How do you find safe friendships at church when you live in a fishbowl?

Do you get the picture? I’ve been burned a time or two in this category and, because this fishbowl I’m writing in is actually a public aquarium, I’ll be as honest as I can and totally vague about specifics. Let me just start by affirming two things: 1) We all need safe friendships at church. All of us. 2) When you’re the youth pastor or youth leader, they are hard to find.

Part of this is because you spend a lot of time with teens, and teens are not safe or healthy for accountability for you. So, the group you work with—unlike an adult ministry—is not a possible option for a safe friendship. Another reason is that, unless you’re at a really big church, if you’re the youth pastor, the pastors on your team are often people you answer to. Try as you may, it’s really hard to have a safe friendship with your boss who signs your checks or, when you confess your sins, doesn’t also muddy it with your leadership responsibilities. Which leads us to another reason we both need and find it hard to have safe friendships. Everyone around us is looking to us for leadership and guidance, and a safe friendship is one where you can be the uninhibited you. In a safe friendship, you share joys without creating jealousy and failures without creating judgment. So it’s hard. Understanding all of that, here are a few thoughts about how:

Avoid plastic people, curious people, and over-sharing people. Plastic people are fake. They poop potpourri. Their world never stinks, and they never fail. Their marriages are perfect, their lives always look put together, and they are not real or safe. Curious people always want to know “How are you, really?” way before they have earned the right to the full answer. They want to know about your marriage, your life, and your kids, and they are just too curious. My experience says they are not really interested in you; they just take pride in being in the know. Beware. Over-sharing people tell everyone everything. If you tell them everything, expect them to tell everyone. Avoid them.

Be safe. Be authentic. Be wise. You can’t expect to create safe friendships with others if you’re not safe. So don’t be plastic, don’t go searching out details in people’s lives for fun, and don’t gossip. Be a friend who is there. Be humble and share honestly your successes and failures to the degree that others can hear them. Don’t pretend you have it all together. Don’t hang all your laundry in the front yard either.

Start with a few. Start Slow. Pray for God to lead you and then invest in someone whose life you respect. Start slow. Grab weekly java. Open your heart and see where it leads. Then if it’s safe, share your hopes, dreams, and fears. If the passion for friendship is mutual, then invest. Ask God to protect it. Your safe friendship is also a chief battlefield for ministry. Know that the devil is not fond of it and will work hard to destroy it. Guard your friendships in prayer. Choose them carefully.

Join a network or create one. Sometimes the safest friendships can be found inside the church but outside your local body. This isn’t an excuse for being an outsider in your local church or for lacking vulnerability there, but there is some truth in someone who totally gets your calling yet is not looking to you for approval or leadership. The right network of pastors from a couple of churches can, if comparison is declared off limits, be a very safe place. I actually meet with a youth pastor network monthly, a group of three pastors quarterly, and annually with a group of five long-haul pastoral friends from all over the state for a week of accountability and friendship. All have proven invaluably safe places for me.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small. The role of youth pastor is relationally driven, which means the capacity to maintain a large group of friends is not sustainable. There is no need to have a large pool of surface-level friendships but rather having two to three really great friends outside the church. So the question remains: Should youth pastors find friends inside or outside the church?

I strongly argue that the best solution to finding safe friendships is simply outsourcing your friendships outside the church. First, youth workers need more community outside their church communities. Getting sucked into the church fishbowl is dangerous because your life, perspective, and experience are only rooted in your church community. You won’t be able to see life outside your church community lens. It is important to have non-church friends to help you objectively think and process about your life, marriage, and ministry.

Second, youth workers need outlets that force them to get out of the fishbowl. You need legitimate reasons to jump out. If church life is the only thing you have going, it will literally suck the life out of you. Find ways to enjoy life outside your church life.

Third, friends at church can only see you as a church employee. You need friends who see you as you. Ministry is your job, so don’t feel obligated to have best friends at your church. You cannot get on a vulnerable level with friends inside the church without changing their perspective of who you are as a leader in the church.

Fourth, having friends at church is too risky. You need safe and trusted relationships were you can freely vent without having to filter your thoughts and words. It is problematic when you are worrying if your venting sessions will backfire. Church people love to gossip about other church people, especially if it is about the church leadership.

Youth pastors have to figure out how to build relationships where you can be honest. My only solution is to jump out of the fishbowl and start intentionally carving time to cultivate friendships outside the church. Here are two ways to cultivate safe, fun, and trusted friendships outside the church:

Be committed to developing long-term friendship. In order to build great relationships, you have to value friendships. The best friends for youth pastors are other youth pastors. Youth pastors share interests and passions with other youth pastors. Join a local youth pastor network so you can befriend other like-minded youth pastors with whom you can talk life, marriage, and ministry.

Find hobbies outside the church. In other words, get a life. I was just recently at the National Youth Workers Convention in San Diego, and I stopped the youth ministry guru/veteran Les Christie to ask: “What has kept you sane in youth ministry tenure?” Without any hesitation, he passionately said, “I found hobbies outside the church. I found other things to do than just youth ministry.” I smiled and gave him a hug and said, “I completely agree.” The hobbies I have pursued outside of church have kept me sane and given me other friends.

So how can one guarantee safe and life-giving friendships? Shatter the fishbowl, be committed to cultivating friends outside the church, and find hobbies that pull you away from church work.

On Facebook, I have almost five thousand friends. That might sound impressive, but allow me to put it in perspective. Whereas most people meet one person at a time, my work sometimes affords me the great and humbling opportunity to be in front of lots of people on a regular basis. In addition to youth ministry, I’m in a band; I do some theater work; I produce and speak at events pretty regularly; stuff like that. Some days nobody requests my friendship, and other days, dozens do.

In real life, I know a fraction of the people who befriend me, but it doesn’t stop them from approaching me in public, stepping into my bubble, and exuberantly declaring, “Hey! We’re friends…” I’m pretty quick to assume they’re talking about Facebook so as not to let an involuntary facial scowl tell my real thought of, No, we ain’t! I can usually catch myself. Usually. In brief conversation, they might recall one of my statuses, a posted picture, or inquire about some upcoming event I’m promoting. Then without fail, that awkward moment of how we wrap this up is upon us.

And no matter how kind, pleasant, or amusing the person was, I invariably leave that conversation not feeling known but rather feeling watched and reminded how many people on any given day are doing just that. Watching. Some with good intent, some not, and I don’t always have a way of knowing which is which. It’s certainly a vulnerable position to be in. It makes one long for safety. Truth is, as fulfilling and purposeful as ministry can be, it often is like being in a fishbowl set on top of a really tall pedestal with lots of people bumping the stem. Even with lots of people around, it can be a lonely place and terribly silent in the midst of constant noise.

Recently at a community event to honor one of my friends, I was given the opportunity to publicly applaud his many accomplishments, talents, and endeavors. I chose instead to applaud his friendship. My speech was this: “My friend, you are anointed. To anoint means to make sacred. Sacred means to esteem, secure, or protect from violation. Your friendship has been that in my life. It has been anointed. It has protected me not only from outside opposition but even from the oppositions I sometimes put on myself. I would trade you for nothing.” After the ceremony was over, we went to dinner, complained about the food, laughed about all the things we found funny, and then wished each other well before heading back to our respective fishbowls. So, here’s my slant.

There’s nothing you can do about the fishbowl. Get used to it. It’s part of the call.

Recognize that there are people anointed to be your friend. Spend less time trying to find friendships. Rather, take time to discover the ones you already have. Hone in on the people who consistently and quietly support and inspire you; the ones who can challenge you while simultaneously making your life light—and don’t sneakily hand you an emotional bill for it.

Don’t let friendships become stale. Find ways to keep ’em fresh. Take trips. Have regular and spontaneous appointments. Go out of your way to hang out, even if it’s just for twenty minutes. Give each other passes on being perfect. Call or text each other and laugh about something dumb then just hang up.

Don’t make the mistake of not investing in your friendships until you need to. Purposely cultivate, protect, and grow them. To not do so is cheating and cheap, and the results will show it. Conversely, don’t make the mistake of expending energy on people who drain and deplete you. They might be anointed—just not for you.

In short, I’m saying, if you gotta be the fish in the bowl, let your friendships be the water.