Proclaimer Blog
The preacher’s friends. Or lack thereof.
Who, would you say, are your friends? Not twitter followers. Not Facebook friends. But real life, tangible friends. The kind of friends you tell stuff to. The kind of friends you pray with. The kind of friends who stand by you even when you're not doing so well. Friendship is a deep and meaningful biblical category, but the truth is it can be hard for the preacher to have friends. It's hard to make friends in the congregation. Not impossible, as some would say, but hard nevertheless. It can be harder still to maintain friendships outside the church. No Sundays off for you to go and visit. And therefore the default position for preachers is often Norman-no-mates. It's a dangerous place to be, sub-biblical.
And those who are married can't get out of this one. I count Mrs R as my best friend. I cherish that. But a good marriage is still not a replacement for a friend (or friends) of the same sex.
Just before Christmas, the elders of our church read through Vaughan Roberts' little book on friendship called, ahem, True Friendship. It's short (95 pages) and I was told you can read it in an hour. Not true. It takes longer – not least because the teaching on friendship from Proverbs needs to be digested slowly, reflected on, prayed in and – in our case, at least – acted upon.
I realised two things as a preacher:
- first, I don't have enough friends of the type Proverbs describes
- second, the friends I do have, I convince myself operate at a higher level than they do. There is some cultivation required.
We were so moved by this that we bought everyone in the church a copy – you can do this because in bulk it costs only £1.50. Money well spent,
No more for now. I've got some things to sort.