I Need A Friend
While reading the book “Changes That Heal” by Dr. Henry Cloud, I came upon a chapter that focused on the topic of “bonding.” It immediately caught my attention knowing the statistics on pastors. Forty two percent of pastors stated that they would leave the ministry today if they could financially survive in another occupation. The top reason given was the issue of anxiety. The second reason was isolation, the place of feeling all alone. I personally believe that these were reversed in order before covid, but can totally understand their position post-covid. The fact is, isolation has always been a struggle for pastors. Who can they really go to? Who can they unload their fears and concerns to? Rather than take the risk of being that vulnerable, they spend their external lives surrounded by people but yet live an internal life of isolation and loneliness. A man living life alone is setting himself up for personal destruction. Ecclesiastes 4:10 states, “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help him up.”
This presents a need for when Dr. Henry Cloud focuses on “bonding.” Bonding is the ability to establish an emotional attachment to another person. It is the ability to relate to another person on the deepest levels of life. My son and pastor, Brad Livingston, often puts it this way, “You need a few people in your life that know enough about you to destroy you, but love you too much to do it.” As a man who pastored for 38 years, I know the struggle pastors have with this statement. Pastors have been so deeply hurt and wounded by the betrayal of those they trusted that they are not looking to put themselves at risk again. Though I understand this completely from personal experience, I also know that the greatest risk and place of danger is to try to maneuver the journey before you alone. When a pastor tries to walk this journey alone, it's not a matter of if, it's just when. When is the burnout or tragedy coming?
I want to challenge you and take you through the process of establishing a true bond with an individual that God has placed into your life as an armor bearer or special friend. I pray you will look at each step and start implementing them into your daily life.
1. Recognize the Need
Many pastors do not realize that many of their problems are the product of a lack of bonding and deep connection with another individual. We are pastors. We are supposed to be strong and fix everyone else's problems. While on this unrealistic journey of solving everyone’s issues, we forgot that we were not designed by God to live life alone. Scripture tells us that a three strand cord is not easily broken. To confess our faults one to another and that it is here that we find our healing. The Apostle Paul declared, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part.” (1 Cor. 12:27) You are part of a body, and you cannot be emotionally amputated from the blood flow and expect to thrive. You must recognize your need and be willing once again to bond with specific individuals in your life again.
2. Make the Move
Don’t wait for others to move toward you. Start praying and asking God to show you who you need in your life as an accountability partner and approach them with the request. Do not have a preconceived idea of who this person may be. Do not over spiritualize it. While trying to maneuver myself through one of the darkest and loneliest times in my life and ministry, a very special pastor friend encouraged me to see a secular counselor. He told me that a christian counselor would be of no use to me at that time because I already knew the scriptures and I was angry at God. Sometimes the first move in your journey may be a licensed counselor. One who can help you in first identifying the inward causes of your fears and deep hurts. One who can help you put your left foot in front of your right and help you learn to walk with hope and purpose again.
3. Be Vulnerable
Just because you are surrounded by people, does not mean you are connected. Most often it means the opposite. Many pastors have this inward ability to surround themselves emotionally with an invisible emotional wall that blocks everyone out of entering into their inner circle. After repeated hurts and wounds, who wants to get hurt again, right? The fact is the term “vulnerable” means open to criticism and attack. This sounds so counterproductive, but the fact is that when we have the right person speaking into our lives the criticism coming from a genuine friend is constructive, not destructive. You need to be so open with your struggle or needs that you are open to attack. The realization of this need is the beginning of true healing and growth. Humility and vulnerability are absolutely necessary for a true level of friendship and bonding to take place.
4. Challenge Distorted Patterns of Thinking
Distorted thinking blocks your ability to relate to others. Distorted thinking is continuing to see life and ministry through the painful hurts and disappointments of your past. You do not see the person God has sent you as a potential friend to help you in walking out your purpose, but rather just another potential person who will eventually betray and hurt you as most others have. We as pastors know this better than anyone else. After one hurt and betrayal after another, it is easy to simply fall into an unconscious or intentional pattern of distorted thinking to try to prevent ourselves from future hurts.
5. Take the Risk
You must take on the responsibility to hear the voice of God and specific people and open the door. People and God will call out to you, but if your distorted thinking and resistance to risk get in the way, you will keep the door closed so that bonding and developing an accountability partner does not take place. Risk being hurt again. It is difficult, but essential in protecting the call and anointing God has placed in your life to lead. We must remember that our calling in Christ is not about us, it’s about people. Once we stop and acknowledge this truth, it helps us to lay aside our pride, ego, hurts, and disappointments, and put ourselves at risk again in order that our lives will be used to impact the lives of others in their pursuit of a life in Christ.
6. Allow Dependent Feelings
When you genuinely allow someone to get this close to the heart that you have isolated, uncomfortable, needy, and dependent feelings will surface. These are the beginning of allowing God to soften a hard heart. Though uncomfortable, these feelings are a key to allowing yourself to become vulnerable and open again. It is here that you lay aside the “I can do this by myself” mindset and acknowledge that you know you cannot do ministry alone. You just can’t. No pastor wants to feel or consider themselves as dependent on others. However, the truth is that we are. We must begin to open ourselves up to embrace the need for positive and healthy relationships, not run from them.
7. Recognize Defenses
Recognize your own particular defenses you have built up against bonding with a friend and accountability partner. Once you see yourself going back to an old pattern of thinking and action, you must stop it immediately. When you find yourself devaluing someone who is trying to love you and help you, you need to stop and allow them to invest in you this time. You are responsible for your own growth. Challenge your old ways of acting and allow the Holy Spirit to empower you to resist your defenses. Like most, if not all of you, I have known deep hurt and pain caused by severe betrayal of those I considered my most loyal friends in ministry. After years of living behind walls of fear and loneliness, I made the decision to open myself up for friendships and accountability. I quickly found myself recognizing the “road blocks” I had established to what I thought was to protect me, but in reality were destroying me. It was only when I identified these and began to work through them individually, that I started establishing and building the amazing relationships I have today.
8. Become Comfortable with Anger
The more you can feel comfortable with angry feelings toward people, the more you can integrate those feelings into a healthy relationship and not spoil it. Too many try to leave the “angry” aspect of their feelings in hiding believing that it is the unlovable aspect of who they are. In reality, allowing yourself to become comfortable with your anger allows you to deal with the causes of that anger in a positive and constructive manner. The fact is that it's ok to be angry. It’s ok to be upset when injustice is committed against you or your family. You just can’t build a house of anger and live there. Anger always requires the help of a friend to find freedom from. It will never happen alone. Our pride will not allow it.
9. Pray and Meditate
The Psalmist David cried out to God in Psalms 139:23,24 “Search me oh God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
As you pray David’s prayer, God will reveal the true nature and state of being of your heart. Ask God to unravel the problems you have in your ability to seek out others, trust again, and allow yourself to bond with them as an accountability partner and friend.
10. Be Emphatic
Empathy is the ability to share in another's emotions, thoughts, or feelings. Empathizing with others’ needs and identifying with their hurt, softens your own heart. Getting close to the hurt and pain of others without question helps melt down the fears and causes of your hardened heart. It is here that you identify with the one struggling in order to get in touch with your own hurt and loneliness. The greatest way of breaking down our door of hurt and disappointment is walking through the door of someone else who is hurting. There is something uniquely special that takes place within us when we recognize the fact that God is using our lives to impact the lives of others, especially in the time of our deepest pain.
11. Rely on the Holy Spirit
It is the Holy Spirit who empowers you to change and to come out from the bondage of your old ways of being. Take specific and intentional times to ask him to free you from the death grip your own defenses have on you and to give you the courage to take the first steps in trusting and bonding with others. As I’ve said before, you can’t do this alone. Every time you start moving forward and find yourself at the crossroad of the fear of risk again, ask for help. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. Allow him to help you make changes that heal.
12. Say Yes to Life
The task of acknowledging the true condition of your heart and seeking to bond with both God and others is saying yes to life. It is saying yes to God and other's invitation to connect with them on a special level. One of building true friendship and accountability. Those who struggle with isolation say no to potential relationships in many ways. When you hide behind defense mechanisms, you are saying no. When you make excuses, you are saying no. Connection requires that you begin to say yes to love, concern, and kindness when it presents itself. This means you must say yes to invitations to meet with another pastor or friend rather than always withdrawing. It may mean giving a different answer in a safe context when asked, "How are you doing”. It may mean you empathize with another person's hurt. Whatever the opportunity, it means saying yes to the opportunity for a true and genuine relationship with others.
Let’s go back to the top two reasons pastors said they would quit the ministry today if they could financially survive doing something else. First is anxiety and second is isolation. These are easily fixed. These are not deal breakers. These are not ministry stoppers. We are here to help you. If you find yourself fighting either of these, I ask that you please reach out to us at Pastor to Pastor. We are here to help. We are here to be that friend you can trust and know you have a very safe place to run to.
