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The Challenge of Ministry Friendships
Craig Groeschel is starting a new series this week over at Swerve about the "Challenge of Ministry Friendships". This topic has come up quite a few times here at MMI over the years... how do pastors make and keep good friends? There are a couple of different camps out there... one says that close friends are vital to ministry; the other says that pastors and ministry leaders need to keep their distance and avoid making friends. Craig starts out his series sharing some of the reasons he's heard that intimate friendships can be very challenging for pastors. See if some of these resonate with you...
--Some pastors move often from church to church making it hard to develop lasting close friendships.
--Most lay-people (non-ministers) will say that they understand you are a “real person,” but many really don’t believe that. As much as they think they look at you as normal people, they still generally have higher expectations for you.
--Because people generally have higher expectations of pastors, it is easy for pastors to blow their expectations.
--Most church members talk differently to pastors.
--When a friend who is a church member leaves the church, it is very hard for pastors not to take it personally. This can cause a pastor to fear future intimacy with church members.
--In my experience, losing friendships can be as hard (or much harder) on the spouses than the ministers.
--People like to talk about ministers. Because people are watching so closely, we often crave privacy. Without knowing it, we can “wall people out.”
--Church members can be mean.
Any of these ring true with you? Read Craig’s first post on the topic here...
Be sure to keep up with Craig’s postings this week at Swerve!
Have a great week!
Todd
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This post has been viewed 492 times and was added on February 18, 2008 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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I'm Todd Rhoades... the MMI guy. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the founder and developer of a website named ChurchStaffing.com.
MondayMorningInsight.com | PO Box 446 | Bryan, OH 43506 |
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Posted by
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 9:25 AM
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Posted by Brian
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 11:06 AM
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Posted by
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 11:55 AM
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Posted by Stewart
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 8:20 PM
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Posted by Camey
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 8:17 AM
Post Your Comments:Make Friends.... they are vital.
I was in the military and the old idea of not making friends because you know that as soon as you do you will have to move and you will lose touch and it will hurt.
Sure it will hurt. Sure it will impact the whole family. But I would rather - “have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”
If pastors are indeed real people they need the love and connection, the accountability and support of good friends.
Is it risky? YES. Will you possibly get burned? YES. If you leave will it hurt? YES.
But the other option is a very lonely, sad place. I have a pastor friend at a church four hours away from where I am and he has NO real friends at his church.
His family has had some pretty significant struggles and he has felt very alone because he had no one he could trust, no one to help him bear the burden.
You can imagine that Jesus made friends with disciples…
TAKE THE RISK - MAKE FRIENDS -
No risk, no reward.
I have chosen to allow one person to get pretty close, and that’s only because he has been in vocational ministy before.
He felt God was not leading him into full-time ministry and moved back home to work the family farm. He is a great guy who knows what pastors go through, and is my biggest supporter here.
However, he is not all that close, because I have heard the horror stories of betrayal of trust and don’t want to risk that. However, I need to be quick to say that I don’t think this particular individual would betray a confidence or anything like that…
So I have chosen to make another pastor in town my closest friend. He’s not from my denomination, and we even have theological differences on a couple issues, but I can be completely open and honest with him, and he with me. We pray for and with each other.
Anyway, I guess I would counsel someone to make friends with another pastor, while not totally shutting off people from the congregation.
I like being with my people in social settings outside of church, where I can let my hair down (what’s left of it, anyway
) and just talk about the Minnesota Twins or re-runs of “Home Improvement. But I haven’t been comfortable pursuing the kind of relationship that fosters the intimacy that comes with close friendships.
I’m willing to think I might be a bit paranoid, since I’ve been here for more than 7 years and looking to be here for a loooonnggg time (Lord willing!). Maybe I’ll open up more down the road!
Brian L
Friendship are too few and far between. Unfortunately, I’m looking for somewhere else to work / minister as a bivocational person after 8 years strictly vocational. The time has come that I just cannot support my family anymore one what I’m making here. One of my closest and truest friends is also on staff here. I’m worried about what my leaving will do to that relationship BUT my family comes first.
I have seen before though what can happen when someone leaves the pulpit. I lost most of my friends at my last church (also in this town) because I changed denominations. Unfortunately, they chose to dwell on what we have different instead of what we have in common.
The list of potential pitfalls hints at this but doesn’t nail it. The big problem with developing friendships within the congregation is that when all the chips are down - you are still the pastor. So you can be “letting your hairdown” at a BBQ. You are relaxed and make a social blunder among a group of friends. But all of a sudden, your blunder is no longer just “one of my friends blew it” but my PASTOR blew it. Huge difference.
I develop limited friendships within the congregation and deeper friendships outside it with other pastors. I am similar to Brian in that I have let some “former ministers” or “missionaries” in a little closer since they understand the dynamics more.
I’ve generally been burned when I’ve neglected this rule AND it has not been good for the laypeople involved either.
Thanks for posting this Todd.
I’m truly blessed to have some dear ministry friends. I won’t name names…
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