Pastoral Friendship (A Brief Thread):

While many facts about the Ravi Z. situation remain to be formally confirmed, what stood out most to me from @danielsilliman's recent reporting was this line (from RZ's business partner):

"He had no friends." https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/september/ravi-zacharias-sexual-harassment-rzim-spa-massage-investiga.html

I work with and interview many pastors & Christian leaders. I love them. Building trust and genuine connection with them are part of my role. And I have come to believe that a leader's capacity for friendship--true FRIENDSHIP--is the single most important marker of their health.

It is not good for a leader to lack deep, reciprocal relationships.

While I understand that it is hard, intentionality in cultivating long-term friendship shows that one can practice the core of what one preaches: love for others, humility, and a willingness to be known.

Friendship is hard in our culture. And Christian culture often compounds that difficulty by elevating the pastoral role to one of such untouchable vision, call, or blessing that the human in that role is constantly bombarded by inhuman expectations. It is imprisoning.

And in a strange twist of theological Stockholm Syndrome, many leaders--rather than run to embrace the earthiness of the call, and the reality of their own humanity, know no other way than to keep up the façade, developing a pastoral persona that precludes genuine friendships.

I remember (during my time in seminary) one vigorous classroom debate between two working pastors as to whether a leader COULD share true friendships. With *anyone.*

A portion of the room argued that it must be "sacrificed" in order to be in ministry. Part of one's "burden."

Look, I'm not a working pastor. I don't face the pressures/expectations of community leadership. And I know friendship is hard.

But dismissing pastoral friendships promotes a terrible and vampiric isolation in Christian pulpits.

Reciprocal relationships bring life. To all.

"He had no friends."

It breaks my heart. I don't think there's an easy fix or a simple explanation for why and how this happens in a life. But if you feel that this could one day describe you, my prayer is that you live a different story--one of knowing and being known.

If you are a Christian leader, remember that our faith holds a deep tradition of rich friendship. This is not something from which your calling bars you.

Difficult? Maybe. But it is our work too, to know and be known. And it can be our joy.

So here's to the treasure of true friends, ones who stick closer than brothers.

To our Enkidus, our Jonathans, our St. Johns, Samwise Gamgees, Dr. Watsons, & Captain Haddocks.

Here's to finding them, and becoming them, and being them, in the name of Christ.

What gifts.