, and hurts. The questions we ask most frequently—“What are you feeling right now? What do you want? What story are you telling yourself?”—are challenging to answer. Facility with language, for all its benefits in the pulpit, can also prevent us from truly being known to ourselves and to others. We frequently have to reel each other in from preaching mode so we can recenter on our objective: to be known.
From this place of connection with those outside of my church, God has opened up opportunities to create similar spaces within the church. I have met weekly with a group of dads for whom family life has become overwhelming and a group of widows ranging from their 70s to their 90s. In each case, we acknowledge that they are in a season of life when no one is pursuing them, asking what they feel and need and want. While there are always life updates to share, I frequently pull out the feelings wheel and ask them to name what they are experiencing in that blowup, in that identification theft nightmare, in that loss of an adult son. Then we walk through the liturgy, because we truly want to know them and want them to know how their story impacts ours. Even though we cannot change the group member’s circumstances, they walk away knowing they are not alone.
The most surprising outcome of this new way of interacting—which on the surface seemed therapeutic in the most suspicious sense of the word—is how it has opened up new channels of sanctification. This shared exploration of feelings, desires, and narratives has become a gospel delivery system, making way for the crucified and risen Christ to bring deeper healing in places formerly untouched. I have experienced a greater wholeness of heart because we intentionally create an environment where wounded parts can be unveiled, so that the guilt and shame found there can encounter the grace of Jesus.
In God’s kind providence, I did not walk away from the pastorate. Now it is my privilege to walk alongside others as we seek to address loneliness by prioritizing being known, in anticipation of that day when the partial gives way to the perfect and “I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
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