Joe McKeever has written a few interesting posts this week, including this one, concerning the topic “the preacher needs a buddy.” The basic premise is that too many pastors (a broad term encompassing all kinds of ministers and missionaries) go it alone. They don’t have a minister friend or two or a group of ministers that they meet with on a regular basis. McKeever makes three really good points:

First, he says that God made us to need the companionship of fellow disciples.

God has made us so that we who are called to proclaim His word need the fellowship, comfort, and encouragement of others similarly called. We need the accountability, the exhortation, and occasionally the rebuke of our peers. We need friends in the ministry.

 Second, one of the first effects of sin is to isolate us.

Sin isolates. Just as it keeps backsliding Christians home on Sundays, it locks pastors inside their homes or studies lest they should get with a brother (I would add ‘or sister’) in Christ and be healed.

Third, preachers need to hang out with one another.

The best thing groups of pastors do with each other is not to sit in rows and listen to someone preach. That’s the last thing they need as a rule. What they need is to fill their coffee cups, pull their chairs into a circle, and have someone say, “Okay, what shall we talk about today?” and then wait. Just wait.

I think McKeever is right on here. I have been blessed to have minister friends that I can meet with regularly everywhere I have served. In the past, those friends and groups of ministers have always centered around youth ministry. Today, I meet regularly with three close friends, two who are in youth ministry and one who is a senior pastor. It’s one of the best things I do for myself – for my own growth and for my sanity.