We spent the evening with dear friends last night. They are, for us, new friends - people we met just a couple of years ago - but we have become close. Last night was an evening of shared food, a bit of Christmas decorating, telling stories, and a lot of laughter. I don’t have much hair these days, so occasions when I let my hair down aren’t very dramatic. I’m pretty much a “what you see is what you get” kind of person. The public me is pretty much the private me. Still, there is a difference in the feeling of sharing an evening with folks at a meeting where we have an agenda and just sitting down with friends.

For all of our lives we have had dear friends who were active in the churches we have served. I recognize the importance of professional boundaries for ministers. I have taken a lot of boundary trainings over the years. On the other hand, I have never made a distinction between my friendships with those inside of the churches I have served and those who are not members of my congregation. There are people who become friends because we have shared interests and one of those shared interests is membership in the same church and a mutual love of the people who gather in church. Like any other organization, the church has some people that we get to know better than others and some people know a bit more of our story than others.

Over the span of my career as a pastor, I have had known several ministers who led fairly lonely lives. They felt a certain need to maintain a professional distance from the communities they served. I don’t think it was so much that the congregation placed them on a pedestal as they climbed up there themselves. I don’t fully understand those dynamics, but my experience has been different. I have not found the ministry to be a lonely occupation. It has been a career of making and treasuring dear friends. A couple of years ago, when Susan faced a health crisis, the support of my friends was immediate. Friends stepped in and officiated at services so I could be at the hospital. Friends called me on the phone from around the world to offer support and assistance. I received two phone calls with love and support from Australia at a time when I didn’t have the energy to be the one initiating the phone calls. All of those friendships sustained me at a time when I couldn’t even find words for my own prayers.

I know stories of pastors who have abused friendships with members of their congregations. I know stories of pastors who have been abused by the congregations they have served. But those are not my stories and they are not my experience. I have found that serving people is a process of loving people and when people love and are loved we become connected in important ways - ways the time and distance cannot sever.

The Covid pandemic changed the patterns of friendship for so many people. I have colleagues who gave up making home visits for the most part. They turned to technology for making contacts with other people, using phone calls, video conferences, and other methods of communication. A new type of ministry is emerging that is practiced from a greater physical distance. I’m old and semi-retired, so I don’t mind being called “old school.” Over the span of my career there were plenty of times when I felt that a phone call simply didn’t accomplish what I needed to do as a pastor. In my time, simply going to people’s homes and visiting them there was something that a pastor did. If there was a death in a family, I simply went to be with them. If there was someone in the hospital or nursing home, I went to the hospital or nursing home. The pandemic changed a lot of that. Nursing homes and hospitals banned visitors in an attempt to prevent the spread of illness. There were a few exceptions and I found ways to visit people even in the midst of the pandemic, but a lot of my colleagues focused on technological work arounds, becoming more proficient with social media, making appointments for video chats and practicing ministry over long distances.

There is something about being invited into another person’s home, however, that allows for a more immediate connection. I can look at the pictures on the wall and ask the names of those in the pictures. I can gain a sense of the lives that are lived in a home by being invited to sit down in a living room. I hear stories and learn things about people that simply wouldn’t come up in a phone call or video chat.

And I make friendships. My experience of being a pastor is one of loving the people I serve. Of course not every member of every congregation has become a close friend. I’ve spent time with a few very difficult folks over the years. There have been times that I felt I was visiting someone who was lonely because they were so hard to visit. I’ve heard my share of complaints and problems. But I have also heard some wonderful, heart-warming, funny, and very real stories of people’s lives. And I have met dear friends.
I think I was fortunate to be a pastor in the particular time that I served the church. I’m not sure that I’d be as effective in the world of social media, long distance, Zoom meeting, online pastoring. I gave it a strong effort. In the last year before I retired, I posted daily prayers on Facebook and YouTube. I learned to host Zoom meetings and formed online small groups. I still facilitate small groups over the Internet. I feel fortunate, however, to have served the church in a time when pastoral calls were expected to be home visits, where pastors were invited to dinner, and where we invited folks into our home.

I am blessed to have made dear friends. Besides, no online meeting, no matter how effective and well-run, will ever offer the sublime taste of pineapple upside down cake that I savored last night.