Friends. They make life so much fuller, fun so much deeper, work so much easier, and burdens so much lighter.

I urge young pastors to “find yourself some friends; you’re going to be needing some.” Not all pastors know this or believe it.

Amazing how much independence and isolationism one finds among pastors. They will stand in the pulpit and exhort their members on the virtues of fellowship with one another. They will illustrate the point by the well-worn story of the pastor who sat in the living room of a straying church member and with the tongs, reached into the fireplace and moved a burning coal off to one side where it proceeded to die. The enlightened member told the pastor he got the point and would be in church the following Sunday. “We need each other,” the preacher tells the congregation.

Pastors believe that for everyone except themselves.

The average pastor seems to believe that fellowship with other pastors is time wasted. Whether this is a personality quirk or some theological snag formed from a misreading of Scripture, I’m not prepared to say. But it’s dead wrong.

The Lord thought the preachers needed to get together. He chose twelve–make no mistake, they were chosen to be preachers–and kept them together for three years. When He sent them out, it was in pairs. When God called missionaries, the first went forth as a team, Barnabas and Paul. The second generation was made up of Paul and Silas, plus Barnabas and John Mark. No one went alone.

On Paul’s final trip to Jerusalem for Pentecost, he sensed a deep need to visit with the leaders of the church at Ephesus. A messenger traveled to that city to round up the church leaders, bringing them to the coastal town of Miletus for a day with Paul. Acts 20 describes the meeting and uses three terms for the leaders: elders, shepherds (pastors), and overseers (episcopos). We moderns would do well to note that the head of that congregation was not one hot-shot know-it-all man, but a number of people working together as a team.

How does one find a special friend? First, you won’t find them in clusters, but one at a time, slowly, carefully.

My own plan is simple: ask God, then pay attention.

Every time I go out of town for a speaking engagement, I offer up several requests to the Lord: that I will bring glory to Jesus Christ, not embarrass the person who invited me, be the means of some coming to know Christ, encourage the discouraged, and, I frequently add, make a new friend.

How does one know when he has found the friend God is sending his way? Again, all I know is how the Holy Spirit works in me. Your spirit is drawn to him.

Now, you would not walk up to a fellow you had just met and put it in those words. “Hello. My name is Joe and I sense that my spirit is drawn to you.” Huh uh. Maybe later, after you’ve spent time together and you’ve learned that this connection is satisfying for both could you say something as patently uncool as that. But keep it to yourself at first.

The way to tell the Holy Spirit is drawing you to someone is simply you find yourself liking him. There’s something about him you admire. You feel, “I’d like to get to know this person better.”

That’s how I felt the first time I met Lonnie Wascom. He was pastoring Immanuel Baptist Church in Hammond, Louisiana, and we were serving on the Executive Board of the state Baptist convention along with 75 or 80 others from around the state. I noticed that Lonnie never met a stranger, that he laughed easily, that he looked you in the eye when you talked with him, that he was interested in what you had to say, and that his comments were often profound. I felt a strong desire to get to know him better.

They say the people we are attracted to as friends are not carbon copies (remember those?) of ourselves, but rather personifications of how we would like to be.

From my long-gone pipe-smoking days, I recall a line of script from inside the pouch of Captain Black tobacco: “A friend is like another me.” It’s catchy and conveys a smidgen of truth, but in my experience it’s off a few inches. My own philosophy is: “A friend is the person I wish I was.”

When it works best, friendship occurs between two people who are more or less equals. The mailroom clerk will not become best friend to the company manager, even though he may admire him greatly. But the manager may find himself drawn to someone of a more-or-less similar rank at a competing company and the clerk buddies with a fellow at church who is also starting his own career. I’m not sure why, but it seems to work out this way.

When Don and Audrey Davidson visited the church I pastored in the summer of 1996, I took them to lunch and we enjoyed an hour of fellowship over a meal. Quickly, I felt drawn to him. I liked his easy manner, his look-you-in-the-eye approach, his calm demeanor, and his deep thoughts. He was pastoring Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Danville, Virginia, and had just been appointed as a trustee of our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. That was a dozen years ago and a hundred things have occurred since to confirm the first impression.

So, what does a pastor do with a special friend if God gives you one? He visits with him when he gets a chance. You listen, you laugh, you share your stories, and in time, unburden your problems, seek advice on situations, and help him with your own insights. You share. You joy in each other’s presence.

“And it came to pass…that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (I Samuel 18:1)

I made a list today of the people I visited on the vacation trip from which I just returned. The car logged 3800 miles over 11 days, from New Orleans across to the Florida Panhandle, northward through the Carolinas, on into New England, back through New York and Philadelphia, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and home. At three points–the major destinations on my trip–I spent time with family. In between, I called on friends, usually for a lunch or cup of coffee, and in two cases, overnight in their homes.

The visiting of friends fell into four groups: spending time with two who needed me because of crises they are undergoing, two whom I needed because of their specialness, two new friends I met on the trip, and several old friends.

In every case, I came away stronger than before, a little fuller, a little happier, a little straighter.

John Gladstone was one of the great preachers of the Canadian Baptists and pastored Yorkminster Park Church in Toronto. I once had him to speak to my people when I pastored in Mississippi and he visited us here in New Orleans. Distance kept us from becoming closer friends, but I treasured the times we visited and shared. He is the one who gave me the memorable line I’ve used ever since.

“A friend is God’s apology for your relatives.”

And he didn’t even know any of mine.