In Search of a Real Friend

Calling upstairs in your own house may seem strange, but this arrangement helped maintain boundaries with our good friends. Ron and Rosha were not just neighbors, they lived in the upstairs apartment. And they belonged to the church I pastor.

Just before moving in, Rosha, pregnant, suffered complications requiring home rest. Despite some hesitation at moving again, they both soon felt glad about the new situation. Instead of Rosha being alone all day, I could check on her. Over those tense months, we shared more than a house. We shared many prayers and concerns, which led to the joyful delivery of their first-born son, Rajiv, that fall. Our daughters were soon like sisters to Rajiv.

It was good to have close friends, even if friendships with parishioners are a bit risky.

For some people, befriending the pastor negates their ability to receive ministry from that pastor. They need to maintain the priestly role.

Soon after I moved to Cincinnati to marry Roger and plant a church, my only other friends in town moved. Ben and Cheryl had introduced Roger and me. Both pastors, Ben and Cheryl were mature friends who also understood the challenges of ministry. When they moved to pastor in another town, my only remaining friends were Roger's colleagues.

Missing Ben and Cheryl, I wondered, Do we look to our congregation for friends? One early attempt was with Anna.

When Anna and her husband, Kent, moved to our neighborhood, I rejoiced at the prospect of a friend. We shared a similar stage in life and began to spend time together. But soon, I felt we were struggling in our relationship. I asked Anna if we could talk about it.

"Anna," I confessed, "you're my best friend." I felt vulnerable baring my heart.

"Kathy, I don't know if I can be friends with a pastor," Anna admitted. "I feel intimidated, like I can't measure up." Yet as we talked, Anna also criticized me for some faults I had been honest enough to reveal. She said I was "too good" to be friends with, yet I didn't measure up to what she thought a pastor should be.

This paradox characterizes what many pastors experience. People in our churches feel a barrier to befriending us. This problem, of course, exists in other professions, especially for those in leadership. Chris Argyris, in Overcoming Organizational Defenses (Prentice Hall, 1990), writes, "Loneliness at the top is a product of a reciprocal isolating dynamic of aloofness between subordinates and the executive."

Leaders of companies struggle with this dynamic. Yet if they don't have friends at work, church provides an outlet. Pastors have an added tension. For pastors, the workplace and church family are intertwined.

What is the answer? How do we meet our human need for friendship in the complex atmosphere of our ministry?

Friends who pastor me

After a painful situation had erupted at our church, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary wrote me a letter. She had invited other women from my denomination to meet for a retreat prior to a minister's conference. When I showed my husband her letter, he asked with a smile, "Are you going to meet every week?" He knew the intensity of my need for just such a support group.

Although we don't meet together, several friends outside my congregation serve as a kind of support group. In some ways, they pastor me. Melanie and I were first part of an accountability group. I met her through my husband's work with a parachurch ministry. After the group disbanded, Melanie and I continued meeting monthly. We share prayer concerns and personal issues for which we need to be accountable. Some months we rejoice together, other times we cry on each other's shoulder.

People in ministry need friendships that come without a lot of expectations. Such friendships are refreshing. Holly and I carpooled when our oldest daughters were both in kindergarten. We soon discovered many common interests: music, art, our children, and our faith.

Through the years Holly's friendship has strengthened me. As a pastor I give a lot. Holly gives to me. Of course I give to her, too, but we are both up front about the fact that she is in a position to bless me with her kindness. She is a friend who doesn't drain me, doesn't keep score, and often bails me out. The care she pours into my soul helps enable me to continue to pour care into others.

We'll both never forget when our youngest children started kindergarten, and we spent that momentous day together, mourning a passing stage. This spring we'll see our oldest daughters graduate, another moment to share.

Friends outside my church create a healthy outlet. Sometimes I need to vent to someone who is not personally involved. I'm glad to have relationships outside my church family.

My unchurched friends

To fit exercise into my schedule requires pre-dawn rising. Knowing someone else is waiting to meet me helps get my feet on the floor when the alarm sounds. So I invited Shawn to walk with me. She was open to the idea, and we started walking together three mornings a week. This met a need for me, but also gave me a different kind of friendship opportunity.

Shawn grew up with an atheist mother and a drunken father who forced her to attend church. Needless to say, she had large barriers between herself and God. Our growing relationship, along with her other friends in our church, drew Shawn down a path of openness to God.

Another pastor I know befriended a Muslim. Mike met Jeff as they both waited at the bus stop with their kindergartners. Mike discovered Jeff enjoyed exercise, so they started to run together. One day Jeff laughed at a comment Mike made and said, "You say things I didn't expect from a minister. I think you are a real person."

Jeff had chosen Islam while at West Point because of the church's justification of slavery in the past. Mike asked Jeff to the mayor's prayer breakfast to hear Tony Evans. Later they both read and discussed Evans's book, Let's Get to Know Each Other (Nelson, 1995). As they did get to know each other, they both discovered they didn't have any other real friends, as men often don't. Their relationship blessed them both and helped Jeff learn about Christ.

Dual relationships

With pastors, two broad categories of thought emerge on befriending people within one's own church. When Mimi started as a staff member at her first parish, the senior pastor warned her not to pursue friends in the congregation, as it engenders jealousy and makes ministry difficult. Now a senior pastor herself, Mimi's closest friends are in her congregation, including her lay staff colleague Deb.

Ken Downes, a pastor conversant in counseling theory and practice, says the issue of friendships between clergy and laity concerns "dual relationships," meaning the double role involved in being both a friend and pastor. Such friendships contain a power differential. Because the pastor has a form of authority over the layperson, this complicates the friendship dynamic. In some cases, it can lead to clergy misconduct. Certainly it's wise to be cautious about such situations.

For some people, befriending the pastor negates their ability to receive ministry from that pastor. They need the pastor to maintain the priestly role. This describes the struggle Anna experienced in befriending me.

Pastor Dwight Mason voices a different perspective, "I am of the belief that you can and should find friends in the church, even the ones you are pastoring. We often say we get hurt or betrayed. That happens with everyone, why not us?

"I believe people need to see the pastor developing friends, even close friends in the church. I don't believe that we are truly friends until we can come to some issues that we disagree on and still remain committed to each other. It's just like marriage. I think that many pastors have allowed the sickness of the world to keep us from functioning in a healthy way with our people. In every relationship there is disappointment, trouble at times, problems to work through. One of the main things a pastor is called to do is model relationships before people."

Dwight models this before his church in several relationships. For example, Dwight and Willis eat out together, play golf, and their families have vacationed together. When the church faced a major building expansion, Willis served as the building chairman. Dwight took Willis to breakfast before the project began. He explained that this project would bring them into conflict, just like a husband and wife arguing over how to build a house. Then Dwight reassured Willis that these conflicts would not sever their relationship. His frankness not only helped Willis through this project but also gave him permission to share feedback on Dwight's leadership skills that helped Dwight to grow.

During the project, Dwight and Willis disagreed, even in public meetings. But after the meeting, the congregation saw Dwight and Willis laugh and encourage one another. This kind of modeling strengthens churches.

Lay people David and Carol Eaton forged a close relationship with the pastoral couple at their church, Joel and Sharon Eidsness. The wives did ministry together. David, as a business executive and entrepreneur, was able to advise Pastor Joel. Yet Joel retained the ability to confront when necessary. Having these close friends at church meant Joel and Sharon could process their struggles with people who understood and supported them. Of course, they were careful to maintain needed confidentiality.

David and Carol maintained a healthy distance at church, never pushing for privileges. Carol notes, "Our friendship worked because there were four healthy people involved."

This defines the crux of the issue. For pastors to form relationships in the church, healthy lay people are essential. The friendship cannot lead to expectations of preferential treatment.

Michael Green, while lecturing at Asbury Theological Seminary, noted that Jesus had friends. He chose twelve of his many followers on which to focus his attentions. From that group, he bestowed extra mentoring on Peter, James, and John. John was called the disciple Jesus loved. Jesus treated all people fairly, but this did not mean he treated them all the same.

Friends that last

A few years ago, our upstairs tenants, Ron and Rosha, moved to another city to care for their aging parents. Our friendship, forged in the furnace of adversity, proved true. We have stayed in touch. Once, after they moved, we vacationed with them, enjoying a week at the beach together. That trip proved timely. It came just after Anna and her family left our congregation.

Disappointed, they had given up after ten years of trying to mix friendship and church. God provided Ron and Rosha for us as reminders that despite the risks, friendship in the church family can be healthy.

That reminder gives me courage to try again. As does the arrival of Dave and Pam, who recently embraced our church as home. When I lost my third grandparent in five months, Pam called to ask what she and Dave could do.

I'm glad we've made close friends, outside and inside our congregation.

Kathy Callahan-Howell is pastor of Winton Community Free Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.