Why Can't Pastors be Friends with Congregants?

Photo by Kevin Butz on Unsplash

“Professional relationships are not friendships.”

I read this from Scot McKnight’s Substack last week. It’s a quote from a book called Wounded Pastors: Navigating Burnout, Finding Healing, and Discerning the Future of Your Ministry, by Carol Howard and James Fenimore. The article is thoughtful, and the book looks to be a needed resource. And yet this quote, and why it is written, disturbs me. McKnight is interacting with the first chapter of the book which is on pastors and friendships. And a lot of what he is saying, I get. It is a case for pastors’ need for friendships and one against building friendships with congregants. Pastors can become isolated. Friendship is so important. And there are some good arguments for the latter point:

·      Self-protection: even good-intended friends will let you down in situations when you are dealing with bullies in the church. This can be painful.

·      Favoritism and the riffs that can cause in a congregation

·      The mutuality that true friendship calls for and the power differentials inherent in the relationship  

·      Pastors need friendships that last beyond their present call

These are good arguments. Why does it bother me, then? I think it messes with my sense of church. And pastors. And Jesus, whom we all serve. I don’t know, there’s something that doesn’t feel right here, that feels too professionalized.

That quote about professional relationships not being friendships is under the context of the third point. The argument is that if you are in the professional role of a pastor, it is inappropriate for you to seek any kind of intimate affection from a congregant. The author compares it to spending an hour in therapy attempting to solve our counselor’s marital problems. And therefore, there needs to be a healthy boundary between congregants and pastors.

Even as someone who has been burned by spiritual abuse, there’s something in me that wants a pastor who can call me friend. Where there is reciprocity. Where I don’t feel like a client they are being paid to help, like a therapist, but who sees me like Jesus does. And Jesus calls us friends.

And so, he does make himself vulnerable. In deep despair. He asks his disciple friends to pray with him. And boy do they let him down. Instead of withness and empathy, they sleep. After that, most of them run. And Peter straight up lies about even knowing him three times.

I look at the formation of the early church in the New Testament and see something different than these warnings. The boundaries between congregants and pastors aren’t as clear. Leaders tend to make their needs known, especially Paul. He’s so intimate in his letters. Traveling companions change. Different attachments form in relationships of service with, to, and among each other. Do we see it causing riffs of favoritism? There had to be some. But that is the thing about friendship. Opportunities for repair are such a part of building friendship and growing in our relationships. Avoiding possible riffs may make things more comfortable, but that isn’t always the path to growth and maturity. (Sometimes it is, for sure. Discernment is needed here.)

I do think being a pastor comes with a responsibility to be more discerning. And there is a need to weigh and be responsible about power differentials. But a big issue is what that even means. What that power actually is. And here is where I think we have elevated pastors in an unhealthy way. And where putting a hard boundary line around friendships with congregants further fuels a misrepresentation of what kind of power this is. It’s a power to be the first to sacrifice, the first to love, to empower, to friend.

Maybe the problem of spiritual abuses that we see among pastors and congregants is less an issue of professionalism and more an issue of knowing how to be a good friend.

The thing is, friendship is vulnerable by design. McKnight outlines Aristotle’s 3 types of friendship: of utility, for pleasure, and true friendships based on goodness. He asks the question about which of these types we think pastors need to form with congregants. And I think it’s healthy to have all three of Aristotle’s categories working in our relationships. But I don’t consider the first category a friendship. Maybe an acquaintance. But not friend. McKnight wisely brings up toxic individuals and the need for pastors to distance there. Then he lists ways pastors can seek lasting friendships outside the church.

And I agree that it is important for pastors to have good friendships outside the church. Just like for congregants. There are certain pains that will be better for pastors to share in outside friendships. Having been an outside friend to a number of pastors, I see this need. I’ve deleted like three attempted sentences here. Everything I want to write about this sounds too trite. I treasure these friendships.

And being a congregant, I see the need for pastors to make friends outside our Christian bubbles as well. One thing I’ve observed when pastors are so insulated in church relationships, and with those in other Christian circles, is that they become unrelatable to many peoples’ lives outside of the church. They lose a sense of the world that the people they are pastoring live in. People in that world then become reduced to projects.

There is the danger in only forming friendships with those in leadership positions as well. Especially if it is not okay to be friends with congregants. I see this a lot. And it is really a kind of living in a false reality. And sense of self-importance. It’s why we are seeing so much scandal and toxic leadership.

As good as the arguments are for not having close friendships with congregants, I think both congregants and pastors are called to something higher. Where pain can’t be avoided, but there is so much depth and growth from the repair as we learn about friendships that are based on goodness.

Because if a pastor views everyone in their church—where they spend most of their time—as utility friendships, I believe it is damaging to their sense of vocation, the church, and personhood in general. What we really need is to learn how to grow in friendship goodness. To be church. And I think pastors need our friendship just as much as we need theirs.

What do you think? I appreciate McKnight’s article and the way that he asks his readers their thoughts about it. I haven’t covered other important challenges such as when church discipline is involved, how that would factor in the friendship argument, and all that opens up for me about how we even do that today (also looking at the power question). And I want to be clear, that as I am pushing back on the friendship question, I haven’t read Wounded Pastors, but it looks to be a helpful book worth engaging. Chapter One looks to be touching a significant wound in pastors today. More conversations need to happen here. McKnight is continuing to write reflections on the following chapters and it looks to be a valuable resource.