Being a Safe Place for Your Pastor (Because They Need It Too)

How to Be Someone Your Pastor Can Actually Trust

One of the most challenging parts of serving in ministry—whether in a leadership role or as part of a team—is knowing who you can trust when things get difficult. Pastors and ministry leaders often feel isolated because they aren't sure where to turn when they're struggling. Can they be honest with congregants? Can they open up to friends who also serve in the church? Will their honesty be used against them or taken out of context? Who can they trust with the weight of ministry life?

As a pastor or a pastor’s wife, the temptation may be to trust no one. I want to encourage you to fight that. Relationship takes risks, but when you have the chance to encounter life-giving relationships in pastoral ministry, it is well worth the risk. Leaders are not called to a life of isolation. Living in constant fear and distrust will cost you more than you realize. Ministry is hard enough without feeling like you're walking it alone. God designed us for community; having safe, trustworthy people in your corner can make all the difference.

Why Your Pastor Needs Safe People

Ministry carries a tremendous and unique weight. It’s emotionally, spiritually, and even physically demanding at times. Pastors are often expected to pour into others but also need spaces where they can be poured into. Pastors can become vulnerable to burnout, bitterness, and deep loneliness without safe people. We have seen this occur over the past few years as we have watched pastors in the spotlight fall to various scandals and heartache. When you go back and actually listen to the pastors on the other side of the scandal, many of them admit to the pressures of ministry, burnout, experiencing loneliness, the list goes on. I genuinely think that having “safe people” can play a critical role in avoiding so much heartache and pain.

Safe people provide a place where your pastor can exhale, breathe, and be real. They need to know that someone will pray for them, encourage them, and help carry the burden when it becomes too heavy. Safe people give pastors the freedom to be honest without fear of judgment or betrayal. They need someone who can hold space for them—whether that’s through tears, venting, or just sitting in silence together. This can make all of the difference when it comes to the longevity of the ministry.

What It Means to Be a Safe Person

If you want to be a safe person for your pastor, there are some key traits that build trust and create a secure space for them to open up. Here’s what being a safe person looks like:

1. Trustworthiness
This is non-negotiable. Can your pastor trust that what they share with you will stay with you? If they confide in you about a struggle, will you guard that information or let it slip out in casual conversation? Trust takes time to build but can be destroyed in a single moment of carelessness. A safe person values confidentiality and never treats someone else’s vulnerability as gossip material.

2. Honesty
Your pastor needs someone who will tell them the truth in love. Can you handle their unfiltered moments without getting offended? Can you give them grace during their moments of imperfection and be real with them? Can they share their doubts, struggles, and unpolished thoughts without feeling like they’ll be judged or misunderstood? A safe person creates room for honesty without condemnation.

3. Spiritual Maturity
Ministry is spiritual work, so a safe person should be spiritually grounded. A safe person will point your pastor back to Jesus, not just give human advice. They won’t offer quick fixes or unbiblical solutions but will listen, pray, and give wisdom rooted in God’s Word.

4. Consistency
Ministry has highs and lows, and your pastor needs someone to walk them through both. A safe person isn’t only available when it’s convenient. They show up when it’s hard, uncomfortable, and messy. A safe person is consistent and reliable.

5. Loyalty
Loyalty doesn’t mean blind allegiance—it means standing by your pastor when it counts. If others gossip or tear down your pastor, a safe person will shut it down. A loyal person will defend their character when they’re not in the room and will refuse to engage in toxic conversations about them. Loyalty means standing in the gap even when it costs you something.

How to Be a Safe Person for Your Pastor

If you feel called to be a safe person for your pastor, start by praying. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and sensitivity to know when to offer support and when to give space. Here are some practical ways to cultivate safety and trust:

• Listen more than you speak. Sometimes, your pastor just needs someone to sit with them and hear them out without offering a solution. Pastors are in the role of listeners, encouragers, advice givers, biblical counselors, and more. We are always blessed and encouraged when people reach out with three simple words and mean it, “How are you?” or “How can I pray for you?”

• Guard their confidence. Hold that in sacred confidence if they trust you enough to open up. There was a time when I was writing to a person through text message, and they took my message, screenshot it, and meant to send it to someone else but sent it back to me accidentally. That severed any trust I thought I had in the person and made me wary. I learned a few things: first, meaningful conversations should occur verbally, be wise with anything you wouldn’t want someone to have a “receipt of,” and listen to your discernment. Treat every message like someone is screenshotting it, and be wise.

• Pray for them. Not just in passing—regularly lift them up before the Lord when you think about it. The spiritual warfare is real, ESPECIALLY on a Sunday morning.

  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. - Ephesians 6:12 NIV

• Be present. Show up when it matters—whether it's a tough ministry day, a personal loss, or just an ordinary Tuesday when they need a friend. This week, my husband and I faced a terrible bout of the neurovirus. Our community rallied around us: they dropped off our Target order with my husband’s favorite slushy drink in the mix, offered Doordash our food, and made themselves available to take the kids to school if necessary, but what meant the most? Those messages just checking-in. It’s genuinely not about what you can do, but just knowing you have people in the wings who genuinely care for you as people means the world to your leaders.

• Avoid judgment. Ministry is complex and nuanced, and pastors face unique struggles. Be a soft place for them to land, not another source of criticism. We are already incredibly hard on ourselves, and our inner critic actually never shuts up. We beat ourselves up when we fall short, and knowing that there are safe people with whom we can share our hearts is really special.

• Let them be a human. This past week, I had the joy of being treated to dinner for my birthday with a few of my close friends from church. Before the dinner, I texted something along the lines of, “I’m super excited for tonight! My only request is that tonight I can be Natalie, and we can avoid any church topics and just have fun!” There are occasions when I think I am heading into what is supposed to be a fun, lighthearted time with friends, but it turns into a venting/meeting/counseling situation. Listen, as a pastor’s wife, this is par for the course, and I truly am blessed when I can speak into someone’s life and encourage them. However, I don’t like to be blindsided, particularly if it’s a venting/complaining session. I want to give you a scenario. Imagine your pastors have walked through a difficult week. They have encouraged one another, helped lead meetings, engaged in troubleshooting, talked with disgruntled church members, counseled people, and worked. They have a silver lining in all of this, and it’s that they get to grab a bite to eat with some of their friends. However, when they arrive to eat with her friends, they are met with a list of things they are also disgruntled about, and what was supposed to be a fun time is now an impromptu church meeting. This has happened more times than I can count. Please let your pastors be people and let them talk about anything else.

  Note: Being a safe person doesn’t mean hiding or covering up abuse, dangerous ideology, or anything that would be a safety or detriment to the body of Christ. It doesn’t mean covering or excusing away moral failures. A safe person, out of love for their pastor, also cares for the body.

What Safe People Don’t Do

Just as important as knowing what makes a safe person is recognizing what a safe person does not do:

• They don’t spread what they hear. Even if it’s shared innocently, repeating your pastor’s vulnerability is a betrayal of trust. Our biggest fear is that our weaknesses and what we share in our vulnerability will be weaponized against us. This is why many pastors don’t share anything because it really is hard. If you get the privilege of that vulnerability from your leadership, please respect it.

• They don’t offer empty spiritual clichés. Your pastor knows Scripture—they need empathy and understanding, not “Just pray about it” or “God’s got it.” Also, use discernment or even ask: are you looking for a listening ear or advice/feedback? This helps my husband and I when we communicate because he’s a helper/advice giver when 99% of the time I need him to listen. Knowing this, he will frame our conversations with that question so he can avoid me being annoyed. My husband has grown to be a much better listener than when we first got married.

• They don’t make it about themselves. A safe person holds space for someone else’s pain without needing to center themselves in the conversation. This can often be the difference between life-giving and soul-sucking people. Pastors provide counsel and guidance, so of course, if a congregant is coming to their leadership in this context, we expect to be able to help, and we want to. However, if your pastor is coming to you in the context of vulnerability or sharing, keep that in mind.

How to Know If You’re a Safe Person

Ask yourself the following:

• Can people trust me with sensitive information?

• Do I listen without judgment or the need to offer quick advice? Am I consistent and reliable?

• Do I keep conversations private?

• Am I spiritually grounded enough to offer biblical wisdom and prayer?

Being a safe person for your pastor is a gift—one that can sustain them through the ups and downs of ministry. Pastors are human. They need friends who will see, support, and love them without strings attached. If you have the opportunity to be that kind of friend, step into it with humility and grace. It may just be one of the most powerful ministries you’ll ever have.

Finally…

If you made it this far, thank you for caring enough to wonder why pastors need safe people and what that looks like. I also want to thank the safe people in my life who let me be me without judgment and love me unconditionally. Without these people, I would not be in ministry today. More than anything, pray for your pastors and give them grace. Know that, like you, they are imperfect people in need of grace and often feel overwhelmed and highly underqualified. I can speak of myself and my husband when I say we are in this because we love people, we love Jesus, and we feel called to it. There is no glamour in it, but faithfulness and obedience to Jesus is the ultimate reward.