Pastors as Friends

One of the pastors at the church I attend posed the following question: "Heard in class today about the pastoral role: "People need a pastor MORE than they need a friend." Agree or disagree?"

Full disclosure: my dad was a pastor so my perspective may be skewed.

My answer is that I agree. We have an awesome group of pastors at New Community, men and women I would be proud to call friends in the truest sense of the word. I have had meetings with all the members of the pastoral staff and they know my name and I know theirs. They know a few things about me and I know a few things about them. I pray for them and they may or may not pray for me. Either way, I would not consider them friends in the way I consider others to be friends and I want it to stay that way. Why?

A pastor's role is to shepherd an entire mass of people all with their own issues, hang ups, agendas, strengths, weaknesses, and complications into a deeper relationship with a God that you can't actually see. Christians are living under what is either the craziest paradox ever or the most corporate delusion ever. I have put my hope and faith in the fact that it's a paradox.

You have this group of people who are trying to fathom something that is unfathomable and you're trying to get them pointed in the right direction. Maybe shepherd gives us too much credit; pastors are cat herders. So anyway, the pastor is running around doing all that is in his or her God given ability to accomplish the impossible.

As a member of a church, the best thing that I can do for a pastor is believe and trust them and stay in the middle of the pack. Maybe try and grab a few cats on the way so the pastor's job isn't as impossible. Those people that I'm trying to keep going in a God driven direction are also trying to keep me going the same way. The result is a tiny group (at NC3 we call them Community Groups) of Christians struggling in the trenches. Then on Sunday, we get together and our tiny groups are given direction by a pastor.

When the question comes up, do I want a pastor or a friend, the answer is obvious. To me, a pastor is someone who brings messages from God. They have a job that I do not want to do (and will not do unless God himself tells me otherwise...preferably through email) partly because of this responsibility and the difficulties of keeping congregants facing the right direction while staying semi-isolated. When I leave church on Sundays, my wife and I talk about the message, not the pastor, and I want it to stay that way.