Proclaimer Blog
True friendship: the challenge for a pastor
I started my reading week with a book "you can read in an hour": True Friendship by Vaughan Roberts. I don't think that's actually true, by the way. If you are going to read this book and digest it you certainly need more than an hour. But that comment is a reflection on its length. This is a short book which gives is two obvious advantages:
- first, you can give it to someone who is not particularly used to reading, and they should manage it fine. It's not a threatening book.
- second, neither it is expensive. Tenofthose, the publisher will sell it to you for £4.99 but if you were to buy, say, 100, for your congregation (not a bad idea, as I will explain below), then the price drops to £1.49.
I have, at this point, to declare an interest. Vaughan is my boss and (according to the book) President of the Proclamation Trust. But I am trying to write this review not as Senior Vice President, Ministry (well, if we are going to adopt US style titles, we ought to go all the way!), but as a Christian and a pastor.
So, what did I think of it? The book takes the proverbs on friendship and weaves them into six short chapters on the nature of true friendship. Some chapters, as you would imagine, are stronger than others (and typically the stronger ones are where there are more proverbs to refer to). But none of them is weak, and all have a really important point to make. The book was born out of Vaughan's recent sabbatical when, as he admits in the book, he felt the paucity of friendships in his own life and determined under God to change that situation.
I think this honest approach is the book's strength. You feel all the time that you are walking with Vaughan through the realities of friendship in a complex life and the very things you struggle with, he struggles with too. I think that is remarkably positive for a book. I never felt Vaughan talking down to me even though some of the correction was rather painful at times as I reflected on my own friendships.
No. This is a useful book for Christians. And, I would suggest for pastors: both as those who want to encourage friendships amongst our people AND those who need such friendships ourselves. It is perhaps on this last point that I would encourage you, Mr Preacher, to take and read. It may take you a little longer than an hour and it may – at times – be extremely uncomfortable. But you will find, like me, a growing thankfulness for the friends we have and a desire to make more of those friendships. Indeed, I found Vaughan's testimony to be my own by the end:
As I have reflected on these themes, I have been struck frequently by a profound sense of failure, because I have not been the kind of friend the Bible commends. They have also stirred within me a deep longing: I long to be such a friend and to have such friends.(p79)
Two minor criticisms:
- I would have liked more to be made of the proverbs. On one or two occasions, I felt they were dealt with rather abruptly. For example, illustrating one point first positively and then negatively, Vaughan uses a Scandinavian proverb to make one and a Bible proverb to make the other. I thought, at a very few points, the Bible proverbs deserved a little more weight.
- Second, its strength (the shortness) is also its weakness. Vaughan admits that the best book on Christian friendship is by Hugh Black. You can get a print on demand paperback version for £7 on amazon here. But it was written in 1897 and so, with the best will in the world, will not be able to steer people through the nature of friendship in the Facebook world in which we live. I long for a longer volume….although I know I may be longing a long time!!
These are very minor criticisms of a book which I will be buying for others. I have already asked our Elders at church to consider making this a New Year buy for church members. You may want to do the same.