The Inestimable Value of a Pastor's Fellowship

If you've been in ministry for almost any length of time, then like me, you've almost certainly had the experience of having someone show up at your church who seemed to really be on fire for the Lord. He signed up for every Bible study your church offered. He began to give generously. He asked good, penetrating questions about your sermons. He got really involved in service. You may have even begun to wonder if he would make a good elder at some point.

But then, within a year or two, you started to see a lot less of him. One by one, he dropped out of the small groups he was involved in. He stopped responding to your calls and text messages as he isolated himself more and more. Whenever you did get in touch with him, he said he was doing fine—he was just really busy at work and hoped to be back soon. But before you knew it, six months had passed since you last saw him. And eventually, you heard that he was having an affair and had left his wife, making shipwreck of his faith.

The Bible says, "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment" (Prov. 18:1). The surest sign that someone is in spiritual trouble is when they begin to isolate themselves. Sin breeds in isolation like bacteria in a petri dish.

It's easy enough to look around and find examples of people like that—men and women who were once deeply involved in our ministries, who isolated themselves, and who ended up making shipwreck of their faith. But I wonder how many pastors are in danger of doing the very same thing, conducting most of their ministry in isolation from other godly pastors who might otherwise be a tremendous help to them.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 speaks to this:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

The case for a pastor's fellowship is essentially twofold: it is inestimably valuable because of the greatness of our need and the greatness of the kingdom.

Ecclesiastes 4:9 is straightforward: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil." Collaboration and ministry productivity are legitimate reasons why two are better than one. Two people can accomplish more than one person alone.

But notice where the weight of the remainder of the passage falls. Verses 10 through 12 aren’t about productivity. They’re about survival. When great need comes, two are able to support one another in ways that one alone simply cannot. The passage is less concerned with what we can accomplish together and more concerned with what happens to us when we are alone.

Hugh Black captures this well in his book, The Art of Being a Good Friend:

"To have a heart that we can trust, and into which we can pour our griefs, our doubts, and our fears, is already to take the edge from the grief, and the sting from doubt, and the shade from fear.… Joy also demands that its joy should be shared. A simple, generous friendship will thus add to the joy and divide the sorrow."_¹

Paul said it concisely: "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). The immediate application of that exhortation is within the local church. But could there not be a broader application in the way pastors bear one another's burdens in the ministry? Just knowing that there are men who care for you, who are praying for you, who will take your call—that is a privilege of inestimable value.

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13:31–33:

He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." He told them another parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened."

The size of the mustard plant and the distribution of the leaven remind us that there is a lot more going on in the kingdom of God than what is happening in our small corner of the world. A pastor's fellowship is a means of celebrating the greatness of God's kingdom work. Maybe things aren't going so well for you right now, but if your friends in other churches are doing well, then you can join them in rejoicing in what God is doing with their churches in and in their lives.

It seems obvious from the pages of the New Testament that there was a mutual affection and even a level of interdependency within the early churches. Poor churches supported other poor churches that were even worse off than they were. The nature of that interdependency was far more relational than formal—it was their relationship with Paul that connected these churches with one another so deeply that they were willing to give from their very meager resources to support others.

I wonder what would happen if our relationships with one another today began to fulfill a similar purpose in our own ministries.

Not every pastors' fellowship is worth investing in. In my experience, the best fellowships are built on two commonalities: common convictions and common affections.

Common convictions are the kinds of theological commitments that have an outsized influence on the way you conduct your ministry—and that you’re tired of fighting about. Issues like reformed theology, charismatic gifts, church government, etc.. It's not that we can’t have fellowship with men who disagree on these matters, but in practice there will always be a guardedness that keeps you from being fully at ease.

Common affections are the things that make your heart sing in ministry: expository preaching, biblical counseling, the primacy of the local church. These are the commitments that draw you to certain men and make you want to spend time with them.

The absence of these two distinctives is what makes so many pastors' fellowships more of a duty than a delight, and why so many pastors don't participate at all. If you have to be on your guard, you'd rather just stay in your office.

A successful pastors' fellowship is a pay-to-play ministry, but the currency isn’t money. It’s time. Pastors tend to be shockingly, disconcertingly busy men. Sometimes fitting in one more thing—even a good thing—feels impossible.

But every one of us has the exact same amount of time. It’s not about managing time. It’s about managing commitments. If it is truly an inestimable good that like-minded pastors gather together for fellowship, then we must have the courage to say no to other things—even very good things—so that we can say yes to this. J. I. Packer used to say that we should never let the good be the enemy of the best.

You can buy books online. You can take classes online. But you cannot buy fellowship online. There is no shortcut. If pastors were willing to come out of their hiding places for a meal and prayer with other like-minded men, I believe they would quickly begin to grasp the inestimable value of such gatherings. The cost is real. But so is the cost of going it alone—and that bill always comes due.

¹Hugh Black, The Art of Being a Good Friend (Manchester, NH: Heritage, 2019), 38–39.