I suspect I’m not the only person or pastor who wishes for better friendship. I haven’t made the friends that I should have or kept up with the good ones that I had. Pastors often have temporary work friendships until life and ministry take them in different directions.
Here is what is helping me: Pray for your friends and their families. I’m gearing this for pastors, but this applies to everyone.
I started praying for a couple of friends 1-2 years ago. I just wrote down two names and prayed for them once a week or so. One is a friend that I see once per month. The other is a friend that I see once every two years when we try to go to a conference together. My prayers for my friends took a big step when I read Jed Coppenger’s book 21 Days to Childlike Prayer.
Coppenger suggests writing out your top 5 or 6 roles in life and then praying every day one or two prayers in that role. These are the roles that mean the most to you. I realized that friend is one of those roles for me. I can’t force friendship, but I decided to be a friend who prays for my friends.
Here is what I’m learning about praying as a friend:
- Pray for them as you would pray for yourself. Pray for their ministry. Pray for their kids. Pray for their temptations. Pray that they would know and love the Lord and long to see his face.
- Pray specific things. Pray for their church to make their budget early. Pray for salvations through their ministry. Pray that their kids would call them and rebuild their relationship. Pray that they wouldn’t fear. Pray that their wives would be delivered from depression.
- Pray for the acquaintances that you want to be your friend. I had lunch with a group of pastors recently and shared about a hard season in ministry. Another pastor said he was right where I had been and asked how I went through it. I now have a new acquaintance and reason to pray for him.
- Listen in your conversations to see how you can pray more specifically.
- Text occasionally that you prayed for the friend, and tell them what you prayed. We don’t pray to impress people, so it is better that you not say anything if you are tempted to show off your prayer life. Hearing, however, that someone is praying specifically for your family can be such an encouragement. I hope it shows my friends that I care about them, and that they aren’t alone on hard days. I hope they see God at work in the answers to prayer.
Sixty-nine percent of pastors identified friendship as one of their greatest needs in a 2021 Lifeway Research survey. Let’s change that statistic the next time they do the survey.
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Joe Radosevich is married to Emma and father to 7 kids. He is pastor of Manchester Baptist Church in Manchester, IL and graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He writes at josephfradosevich.com.