Out of all the things that I miss from my old college/university days, it is the network of friends I had who were a regular part of my life. Since being married and moving back to NB, my social life more or less consists of my wife, her family, and a handful of people from our church. And since I’m the pastor, I often feel like I have to be measured and deliberate about cultivating friendships inside the church (whether that’s right or wrong, I’m not sure).
Whereas once I could call up friends at a moment’s notice to go out to a movie, now it seems to require a vast assembly of factors to come into play at the same time to make it work at all. The few friends I have around here also all have wives, kids, jobs, responsibilities, commitments, etc. So usually I simply don’t bother. It hardly seems worth the effort. And there never seems to be the opportunity. Time often works against me when it comes to this. So I complain about it instead, normally to my wife!
In thinking about this, I realize something else. It’s not really about going to a movie once in awhile. More is going on than a desire to get out on occasion for some fun social time—though I would definitely welcome more of that! On top of wanting to head to the theatre with a couple of friends on the odd evening, I feel something deeper: the lack of genuine friendships, that personal space where I can be totally myself, feel accepted and loved and, yes, enjoy myself, laugh, and just have fun.
Part of why I feel this lack, I think, is it can become a little too easy to see myself only in terms of the responsibilities I fulfill: father, husband, and pastor. Of course, I get the fact that being a father is not only about responsibilities I fulfill and that being a husband is not only about obligatory duties. This is, in the best of times, also true of being a pastor. Each of these aspects of my identity involves relationships; all personally engage me. Indeed, I consider my wife to be my best friend.
But—and I hope I am not alone in this—sometimes I just want to be me. I want to be free of that feeling that in this situation I have to be something and not only somebody, free of the need to be performing tasks and instead freed to enjoy the slow passing of time over a conversation about shared interests, hobbies, concerns or whatever. Friendship is the space within which that freedom is most often experienced. I miss being around people—around friends—who simply want to be around me because I am who I am, and because we both read the same kinds of books or listen to the same kind of music or watch the same kinds of TV shows and movies.
Already I mentioned to the fact that as a pastor I don’t feel the freedom others should feel in cultivating friendships with people in church. This isn’t to say people from church are excluded from my social life; rather, the degree to which I would be able to experience that sense of genuine friendship, of intimate disclosure and honesty, of personal closeness and openness is very limited when it comes to folks in my congregation. And this is precisely the kind of friendship I am really talking about. It may include going to the movies, but it isn’t limited to that.
And the thing is, I don’t believe that friendships are frivolous and peripheral to all other relationships. Though so many of us become too busy with family life and work to put any energy into potential or existing friendships (I’m looking in the mirror here!), I think that friendships help us to be more of ourselves, to fulfill our God-given identities, to help us see more clearly who we are and who we can be. Other people draw out of us more than we can draw out of ourselves.
When it comes to Christian friendships, their value is that they’re a form of spiritual encouragement and support, and one of God’s ways of meeting us himself. In all the evangelical talk of having a personal relationship with God, one thing is often missing: that we often experience our own relationship with God through the relationships we have with other believers; that is, our relationship with God is vertical, yes, but it is also horizontal. To some extent it is vertical only if it is also horizontal.
To put it more practically, only when I experience friends praying with me (and for me) can I sometimes understand how it is that God is personal—and that he is with me. Perhaps this is why I’ve occasionally felt a connection between the struggles I have in my prayer life and the lack of Christian friends with whom I can pray in the same room.
In my experience, the times when I’ve felt the presence of God most closely are rarely those times when I’ve been alone; instead, there are usually at least a couple of other people in the room. Those moments when I have been most aware of God’s friendship are those moments when I have been most aware that God has provided me with Christian friends. While not encompassing the full meaning of the title, I think, too, this is part of what it means to call God Emmanuel, “God with us.” And though it’s true that knowing this involves a whole lot more than going out with a friend to the movies, maybe it at least needs to begin there. Hmmm . . . maybe I need to make a phone call?
Whereas once I could call up friends at a moment’s notice to go out to a movie, now it seems to require a vast assembly of factors to come into play at the same time to make it work at all. The few friends I have around here also all have wives, kids, jobs, responsibilities, commitments, etc. So usually I simply don’t bother. It hardly seems worth the effort. And there never seems to be the opportunity. Time often works against me when it comes to this. So I complain about it instead, normally to my wife!
In thinking about this, I realize something else. It’s not really about going to a movie once in awhile. More is going on than a desire to get out on occasion for some fun social time—though I would definitely welcome more of that! On top of wanting to head to the theatre with a couple of friends on the odd evening, I feel something deeper: the lack of genuine friendships, that personal space where I can be totally myself, feel accepted and loved and, yes, enjoy myself, laugh, and just have fun.
Part of why I feel this lack, I think, is it can become a little too easy to see myself only in terms of the responsibilities I fulfill: father, husband, and pastor. Of course, I get the fact that being a father is not only about responsibilities I fulfill and that being a husband is not only about obligatory duties. This is, in the best of times, also true of being a pastor. Each of these aspects of my identity involves relationships; all personally engage me. Indeed, I consider my wife to be my best friend.
But—and I hope I am not alone in this—sometimes I just want to be me. I want to be free of that feeling that in this situation I have to be something and not only somebody, free of the need to be performing tasks and instead freed to enjoy the slow passing of time over a conversation about shared interests, hobbies, concerns or whatever. Friendship is the space within which that freedom is most often experienced. I miss being around people—around friends—who simply want to be around me because I am who I am, and because we both read the same kinds of books or listen to the same kind of music or watch the same kinds of TV shows and movies.
Already I mentioned to the fact that as a pastor I don’t feel the freedom others should feel in cultivating friendships with people in church. This isn’t to say people from church are excluded from my social life; rather, the degree to which I would be able to experience that sense of genuine friendship, of intimate disclosure and honesty, of personal closeness and openness is very limited when it comes to folks in my congregation. And this is precisely the kind of friendship I am really talking about. It may include going to the movies, but it isn’t limited to that.
And the thing is, I don’t believe that friendships are frivolous and peripheral to all other relationships. Though so many of us become too busy with family life and work to put any energy into potential or existing friendships (I’m looking in the mirror here!), I think that friendships help us to be more of ourselves, to fulfill our God-given identities, to help us see more clearly who we are and who we can be. Other people draw out of us more than we can draw out of ourselves.
When it comes to Christian friendships, their value is that they’re a form of spiritual encouragement and support, and one of God’s ways of meeting us himself. In all the evangelical talk of having a personal relationship with God, one thing is often missing: that we often experience our own relationship with God through the relationships we have with other believers; that is, our relationship with God is vertical, yes, but it is also horizontal. To some extent it is vertical only if it is also horizontal.
To put it more practically, only when I experience friends praying with me (and for me) can I sometimes understand how it is that God is personal—and that he is with me. Perhaps this is why I’ve occasionally felt a connection between the struggles I have in my prayer life and the lack of Christian friends with whom I can pray in the same room.
In my experience, the times when I’ve felt the presence of God most closely are rarely those times when I’ve been alone; instead, there are usually at least a couple of other people in the room. Those moments when I have been most aware of God’s friendship are those moments when I have been most aware that God has provided me with Christian friends. While not encompassing the full meaning of the title, I think, too, this is part of what it means to call God Emmanuel, “God with us.” And though it’s true that knowing this involves a whole lot more than going out with a friend to the movies, maybe it at least needs to begin there. Hmmm . . . maybe I need to make a phone call?
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