The Pastor and Friendships

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Garrett Kell
We all feel how hard friendships are. There’s lots of reasons that it can contribute to why we don’t make the time for deepening those relationships, but I just want to say that part of the reason I’m thankful for this conversation is I wanted to push us and those who listen toward hey, I want to make time for friendships. You.

Matt Smethurst
Wow. Welcome back to the everyday pastor, a podcast from the gospel Coalition on the nuts and bolts of ministry. I’m Matt Smethurst and I’m Luke Duncan, and we are joined by our friend Garrett Kell, pastor of Delray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, to talk about a topic that, sadly, in our modern cultural moment, is something that is really needed, because the reality is that loneliness has become a public health epidemic. Even the US, Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic. We are in a relational state of emergency. So we want to think together for the next few minutes about this idea of the pastor and friendship. So let’s just start with kind of the most basic question. Garrett, why is it so important for a pastor to have friends?

Garrett Kell
Yeah, I mean, you, you talked about what’s happening in our culture. Obviously, we were more connected than ever, but more lonely. I know a lot of texting or just there’s a distance there, that’s, that’s, that’s strange. But I think for pastors, uniquely, ministry can be a very isolating endeavor, right? So we’re, we’re studying a lot that’s often done by ourselves. We are leadership by nature. I mean, though we would hope to have a plurality of elders, leadership can be lonely. You’re having to kind of be a step ahead and all of that kind of stuff. There’s things as a pastor that I know about a lot of people that I can’t talk about to lots of people. So I’m the steward of a lot of soul secrets, and many of those nobody else knows, right? So there’s, there’s a sense in which you feel very alone, which hopefully pushes you toward the Lord. But friendship is a gift from God that that enters into those, those dark places and says, Hey, you know what? I just I care about you. And there’s something that happens when we’re together that warms my heart, and, as a friend of mine would say, strengthens my spine in Jesus, that helps me to have some courage, to keep trusting, keep going. I think we need we need somebody that we can cry with, that we can just be like, This is really hard. Would you just pray for me and not worry whether they’re gonna use it against you or, you know, whatever it may be. Need to be able to have somebody you can just celebrate with, you know, I mean, I love being on a little text thread, like, you’re one of my buddies. I could send stuff to. We can laugh about some stuff that you can’t just talk about with everybody. Like it’s a to be able to have that there’s a, there’s a, it’s not a secret thing, but there’s something that you share that’s not for everybody. That makes it special, right? And I think friendship is a lot of those things mixed together as a good gift from God that we we all need. What

Matt Smethurst
would you add, like, just about the importance of friendships for a pastor?

Ligon Duncan
Well, a testimony first in just that the Lord has been so kind to put really good friends in my life, and really good Christian friends and really good pastor friends in my life. And so I do know a lot of pastors that don’t have those kinds of friendships. Sometimes it’s because they don’t seek them as much as they ought to, and they have their own reasons for pulling back in and having a hard time trusting other brothers in the ministry, sometimes it’s because they’re in ministerial situations geographically that makes it hard for them to have friendships, but the Lord has blessed me with those, and that has been one of the great happinesses of my life. And as Garrett just said, I like to be around people that are better than I am, and

Matt Smethurst
I have is that why you’re hanging out with us? Absolutely, we already did

Ligon Duncan
an episode on the humble pastor. This is not I can point to things in my circle of pastoral friendships, where I I see things in a man. I wish I could be more like that. I wish I not in a jealous way, but in an appreciative way. I have a friend who is maybe the best personal evangelist that I’ve ever met. It just encourages me to watch him share the gospel, and I think I do learn things from him, and I try to implement them in my life, and I’m not nearly as good at it as he is, and that doesn’t discourage me, it encourages me. Thank God that there’s somebody like that out there, and I have friends that are a lot smarter than I am, and they do amazing scholarly things, and I learn from that and benefit from that. That does not discourage me, it makes me happy. So I love to be around people that have gifts. That I don’t have that are serving the Lord in ways that I’ve not been as effective. I have a lot of friends who have seen more conversions in ministry. If I had, if I have had to name my Top Five Regrets in ministry, it would be, I’m not sure I’ve been used as much as I would have liked to have been used to see people come to faith in Christ, but I have friends, man. Have they been used in that way? And that encourages me. So at one level, it’s just great to be with other friends that have gifts and graces in their life and that have been displayed in their ministries in ways that I’ve not had it in my own but just we’re made for friendship and communion. God made us that way, and it is not a gift to be taken for granted, and it’s not something that anybody can go without. All of us need to have friends. We’re made that way. And even if you’re a pastor and you’re kind of you kind of feel off by yourself and you’re a little afraid to step out into friendships. I’d encourage you to seek that. That’s that’s something we all ought to seek. My favorite biography of Augustine is Peter Brown’s biography, just called Augustine of Hippo, and he has a whole chapter on Augustine’s friendships. It begins with a sentence, Augustine will always have friends, and then he tells the stories of his friendships, and you can see the way that Augustine delights in those friendships, and you can see what it did for his life. And I crave that for every pastor, you know, you can’t dictate how many you’re gonna have, but Lord, give me a few friends that I can walk through life with,

Matt Smethurst
and in the four love. CS Lewis talks about how the ancients viewed of all the kinds of loves, the ancients viewed friendship love as the most noble form of love, because the other kinds of loves kind of force themselves on you. So you think of family love that comes with a with an instinctual sense of obligation. You think of erotic or romantic love that kind of comes to you through your senses. But friendship. Love is deliberate. It’s voluntary, it’s a choice, and therefore there’s something inherently precious and valuable about it. I’m just so blessed to have a few different groups of brothers that I’m in constant communication with every single week, whether over text or voice messages that are in some kind of ministry, and they can be sounding boards. We can be encouragements to one another, but also, the Lord has been kind to give me friendships in my own church. But I know that that’s hard for a lot of pastors. Why? Why is that? And let’s just acknowledge the reality that it can be really difficult. It can be a vulnerable thing to open up your life to the people that you know pay your salary, but it’s also, I think, important to be known by those you’re actually living with on a day to day basis. So talk just a bit about that dynamic of having friendships, not only outside your church, but even inside.

Garrett Kell
Man, yeah, it can get complex, and a lot of it depends on how healthy the church is, right? So I mean, it really, every church is different. There’s been different seasons for me as a younger man. I think there were a lot of times I tried to to make sure there was no distance between me and the people that I pastored in a way that I wanted them to know I was normal and I could be their friends, and we did a lot of hanging out and that kind of stuff. I do think at times, I neglected some of the that there is a set apartness in a way that probably didn’t help my pastoral relationship as much I was just a good friend who happened to be their pastor as well. And I think that’s matured over the years. I’ve learned how to have, still those, those close relationships. So, I mean, Wednesday morning, we got a group of guys who come over at 6am and we work out together, and then we pray together. And like those are, you know, one of those other guys is an elder, but the rest of them are not. I do want to try to to bring down that, that wall, but I think it’s hard. Sometimes people feel like, ah, they pastor doesn’t have time. Or pastor, probably maybe he’s gonna find out something in my life. Or there could be lots of different, different motivations there for people feeling distant. And I think it’s on us as leaders to try to draw near to people the shepherd should come near to the sheep is, I think, one of the reasons that hospitality is a qualification of an elder. Open your home, have people in and I think breaking down those walls is going to be really helpful. I think it’s difficult. Even among our elders, we have a good, healthy elder board. The brothers are mature, but even then, we all feel how hard friendships are. We read books together regularly, like it’ll be on the reading list. So this, we just finished one in recent. History made for friendship by Drew Hunter. All the brothers talked about how they wept while they read it, because there was there was a way that he helped us to see the beauty of friendship, the need for it, even what you were talking about, how different friends bring out different things, and we we through tears. Talked about how even the elder board felt different when different guys were gone, because this brother, I remember when he was here, and it was different because of this or that, and you could feel it. And I mean, these are all pastors, you know, and we busyness, there’s lots of reasons that it can contribute to why we don’t make the time for deepening those relationships. But I just want to say that part of the reason I’m I’m thankful for this conversation is I wanted to push us and those who listen toward Hey. I want to make time for friendships. I want to build into people. I want to open my life up more, because it is a life giving gift. You just think about David and Jonathan, how much David needed Jonathan, like he loved him, he needed Him, and we need one another as we’re we’re forging these things in the midst of fire,

Matt Smethurst
often friendships for you, obviously, you’ve been in different seasons. So you, you were a pastor for over two decades in different churches, and then since then, of course, I’m sure friendship has looked a bit different in your life, but as you’re training the next generation of ministers, what are you wanting to commend to their consideration? What are you wanting them to understand about friendship?

Ligon Duncan
Well, let me say this is one area where this new phase that we’re in in theological education in preparation for the ministry, we need to pause and have some reflection on it, because one of the benefits of residential theological education has been very often men build a circle of friendships that will last for the rest of their lives in that context. And if you’re if you’re doing things virtually, it’s harder to do that. And so we really try to compensate for that as best as we can. Some people are not doing residential theological education, and more and more people are not doing formal theological education. Going into I’m talking about evangelical ministry in general, and that means they’re going to have to be more deliberate about building their networks of pastoral friendships. That’s one dynamic. Again, I made friendships in seminary that many of them have continued on to be a blessing in my life. Early on, I got to know Mark Dever, and Mark became a person that was constantly pulling other people into my life that would be friends, not as close as I am with Mark, but people that I valued and have enjoyed rubbing shoulders with. We joke and say mark is human Velcro, because he’s always bringing people together. And of course, the seminary provides a certain network I’m I’ve got staff and faculty that I’m close with. I’ve got elders who are on the board of trustees that I’m close with, not just at a professional level, but at a relational friendship level. And I know a lot of guys that minister in relative solitude and isolation. I’ve never had to do that, and I’m so thankful that I didn’t do that. God has just put those kinds of people in my life,

Matt Smethurst
I imagine there are many pastors who hear conversations like this and just grow discouraged because they don’t disagree that friendship is really important. They’re probably quite eloquent in teaching on that fact, but they are lonely and they don’t see a lot of viable options right in front of them for meaningful friends. So Garrett, what would you say to the pastor who’s listening and is feeling isolated and doesn’t really know what to do or where to go? I think the first

Garrett Kell
thing you want to do is you want to pray. Anytime I move somewhere, I pray. One of the first prayers is God give me a good friend. There. Friendship is a gift, gift from the Lord. And I think you want to pray that God would raise up somebody to be, to be, to be your buddy. So you really want to, you want to pray for that. I think secondly is be willing for God to provide a friend that might be outside of what you would expect. Would expect. So I can look through different seasons. There are people that God brought in. I was like, you know, I didn’t think we’d end up being close, but, you know, the Lord really gave a sweet, sort of surprised gift in there. So I think one of the things we can do is sometimes be looking for a certain kind of person all the time. And I just think, who is the Lord providing for you, and look who might be there there. And this is where, again, opening up your life and inviting people in spending time together. That’s where things will begin to resonate, whether it be and not just ministry things you can do, Bible studies together, those kinds of things. But also, do you like fishing? Who else likes to go fishing? Do you like. Like to play sports. Who else likes to do that? Whoever you know and like, begin inviting people in. I do think if there’s old friends that you have from other places try to keep that that alive, especially if you’re very isolated, and whether you know, I have some friends who I don’t personally do this, but they every year, have an annual retreat where these buddies go and they hang out, and they do this for like, three three days, or whatever it is, and they share life together and all this, and it’s a real rejuvenating sort of of time for them. So prayerfully, consider how you can cultivate old friendships to keep those things alive. It’s gonna look different for everybody. But I think you should pray, God, give me a good friend. And that’s been, that’s been sweet for me. I know one thing that I’ve tried to do over the years, and this can backfire so but hasn’t for me so far, is what I have opportunity to hire. I do want to prayerfully think, is there somebody who’s really life giving that I respect in the Lord, who who would be a good friend that could come in and partner and that has been sweet for me. I mean, if you look at our pastoral staff right now, they’re all They’re all friends of mine, which which could be viewed as favoritism. And I think there’s a way to do that, that you set yourself up for destruction. So you’re not just trying to hire a bunch of yes men, but they’re all so they bring everything to the table that I don’t have Yeah, and I respect them. They love me and are not impressed with me, and we trust each other, and that’s been such a sweet gift. And it’s worth the risk. There’s been some hard things in that, but it’s worth the risk.

Ligon Duncan
I agree. When I came to first pres, I didn’t choose my staff. The staff was already there and and I had some men there immediately that were good to me. Interestingly, older, older men. The Lord has always put older men in my life that blessed me, gave me wisdom, kept me from stepping into potholes, and I had that immediately. But as we added, as people retired or moved on, and as we added staff, it was my aspiration that all the ministers be friends. That, look, there are some pastors, especially of large staff church, that don’t want their their staff to be friends. And I think that’s incredibly unhelpful and unhealthy. I wanted us to be friends as a self pretending mechanism. I think, I think it’s, you know, I always watch is a is a guy willing to hire somebody that’s better than he is at something, because insecurity is one of the worst things in ministry, if you’re jealous of somebody who’s better than you are. When, if I can just tell this story, I when, when I came to first prayers, I was handling all the preaching, and that was five sermons a week, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night, and then, always, as we’ve talked about, I would had a funeral and a wedding. So I had five preps a week. It was killing me, because I had nothing in my bag. I had no I was coming as an associate pastor, assistant pastor. I had preached a little bit. I didn’t have a bunch of sermon series that I could pull out and warm up and re preach. I was they were all need preps. And so I asked my dear friend Derek Thomas if he would join the ministerial staff as the Minister of teaching and share the preaching load at the church and and I knew there were going to be people that liked Derek’s preaching better than mine. I liked Derek’s preaching better than mine, and there were people that liked Derek’s preaching better than mine, and Derek never used that against me, and I never resented that in Derek, and it blessed the congregation, and what kept that going was our friendship. I mean, we just genuinely loved one another, and a win for Derek was a win for me, and he knew that a win for me was a win for him. And so the friendship made that work in that setting. And so I just think it’s good to have honest friendships where you respect one another, and a win is a win for the whole team. It’s about serving the congregation. It’s about serving the Lord. It’s not my church, it’s Jesus’s church. I’m an under Shepherd. More gifted under shepherds alongside of me is only going to bless my people more. So that friendship dynamic was really good for us. Pastors can look to their elders, they can look to other pastors and even people in their congregation to fill some of those friendship needs. It can be tricky. I i saw four or five young guys in the congregation that I could be friends with and sort of mentor in a discipleship setting, and they became really good friends. Four of them still to this day, walk with me regularly in everything in life, and I knew that okay, that could create some jealousy. Ligon spending more time with X, Y and Z than he is with me. But my elders understood he’s got to have a small. Or circle of friends that he gets with, and, of course, not neglecting the rest of the congregation or the rest of the elders or officers, but that was really good for me to have some people inside the church that I had those kinds of friendship with, and then pastors outside of the church, as well as the pastors on staff at the church,

Matt Smethurst
yeah, and I think especially when it comes to cultivating friendships with our fellow elders, it can be easy to only talk about work stuff if you’re not intentional. So we start every elders meeting by, you know, spending a fair bit of time doing personal updates and trying to be open and transparent with one another and praying for one another. And often that’s the spiritually sweetest time together, and it kind of launches us into then praying for the sheep and caring for the sheep. But if we don’t build that in, it’s so easy to just rush to business, straight to business. So how? How do you, Garrett, foster those friendships with your fellow leaders in a way where you are getting to know one another, encouraging one another in the Lord and not just talking about agenda items.

Garrett Kell
Yeah, and I’ll say there’s different seasons. I’ve done that better than than others. You know, first of all, one of the things we we do as an elder board, I instituted as soon as I got there was an elder retreat for us, it’s turned into a two, a two night event, which is, you know, I say no to some speaking things or whatever else, so I can say yes to this. It’s my favorite thing that I do every year, because we go we go fishing, we’ll go play some basketball. Those who are able, we will, you know, just grill out together. We’ll talk. It’s all personal. And then at the end, we have a little thing called, you know, the rabbit board, where you can, you can write down whatever rabbit trail you think we need to go to at the end. And we have a little session for business stuff. But almost the entire thing is, how’s your soul, how’s your life? All that. It’s the sweetest, most life giving thing that we do. So I we try and build that into the elder board, and that that really helps a lot outside of that. You know, I’ve coached basketball and soccer teams with my kids, with other elders and their kids, so we try and rope those things in together, so we’re doing normal, normal things together, like that. I’ve gone vacationing with some elders and their families and that kind of stuff. So there’s ways that we can bring people along. And you want to, you want to create space for that. I think you also want to you can help lead the elder board with saying, Hey guys, not everybody’s gonna have the same sort of relationships here, so we don’t need to be jealous of one another, like there’s some brothers on our elder board who, who they spend time together, and they just have a great time. I’m like, Man, I wish I could do that. And I just, I think we need to learn to do in those instances is praise God when you see something that you’re envious of ask God to help you praise Him that they’ve gotten that good gift and celebrate that. And then you can turn it into a Lord help me to be a better friend, you know? And sometimes you can try really hard and it’s just not clicking, and you just whatever you’re missing from others. The Lord has to be it for you, and he’s intentionally withholding it so that you’ll draw near to Him and all that kind of stuff. But he will, he will give those sorts of of friendship. So any way I can incorporate normal life, I think also elders wives are very lonely, often times as well. So there’s ways, like one of the one of the sisters on our elder board, she’s not on the elder board, but you know, one of the wives of the brothers who are, they’ll have something all night. So we have elder board meetings where the sisters can go over there and hang out. And, you know, there’s kids everywhere, and it’s all kind of stuff, but they’re together. And so we want to try and always be mindful of, how can we do more, more things together outside of the office? And talk about just, how are you, how’s your family? So I think one of the things talking about how their soul is and how their family is that can usually fill a whole lot

Matt Smethurst
of time talk more about the dynamic with elders wives, and in particular, the lead pastor’s wife. Our former multimedia director, Kendra, was recently at a gathering for seminary friends, and she said that basically all the pastor’s wives were in tears because of how lonely and challenging friendships have been. Yeah, you, both of you, have quite a bit of ministry experience. You’ve you’ve probably encountered this dynamic in seasons with your own wives, but certainly in the lives of other elders and their wives. What wisdom would you commend into the tricky dynamics of a pastor’s wife friendship?

Garrett Kell
Again, there have been different seasons and different sisters who are involved in that orbit that it changes all the time. It’s an ecosystem that’s always, always changing. But I think the things we want to do, we want to pray for our wives that God would give them good friends, and whether they be friends with one another or friends with other sisters, I don’t care. That was one of the first things I told the church whenever they were interviewing me. Was like, my wife, I just want you to know as a Christian, and she’s going to not be friends with everybody. She’s going to be free to have her friends. And just want you to encourage that. One of the best ways you encourage me is to encourage my wife and let her have friends. Yeah?

Matt Smethurst
And just to be clear, when you say she’s a Christian, what you what you mean is, she’s not going to be the first lady of church, the First Lady of the church. She’s an ordinary Christian. In order. Ordinary member, and her first responsibility is to me and our kids and those she’s in

Garrett Kell
covenant with. Yes, thank you for fixing that. That’s exactly what I mean. And and get this guys, she’s a Christian. Well, anyway, so the but that’s that’s had good ripple effects, because that that sets the tone for the culture is that not everybody can be friends with everybody in the same way. And we want to, we want to, we want to praise God when he’s doing good things in other people’s lives. I do think if there’s ways that we can encourage sisters who have a desire for and bandwidth for cultivating that to provide avenues and opportunities. So you know this one sister, she loves doing this. She does this for our intern wives. She does this for elder’s wife. She just lets her think she loves doing it. So please, anything we can do, here’s some money, here’s some encouragement. Anything you need, like figure it out. Thank you and provide those, those opportunities. And I think that’s been good. I think also, you know, we have an end of the end of the year dinner where elders and their wives come and we ask them to share, if they’re up for it. Not everybody has to. But like, the floor is open for both the brothers and the sisters to share things that have been encouraging and, oh, it’s so wonderful to hear some of the sisters talk about how one another and other people have blessed it. I think you just the more again, one of the common themes to this whole thing is you got to make time, yeah, and like in Washington, DC, it’s so busy where we are, and it’s it you have to make time or it will not happen. So I think part of building a culture is is, is guarding time for those sorts of things. And again, I’ve said there’s seasons we’re doing it well in seasons we aren’t. But that’s been, that’s been a sweet, a really

Matt Smethurst
sweet gift, yeah. And it can be hard as a pastor’s wife to feel like you’re kind of always the one initiating, always the one pouring into others. And if people are coming to you, you can wonder at times, are there ulterior motives? Is it going are they going to be pumping you for information about what the elders are thinking? You know? Hey, what are the elders thinking about that? It’s like, I don’t know. Ask, ask an elder. So it can be a tricky thing. But what about what would

Ligon Duncan
you add? Well, I one to go back to the idea of the ministers being friends. I wanted all the ministers to be friends. I knew that I could not expect to have exactly the same kind of friendships between their wives as existed between them, because that’s a that’s a different dynamic. Couples are all different. And now I didn’t, I didn’t want the wives to hate one another, but I wanted, I wanted to make sure that they had opportunities for natural friendships in the congregation. And I want to, I want to praise my congregation. We were a traditional Southern congregation with a lot of the expectations that you were talking about, First Lady of the church, kind of thing, our people were great about not over prescribing what our pastors and their wife relationships would be like in the congregation. They gave a lot of freedom there. But there were challenges, and there were especially challenges for my wife, Anne, had been on the church staff of two large Presbyterian churches, one in Alabama, one in Columbia. She knew what it was like to be a church staff member, and she had tons of relationships. She is the most gregarious person I know. She feeds off of relationships with people, whereas if you told me you were going to drop me on a desert island with a copy of the Bible in Calvin’s Institutes for the next six months and leave me some food and come back and see me later, I’d say, great. You know that when she would hate Coke Zero or some wines a bonus, you know? But she would want to be drop her down in front of 3000 people that she could relate to. That’s what energizes her. But she had a really lonely experience at the church, partly because we had kids with pediatric immune deficiencies that kept now, again, let me praise the women of the church. The women of the church realized that, and they said, Look, we’ll come keep the kids at the house so that you can go to church. So they were thinking about serving her, but it was still a really lonely life. She felt like she was in a cave with two kids that could never get well from upper respiratory infections for like eight years. Went on for seven, eight years that she had to deal with that the pulpit committee asked, actually asked, what, what is your role going to be as the First Lady of the church? And she said, My job is to take care of your pastor and his children and to be a good Christian, and so she wasn’t trying to get some formal role in the life of the congregation. Although she was a good Christian educator and had a real heart for the local church. She loved local church life and ministry and had significant gifts, but she wanted to be a wife and a mother and a Christian in the congregation and not necessarily have some public role. And we the two previous senior ministers wives were really, really gift. One was really, really gifted in teaching and had started women’s Bible studies that were drawing six or 700 Or women a week from all over the city, and one who was just amazing at hospitality and at caring for the mothers, especially the young mothers in the congregation. And so they had kind of defined the way that they were going to be a senior minister’s wife. And so that was kind of set for Anne. And Anne was in a different stage of life, with little kids. They had not had a senior minister’s wife with little children at home in like over 125 years in the history of the church, all of the ministers their families were were grown by the time they came for the memory of everybody that was alive in the church. And so we just had a different dynamic going on. So I do think you have to pay attention to dynamics that are going to face wives of elders and pastors that that the elders and pastors themselves don’t experience. I mean, here I was, my wife was more people person than me. I had all the people person interaction that you could ever want for and more, and she was lonely, and that’s you got to keep an eye on those kinds of dynamics. It was a lot easier for me to make friends in that setting than it was for her, even though she’s a lot better at making friends than I am. The Lord just provided for me and it was challenging for her. You know,

Garrett Kell
one of the things, when we think about friendships, there’s, there’s real risk in being vulnerable and being tight knit with others, because sometimes friendships, they do, go south. There’s differences of opinion. There’s lots of different things. I know, I’ve had that in my life, like, I mean, you know, together for the gospel, one of the things that made it so sweet was that it was forged out of friendships. There were people on the stage sharing in life and ministry that loved one another a lot. And I just wonder if you’d be willing to comment about the pain of those sorts of things when there’s fractures, and what’s that been like for you personally?

Ligon Duncan
Yeah, one thing to recognize about that is friendships that are in the public eye face some challenges in the perseverance of those friendships that private friendships don’t and so when, when you have friendships with other people that are visible in the public, certain things can come along that can be interrupting to that I still personally love everybody that was involved AT T, 4g, my relationships have been affected significantly by the things that have happened over time, and I think probably mark and Kevin have been the two guys that have done the best job of staying connected with everybody since T 4g came to an end, but it was very painful to lose the regular fellowship that we were enjoying, that my favorite part of T 4g was not the conference. It was getting together at the meeting in Louisville with just the guys that were speaking and asking one another questions like we’ve been talking about asking about our lives, asking asking about our local church ministry, asking about our what’s going on in your heart? How is your wife doing? How are your children doing? That was an incredible blessing. Some of the most memorable things in my life. Even though, when that was happening, Garrett, I never thought this is going to go on forever. I thought, don’t take this for granted. This is probably and partly, that was a the age span, right? You had some guys, okay, they’re going to age out of this. You know, maybe I’m going to age out of this. Kevin’s gonna outlive all of us, you know, that sort of thing. So I never took it for granted. But the you know, the issues that that led to T 4g eventually, saying, Okay, it’s time to come, time to bring this to a close, that definitely had an impact on our on our friendships. Now, I think that can also happen in other places. So I’ve mentioned Derek. Thomas, Derek and I got together every week for 12 years. I knew eventually he was going to get called to another church, and I knew that time was going to come to an end. Now, our friendship has continued at a distance, but it’s not the same when you’re getting together in person every week for a meal. And so all of us, I think, have to recognize there are going to be seasons of friendships. There are going to be some friends that walk with us until we cross the finish line. There can be others who walk with us for a certain season, and then it’s going to be over. I just one thing I always said is, don’t take it for granted, and then, yes, you have regret. I mean, I look back and say, Are there things that I could have done differently that would have helped the fellowship stay together longer, that that is one of the those are regrets that I’ll take to the grave.

Garrett Kell
Brother, thank you for sharing that. And, yeah, I just want you to know it’s it helped me to be hopeful for friends and and know. That you know out of the public eye, you guys still have warm affection for one another. Is a sweet gift, but I appreciate you sharing

Matt Smethurst
Absolutely. Yeah, in terms of just ways, as we kind of wrap up this episode, ways that we can teach our church members to think about friendship, even among one another and in their own lives. When you all teach on this topic, what are some of the main notes you’re wanting to sound?

Garrett Kell
I think you got to make, make time for it. Secondly, you got to be vulnerable. This is one of the, I think, threats to a lot of people is like, if I have people who are close to me, they’re going to know what’s going on. But as as Christians, especially as Christian pastors, we know we need people in our lives who know the most, the deepest part, is to walk with us through really hard things. One of my quotes that I love from that book that I mentioned made for friendship from Drew hunter. He says the world is full of sorrow because it’s full of sin. It’s a dark place, it’s a lonely place, it’s a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys. And I just think, what a painting that picture of. Listen, the American culture teaches you to be by yourself and be strong. You’re an individual, but God’s made you for one another. So the Gospel says, Stop trying to impress people. Stop trying to like one up one. Don’t envy one another. Love one. You need each other. I think painting the picture of how God’s designed us to need one another

Matt Smethurst
and people who are different than we are and better than we are on certain things diverse, don’t just find people who remind you of yourself. Sure, there

Garrett Kell
could be a real like people have visceral reactions. Yeah. Visceral reaction. The idea of diversity, of friendships, like, oh, that could be a hot button. But I have learned so much from people who didn’t grow up in places that I didn’t grow up cultures I’m not from, all the different stuff there’s they see the world in a way that I don’t that has enriched me so much. So they use, when I teach those as common themes of what the church is. It’s a tight knit, honest people who committed to Christ and one another together, who come from every tribe, tongue and nation, and the Lord, the Lord blesses that, I would say just a couple resources that I think paint the picture well. So I guess Drew’s Drew’s book is there just for pastors, though it’s really helpful. So I love wise counsel. Is a great book of the letters of John Newton to Ryland, a younger pastor, and in there you see a friendship grow. I mean, they mourn together over the death of their wives and all of the stuff. It’s, it’s a wonderful book. Our interns read it, and it’s, it’s over. I mean, one of the favorite things the interns read, because you get to see what it looks like for for Pastor friends to share con What do you do with the vaccination? That was a thing in the small pocket, all this kind of stuff like, what do you do with that? What do you do with when there’s controversy? Somebody wrote a pamphlet about you? Well, here’s how I would encourage you to think about it. It’s a window into the real things that pastors wrestle with. So wise counsel is really good. And then I personally love Pilgrim’s Progress. And I have, I just have a bookmark in that book, and I’m reading it all the time, and you just watch how Christian. He needed faithful, He needed hopeful, he needed great heart. He needed all these people to help him to make it home. And that’s, I think the Lord’s really used that book to paint a beautiful picture of how much in different seasons, God brings different people to help us to make it home. Yeah, and that’s what a Christian friend is like. We’re going to heaven together. That’s so good.

Matt Smethurst
I love this quote from CS Lewis, from the what I referenced earlier, from the four loves. He writes, In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers in reality a few years difference in the date of our births a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting. Any of these chances might have kept us apart. But for a Christian, there are strictly speaking, no chances. A secret master of the ceremonies has been at work Christ, who said to the disciples, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you can truly say to every group of Christian friends, you have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others at this feast, it is he who has spread the board, and it is he who has chosen the guests. We hope this episode of the everyday pastor has been an encouragement to you, and we hope that you will find faithful friends in the work of ministry, and that you’ll share this episode with other pastors so that we can help them find fresh joy in this good work. You.