Christ's burden is meant to be easy and light, and whenever it is not easy and light indicates we are laboring under a heavy yoke of bondage. One pastor having to run a whole church and do everything by himself is not a blessing it's a bondage. Unfortunately this model is exactly how most denominations operate.
The pastors job is really to feed others, to feed the sheep. Each sheep is known by him and he knows every sheep. Yes Christianity is a personal relationship with God, but Christianity is also a personal relationship with each other. Unfortunately the "each other" bit is missing from churches where personal relationships are lacking. This is because church is seen these days as a place you go and service is something you go to, and some activity that is 'run', and pastoring is just the pastor's "job". But church is really one big family and one big personal relationship with God and with each other, and the pastor is really not a job but a function. A job is something you do to get paid. A function is something you do because of who you are and the gifts you have, because you exist as part of something much larger than yourself. We need a mindset shift away from a pastor "running" and being "in charge of" a church, to a pastor being part of the church who is given by God as a gift to build up the body of Christ.
I think this is a symptom of not following God's way of doing church. In the early church, believers met together in a spirit of brotherly love and fellowship in the Holy Spirit. Church was who they were, not a place they went to. And the leadership and administration fell upon a number of appointed elders (mature believers) within the church. But their role was not to lead, in the sense of doing everything, but to oversee the ministry and work done by the individual members. The elders were not outsiders who were appointed to "run" a church under the eye of a central administration (e.g. Rome).
However sometime in the early middle ages, the concept of church was changed to a clergy-laity model. Church became a place to go to receive a spiritual service. And the service is something that had to be "run". Just like we go to a doctor if we are sick people went to a priest or pastor when they had spiritual problems. Pastoring became an occupation rather than a function. And then the concept of Christian tithing was also introduced as a way to support the clergy. This structure remains in the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran etc denominations.
In attempting to follow the biblical model of church, my church resolves this problem by not having any full-time paid pastors at all, which increases the responsibilities of individual members, removes the necessity for full-time pastoral positions, and helps promotes a brotherly atmosphere whereby each person is treated like a brother. This removes an "us and them" mentality where it concerns God's ministers and God's people. We still have leaders, we still have ministry, there is no chaos or disorder, things still get done.. but it just doesn't all fall upon one man up the front called "pastor". As the saying goes "many hands make light work".
In the Bible, the church pastoral model included many elders (a team) per church, not just one per church, this helps solve the problem of loneliness. And the elders were not trained and approved pastors who came from outside, they were chosen and appointed from amongst the most mature and respected believers within the congregation. This may solve the problem of a pastor not feeling like they belong - because they are already established and well known in the church.
This could be achieved if all tiny churches in a nearby district were combined into a bigger one, and then the pastors could take turns in leading each Sunday, rather than all the pressure being on one person.
God's way as revealed in the Bible is the best way and brings a blessing and is the easiest way, and the modern "fly-in fly-out" pastoral model is hard work and there is little blessing for pastor or congregation alike.
