A Community of Shepherds

“I can handle this.” 

That’s what Pastor Scott Barber told himself. And yet, the stress kept mounting. Ministry felt like running on a hamster wheel. He was saying yes to too many “good” opportunities and felt controlled by the tyranny of the urgent. 

And yet, Scott kept pressing forward, believing somehow things would get better on their own. “This is just a season,” he told himself. “It will pass.”

But things didn’t get better. Scott would respond to texts and phone calls on his days off, during meals, and time with his family. Frustrated, his wife reminded him, “Remember our rule of no phones at the table? This is our time together. Can’t it wait?” 

“I had given away my margin,” Scott recalls. “My desire to be a good shepherd had become an idol. Once again, I was sacrificing my family on the altar of my need to be needed.” In a recent article, Scott shares how this brought him to the breaking point.

As decision- and compassion-fatigue mounted, I could feel the overload impacting my judgment. Stress manifested in my body through growing fatigue, anxiety, and tension. I constantly looked ahead to my next day off. I was redlining—again.

I’ve been here before, I told myself. I can handle this.

In the busyness, I’d replaced my daily soul-feeding practices of devotion, abiding, and prayer with trying to feed myself through productivity, sermon writing, and small group prep. To survive, I compartmentalized. For now, I was a shepherd to my congregation, not one of God’s sheep.

As the stress accumulated, the desire for escape increased, resurfacing old temptations in my body and thought life. Initially, my willpower provided enough strength to ignore them, but the temptations persisted. I can’t have these thoughts. I’m a pastor! The warning sirens in my body finally began to break through the deafened ears of my soul.

I was wrong. I can’t handle this. I know better. I’m burning out—again. But where can I go?

Who Can I Bear My Soul To?

Peter Greer, President and CEO of HOPE International, tells the story of a safari guide in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park who pointed to a lone gazelle and asked his group, “Do you know what that is called?”

“Gazelle!” someone shouted. “No,” replied the guide. “Dinner.”

For many executive leaders, the anecdote hits close to home. Nobody plans to isolate themselves, yet ministry demands often push leaders into isolation over time. Just like that gazelle, a separated leader is left exposed to external threats.

Being a pastor is a high calling. It can also be a lonely one. “Who can I bear my soul to? Who can I be unfiltered with about my struggles, fears, and burdens?” Pastors wonder, “How would people respond if I were honest with others? Would my congregation think less of me? Would my elders take me out of the pulpit?”

For many pastors, the risk of opening up to others is too high. Scott Barber writes, “As pastors, we often feel there’s no place for us to be truly honest. It’s easy to hide in the crowd. It’s risky to open our hearts to others. It’s easy to avoid relational depth and vulnerability for the sake of more ‘important things,’ like theology or ministry strategy, war stories, or successes.” 

When the Sermon Ends

Pastors stand before congregations each week offering spiritual guidance, biblical wisdom, and pastoral care. They counsel marriages, navigate conflict, and shepherd families through crisis. But when the sermon ends and the sanctuary empties, many pastors face a different reality: deep, persistent loneliness.

Barna Group, The Friendship Gap for Pastors

A recent Barna study (The Relationships of Today’s Pastors) found that 2 in 5 pastors feel lonely and isolated, and only 1 in 3 has a trusted confidant outside their church. Despite scoring 

high in faith and vocation, pastors score lowest in relational well-being.

One area where pastors excel relationally is in their marriages. According to Barna’s Inside the Friendship Gap for Pastors, 76 percent say their spouse is their best friend. More than half say their spouse understands their struggles (53%) and communicates with them about them in a healthy way (52%). However, outside their marriages, there is a meaningful gap in friendships.

For many pastors, loneliness is more than just being alone. It’s about not feeling seen or supported within a community. “This is a red flag for long-term sustainability in leadership,” writes Barna CEO David Kinnaman. “Friendship, vulnerability, and spiritual direction aren’t luxuries — they’re lifelines.”

In 2022, Barna found that 42 percent of pastors had considered quitting full-time ministry in the past year. Over half of them (56%) say “the immense stress of the job” was a factor in considering leaving the pulpit.

Pastors carry the weight of daily stress and pressure in their role, but many lack real support and community to manage both well. Pastors don’t just need the encouraging words of their congregation. They need a community outside their church they can confide in. Or, as Rev. Dr. Glenn Packiam, author of The Resilient Pastor, writes:

We need sages to advise us, leaders to direct us or hold us accountable, peers to remind us that we aren’t alone, healers to dress our wounds and companions who carry us when we can’t carry on.

The Value of Trusted Peers

Mike Sharrow is the CEO of C12 Business Forums, the world’s largest peer-learning organization for Christian CEOs and executives. In Accountability: The Secret to Successful Leadership, he writes, “Leaders can be socially overextended yet relationally starved, surrounded by demands yet lacking the very thing they need most: meaningful accountability.”

Without trusted peers who understand their struggles and circumstances, executive leaders can live in echo chambers, receiving little to no feedback from others. Over time, cracks in a leader’s character go unnoticed, putting them and others at risk.

Sharrow writes:

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: Most leaders want accountability, even if they rarely admit it. Among the thousands of CEOs and executives in C12, accountability is the number one driver of loyalty and engagement. Leaders who experience it consistently report sharper decision-making, clarified priorities, and the ability to model the very integrity they long to see replicated across their teams.

Great leadership isn’t forged in a vacuum. It happens within community. “That kind of leadership requires intentional structures, open channels of feedback, and early interventions that prevent costly recoveries later,” Sharrow writes. “We cannot separate who we are from how we lead.”

Build the Council

In Good to Great, author Jim Collins introduced many concepts we know today. One concept is the Hedgehog — you simplify complexity and focus on what is essential while ignoring everything else. Another concept is the Flywheel — breakthroughs come from compounding momentum, which requires consistent, disciplined actions over time.

Another key concept from the book is the Council — an advisory group of the right people engaging in dialogue and rigorous debate to gain deep understanding and help a leader make better decisions.

Most leaders lack a group like this or feel too busy to create one themselves. That’s why, in 1992, C12 launched its Business Forums with principles that align with Collins’ Council. Within these peer learning environments, leaders learn new ideas, solve complex problems, and become better leaders together.

C12 Arkansas Chair Dee Brown has seen some leaders push back on C12’s once-a-month commitment. “There’s no way I could get away for a whole day once a month to work on my business,” they’ve told him. However, many of those leaders changed their minds once they experienced a forum for themselves. It becomes vital to their leadership and business. “The transformation that occurs in these leaders is visible and life-giving,” Brown says.

What results has Brown seen among leaders firsthand in his forums? He mentions five:

• Improved leadership skills
• Ideas that can be readily implemented
• Healthier organizations
• Greater staff engagement and care
• Organizational growth

A Strategic Planning Day for Pastors

Seeing the results from forums like C12 and understanding the relational gap among pastors, our CityChurch Network team started wondering: Could peer learning environments give pastors the support they need to thrive in their calling?

In January, our team began conversations with pastors in our network about creating leadership cohorts for pastors and senior leaders based on the peer learning environment model. The feedback from pastors was unanimous: “That’s what I need. Sign me up.” It became clear to us that the need was there. So was the desire.

Beginning this fall, CityChurch Network will launch its first leadership cohort for pastors and senior leaders. We will launch 1-3 groups this year with the goal of launching more groups throughout the state in the coming years.

Most leadership development happens in a passive setting. Think: classroom or conference. You listen to a lecture, hope it sticks, and try to apply it alone. Our leadership cohorts are different. We build them around how leaders learn best. Real growth happens through ongoing relationships with trusted peers who understand their challenges. Using a model trusted by thousands of leaders across the globe, these monthly cohorts help pastors build deep friendships and apply new insights directly to their ministry.

Cohorts give pastors a strategic planning day for their church every month, which includes:

• Over 200 years of collective ministry experience around the table
• Real sharing of life and ministry
• Practical tools for measuring church health, identifying gaps, and setting goals
• Peer-driven discussion on topics that help pastors grow as leaders and avoid blind spots
• Trusted peers who celebrate wins and hold one another accountable

Fighting the Good Fight

The sad truth is many pastors don’t live in the gospel community. Is it any wonder that many of them burn out, live in quiet desperation, or fail morally? Isolation is dangerous, and pastors too often feel its gravitational pull.

“Pastors, you are the immune system of our movement,” Scott Barber writes. “Just as our immune system works together to protect us from germs and disease, the interconnectedness and interdependence of pastors facilitate the health and protection of the entire body of Christ. When pastors gather in vulnerability and honesty—to heal from our sin and individual wounds—the Holy Spirit extends that redemptive (healing) work of Christ to our local congregations and the broader movement of the gospel.”

At the beginning of the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven, the film’s villain, Calvara, plunders a Mexican village. In response, the town elders hire gunfighter Chris Adams for protection. Knowing he can’t take on Calvara’s gang alone, Adams recruits six skilled mercenaries to help him. Together, they fortify the town and train the local farmers. Despite overwhelming odds, Adams and his men stand their ground and launch a final assault to defeat Calvara’s gang.

Pastors are not Lone Rangers. They need others to help them fight the good fight of faith. The question we’re asking pastors is, “Are you fighting alone or alongside others?” For the sake of their health, their families, and their congregations, our prayer is that they would choose to fight alongside others in community.

They’re too important to the movement.