What is the danger of isolation for a church leader? Dr. Paul Jeon gives practical insight into how pastors and church leaders can guard against isolation and cultivate a life of repentance.
One common pitfall I have noticed about church leaders is a sense of isolation. And what I mean by that is that I know it’s hard for church leaders to balance friendships in the church and so forth, but I think it’s very important for church leaders to have men in their lives who know them deeply, intimately, and who are able to speak truth into their lives. I cannot underscore what a profound difference it has made for me to have a group of men who know the way I tick, who know when I’m just thinking crazy thoughts, and who are able to firmly speak into my life.It’s very important for church leaders to have men in their lives who know them deeply, intimately, and who are able to speak truth into their lives.
And unfortunately, what I have seen in many leaders is that they run away from the very people who offer them insight, who help them out of darkness. And the pattern, again, I’ve seen is that they simply speak to those who have insufficient knowledge. They only get advice from those who tell them what they want to hear. And that’s what I mean by developing isolation, right? It’s very important, if you want to be a healthy church leader, that you have men in your life who know you, who love you, who can speak into your life, so that you can regularly engage in repentance if you want to be healthy, obviously you have to have a robust life of repentance. But I would say that because of the power of sin, we don’t have that kind of insight into our lives. And this is why we need to have men who know us. And we have to be very intentional about not running away from those people.
