5 Ways To Tell If You’re An Isolated Pastor

It’s amazing that in our connected culture, it might be easier than ever to be isolated as a pastor. I knew a pastor who felt that all his ministry time could be spent in his office. He rarely ventured out of the church facility to visit with church members, let alone community people. His vision dried up. He began spending more time in planning, preparation, study, administrative tasks, and ministry stuff, not realizing that the central focus of true ministry is people. And people necessitate relationships.

In this week’s podcast we talk about what drives us to do what we do with 200churches, the podcast and the blog site. We talk about the nitty gritty of ministry, and in the conversation, we touch on isolation in ministry. I wonder if you are reading this, and realizing that you have become somewhat isolated as a pastor.

Here are five ways to tell if you are isolated in ministry.

1. You spend most of your ministry time in your office. Unless you are in an administrative role, you should not spend more than half your weekly work hours in your office. There are always exceptions. You might counsel a lot of people, or hold many planning meetings with others, but as a rule, the more time you spend with real, live people – the better. Get out of your office and into the community!
2. You are communicating and collaborating less and less. If you are making plans on your own, not conferring with others, avoiding phone calls and email – you might be isolated. Ministry involves a huge amount of communication. You should come home at night and not want to answer the phone, because you have ministered to people all day. We do need time to pray and study, of course, but communication is a must – the more the better.
3. You are keeping secrets. Phone calls you make, stuff you order online, websites you visit, places you go, the shortcuts you take when you study and prepare messages, Facebook interactions, fears, insecurities, financial transactions, emails, and even your eating or drinking habits are things you keep secrets about. No one knows everything about you, not even your husband or wife. Secrets are becoming more routine and normal in your life.
4. You have no interactions with other ministries or ministry leaders. You don’t know what’s going on in other churches… anywhere! You’ve stopped keeping in touch with friends in ministry. You avoid going to ministerial association meetings or pastor’s fellowships. You don’t want to hear about the success of other ministries. You don’t want to talk with other pastors for fear they might ask about your “tiny” ministry. You are not spending time with ministry friends, even avoiding some within your own church. 
5. You get zero input or feedback on your messages. You don’t confer with other people on what you should preach, or what directions you might take for message series. You write the message yourself, and then immediately forget it when it’s done, quickly moving on to next week’s prep. You don’t listen to other messages. You don’t listen to anything that might better your preaching. You are insecure about the quality of your messages.
   

If at least three of the above five situations apply to you – YOU are becoming isolated. That’s a bad place to be. You need to talk with someone this week about it. Find someone you trust, someone you can confide in. If you have no one, contact me or Jonny – me, if you’re an older pastor, or Jonny if you’re hip and “with it”! Our email addresses are on the contact page of 200churches.com.

We’ll touch on this in the podcast on Wednesday, then on Friday, we’ll share some ideas to climb out of that isolation. God wants us to connect with the body of Christ, and with the world he so loves. He wants us to do ministry in community. He wants you to get your life back too!

What are some other clues that a pastor might be isolated in ministry?