Finding Confidants

You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.
Laurence J. Peter

A valuable friend is one who’ll tell you what you should be told, even if it offends you.
Frank A. Clark

It’s not easy being human and trying to live up to a holy calling. In the face of this mission impossible, a variety of specific problem areas emerge. As we’ve seen several times throughout this book, one of the keys in dealing with the tensions is knowing when, and with whom, to express the emotions we feel. Finding confidants is vital in dealing successfully with our holy and human vocation.

Yet I know that for a variety of reasons, it’s not easy to find such helpers. “I am available to listen to and help so many people,” said one pastor, “but there is no one who cares enough about me personally to be there for me.”

“In our area, there is a serious fellowship void among evangelical pastors,” said another. “It is difficult to know how much trust or confidence you can place in another member of the clergy when you have had little or no opportunity to build a relationship on any terms with him or her. This, coupled with the fact that competition among ministers for a higher ‘share’ of a community might lead to a confidence’s being betrayed, tends to discourage efforts to share confidentially.”

“This is a small-town area,” said a third pastor. “Although we have a number of churches, the other pastors are either deeply involved in their own denominations or just not all that interested in spiritual formation and growth.”

A fourth pastor has been so unsuccessful at trying to find confidants in the past that he now says, “I no longer even attempt to do so. I keep things between me and the Lord.”

Before we get to that point of despair, I hope I can offer some helpful guidance in this crucial area. There are no easy answers to many of the tensions we face in the ministry, and that makes it vital that we have confidants with whom we can voice our doubts, anger, frustrations, fears, and disappointments. If we don’t have an outlet for these feelings, if we try to keep them bottled up, we’re courting disaster, both personally and in our ministries.

Since this need is so great and yet finding the right people can be so difficult, where can we look for these helpers, and what criteria do we use in choosing those whose counsel we seek and whose discretion we trust?

Looking for Confidants

As the name implies, the first requirement of a confidant is that he or she be someone who can keep a confidence. For a confidant to be of help, you have to be able to vent those thoughts and feelings that many would not understand or accept. And if you’re to take the risk of expressing those things and getting another person’s perspective, that person must be able to keep a secret.

In some ways, this trait is even more important than wisdom. Many times we already know the answers to the problems we need to discuss, so we aren’t really looking for a guru with new solutions. What we do need is someone we can talk with candidly, a sympathetic and perceptive listener.

Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula for spotting those who can be trusted with confidences. However, discernment is something we normally develop over time and through experience with people. We pick up on who does and doesn’t gossip or drop names. We learn that people who gossip about little things will also spread the news about big things. It’s possible to do a test of sorts by giving someone a bit of innocuous information to see if it comes back to you from another source, but most of the time that shouldn’t be necessary.

Naturally, a confidant must also be someone who will hear our innermost thoughts and not be shocked and who will not think less of us for occasional “bad attitudes.” There must be an accepting spirit, in other words, a sort of unconditional love that says I may not always like what you say or do, but I believe in you, and I’ll stick with you and hear you out and try to help if I can; I’m committed to you and our relationship. Of course, in a real relationship, those words might never be spoken, but that’s the spirit that must be present.

The best confidants, I’ve discovered, are those with whom you share secrets, who are mutually at risk with you in the relationship because of what you know about each other. As I mentioned earlier, each of the leaders at the church I pastored and I had gone through difficult experiences together, and as a result we knew things about one another — things we all knew didn’t need to be publicized. Because there was that mutual risk, there was also a strong bond of trust. Our lives, to a certain extent, were in one another’s hands. When people know that, they’re usually careful not to let one another down. We might say that the mutual need for silence creates a contract of confidence between the people involved.

Another general guideline for finding confidants is that they will most often be found among those who oversee other people — for example, managers rather than assembly-line workers, doctors rather than artists, professors rather than athletes — those whose interest is people rather than things. While this is obviously a generalization, and there are exceptions, there are several reasons this seems to be the case.

First, highly placed persons are often more compassionate. The stereotype is that a boss is cold and domineering, but the fact is that those who do well are usually some of the kinder, more understanding people in life. If they’re respected as bosses, they got that way by helping others meet their goals and enjoy their work.

Second, highly placed people usually have a broader experience of life. They’ve seen more, dealt with more. They’re used to facing life’s complexities, which also means they’re usually not so arbitrary in their judgments or locked into neat little formulas that may sound good but don’t really solve problems. They’ve usually accepted the human condition, too, so they aren’t surprised when people have problems, and they’re able to respond out of the wisdom of experience. They’re also used to hearing and keeping confidences.

People who normally deal with things, on the other hand, are used to a world in which life is more dependable and unambiguous. If you heat a metal to a certain temperature, for example, you know you can bend it into a desired shape. But human beings, the pastor’s field of work, aren’t nearly so dependable or predictable. Thus, the person used to dealing with things isn’t as likely to be experienced with the complexities of people problems.

I’ve also learned over the years that when you go into a new situation, as a pastor or in any other role, the people who first offer their friendship usually turn out not to be your best confidants in the long run. Those quick to bestow friendship are often quick to withdraw it. They may be fickle and move their attention to other new acquaintances, or they may be among those who are disillusioned when they discover that you, too, have feet of clay.

On the other hand, the people who are hardest to sell, who ask the toughest questions, will often turn out to be the most dependable friends over the long haul. They may withhold acceptance at first, but once won over, their commitment is strong.

Unusual Friends

Excellent confidants can come from places you wouldn’t normally expect. I enjoy reading biography, and I’ve come across many famous people, among them preachers, who’ve made confidants of rather unusual friends.

Some pastors develop a close friendship with a person from an entirely different background. They somehow stumble across this individual with whom they can mentally take off their shoes, relax, and speak unguardedly. Usually these are people who allow them their pastoral dignity, who perhaps hold a station in life as high as the pastor, but who accept the pastor’s humanity.

One older pastor I know developed close ties with a physician. They initially got acquainted because they’d bought dogs that were litter mates. Then the men began playing chess every Saturday night. The dogs grew old together — into their twenties — and their masters’ relationship deepened. The town’s leading clergyman and the town’s leading surgeon became the closest of friends.

The interesting thing was that the doctor was an atheist. He told the pastor many times, “Don’t evangelize me. I’m not about to become a Christian, but I enjoy being your friend.” I often wondered at the dynamic that made the friendship so deep and lasting. Part of it was that they both knew the other had a professional image to maintain. The doctor realized he didn’t know everything about medicine, despite what the town thought. He’d buried enough of his patients to know he wasn’t perfect, but he had to maintain his confidence in the healing process. The pastor certainly knew the feeling.

Part of it was a mutual ability to maintain confidentiality. The doctor knew enough about the pastor’s congregation, dealing with teenage pregnancies in the church and so on, that he and the pastor developed a deep trust.

The pastor continued to long for a change in his friend’s spiritual condition, but other elements cemented their bond. Telling the truth to each other, knowing the other could handle sensitive secrets, maintaining respect for both one another’s office and humanity — all were part of this abiding friendship.

Anyone who has a friend like this is a fortunate person. Other pastors I know have found these kinds of friendships in groups where they’re seen as peer rather than leader, which isn’t easy in church groups. They’re involved in Rotary or the school board, where they meet interesting individuals who aren’t necessarily in the church.

One pastor was talking about his friendship with the superintendent of schools and the manager of a local factory. “We’re peers,” he said, “because we all recognize each of us is trapped in his professionalism. We all sense a need for a sounding board — to know someone at our level but not in our field.”

Another pastor was amazed at how vulnerable highly placed executives feel. For instance, if they have to make a decision that puts people out of work, they feel the loneliness. In these kinds of relationships, many pastors have found an appropriate setting to express some of their own emotional load.

Married to a Confidant?

If a pastor is married, certainly his or her spouse should, to one extent or another, be among the potential confidants. There should be no one on earth to whom we’re closer, no one with whom we come into more contact over the course of a lifetime. There’s also, in marriage, that element of mutual risk we discussed earlier.

However, the use of one’s spouse as a confidant is complicated by a number of factors.

For one thing, the breakup of a normal confidant relationship is not nearly as traumatic to most pastors as the breakup of their marriage. You can take slightly greater risks with a confidant by revealing a certain emotion or sharing a certain confidence that may stir up deep fears or misgivings if shared with one’s spouse. The ultimate concern is that your spouse might reject you. Thus, the stakes are much higher in using one’s spouse as a confidant; there may be just too much risk involved. This will vary from marriage to marriage, of course.

Second, your spouse is probably in the same church with you, and there are certain things you may need to discuss with a confidant that no one else in the church, your spouse included, should really know about. At times, ignorance truly is bliss, or at least close to it. Knowing certain things about people will inevitably color your attitude toward them.

As one pastor put it, “If I tell my wife how a certain person has hurt me, I will feel better for having expressed myself. But I know my wife, and she will be angry and subconsciously withdraw. It will prevent her from being completely spontaneous toward that person. Why should I poison her relationship with that individual just because I’m having difficulties? I need her to continue to love that person and help the healing happen.”

The ability to be open with your spouse, to really help one another as confidants, is something that develops over time if the relationship is sound. After thirty years of a good marriage, Janie and I are still learning different levels of intimacy, and I wouldn’t expect a couple married only five years to be close to where we already are in our ability to communicate.

A few years ago when I was still with YFC, I took a business trip to South Africa, and Janie went with me. We did the work, and then we had seven days to spend alone together in Capetown. Without telling anyone exactly where we would be staying, we spent our time in a hotel, we walked on the beach every day, and we enjoyed some good conversations.

I was just about to turn fifty, and I was thinking about making a transition to another kind of ministry, so I began to tell Janie about some of my fears and apprehensions, about the fact that I had opposition in my current role that had led to a certain sense of failure — things that she may or may not have known but that I’d never been able to say to her before.

After I had said some of those things, they kind of hung there between us. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I had taken a risk in dropping those things on Janie, and if she rejected me or couldn’t handle them because she was frightened, maybe I had unfastened some things in our relationship that we wouldn’t be able to refasten.

I’m glad to say that she picked them up and handled them very well. Then, recognizing what we had done, she revealed some of her own thoughts and fears. And suddenly, to our surprise, we found ourselves on a new, very enjoyable level of communication. We were able to face the future — together.

Now we do that sort of thing fairly regularly, whether in the car or almost anyplace else, but it was only after thirty years of a solid, loving relationship that it happened. Other couples may reach such a level sooner or later; my point is that the ability to be open with each other has to develop over years of learning to trust and respect one another.

Professional Counselors

If you’re not able to find confidants elsewhere, there’s no shame in finding a professional counselor who can meet that need. Counselors can be quite helpful.

The obvious concern here is money. I don’t have a solution for that problem unless you’re able to work out a manageable fee-payment plan. Most counselors also have a sliding fee scale based on the client’s ability to pay.

Many people think of counselors as professionals you go to for help in solving a problem, and that’s not exactly the role of a confidant. But therapy or problem solving aren’t the only things a good counseling relationship can provide. Counselors are trained to be good listeners and to give clarifying feedback. They can help evaluate options objectively and assist you in establishing priorities.

A similar source of help can be found in retreat or counseling centers that are aimed primarily at helping pastors. Many denominations offer counseling support to their pastors as well. A listing of nondenominational centers can be found in the book Counseling Christian Workers, by Louis McBurney (Word, 1986).

Other Sources

One pastor who has found a good if somewhat expensive way of interacting with confidants lives in the Midwest but has good ministerial friends in California and New England. His solution? Pick up the phone.

“Our phone bills are sometimes sky high,” he says, “but they’re probably cheap in terms of the help received.”

Without much trouble, we can all probably think of one or more people we already know who would likely make good confidants but who are now living some distance from us — college roommates, seminary classmates or professors, good friends from former churches. While letters and phone calls to these people aren’t as good as face-to-face conversation, they’re still pretty fair substitutes, especially if confidants just can’t be found nearby.

Finally, let me suggest where the process of looking for confidants should actually begin. Whenever I’ve found myself in need of a new confidant, I’ve made it a matter of prayer, asking the Lord to lead me to the right person. And then someone usually comes to me looking for help, and in the course of helping, I discern that this is a person who can be trusted and who might be able to help me.

In one case, such a person came, and it took a couple of months to deal with his original concern. But then I was able to say during a conversation, “Now let me tell you about a problem I’m facing at this point,” and we took it from there.

This kind of mutual help is a healthy way of creating an environment in which we can bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.