Earlier this week, I shared a 2013 article by former President of Princeton Theological Seminary, M. Craig Barnes, from the Christian Century. I had first seen it posted by a friend and read the words as ones that resonated with me based on my own experiences in ministry over the last twenty years.

In his article, Dr. Barnes reflects on the reality that pastoral relationships are not the same as ordinary friendships. He names the “crowded loneliness” of ministry and argues that a pastor’s role creates a necessary distance, allowing pastors to carry responsibility, speak hard truths, and serve the church faithfully, while often needing to seek deeper companionship outside the congregation.

I understand why this idea of “Pastor, Not Friend” resonates with me and so many other ministers. There is relief in naming the reality that pastoral relationships are not identical to the friendships we form elsewhere. Power dynamics and responsibility are real, and we all know it. The call to speak hard truths, to make decisions not everyone can agree with, and sometimes to be called away from your place of service, all shape the relational landscape of vocational ministry in ways that are not easily undone by good intentions.

What I hesitate about in Dr. Barnes’ article is when that necessary distinction hardens into a wall.

I do not believe that pastors are called to live relationally sealed lives. We are called into very real, loving, and complex relationships with the people we serve. If we are not walking closely enough with a congregation to know their joys and griefs, their tensions and hopes, then preaching becomes abstract, discernment becomes thin, and presence becomes performance. The Spirit still speaks, but it becomes harder to hear when we are disconnected from the lives we are sent to love.

At the same time, those relationships are not simple replicas of personal friendship. They carry weight, responsibility, and sometimes carry limits that can be painful for everyone involved. Naming that difference does not cheapen the relationship, but honors it for what it truly is.

In my time in ministry, I have come to believe there is a third category here, one that does not fit neatly into “friend” or “not friend.” Pastoral relationships are their own form of connection, shaped by trust, care, mutual vulnerability, and accountability, but also by the reality that the pastor does not fully belong to any one relationship in the way they might elsewhere. That tension is not a failure of faithfulness; it is part of the vocation.

It is a relationship that sees congregants love your family beyond any responsibility to do so, celebrate your shared interests with stories and moments, and deeply hold you in prayer as they make sure you check on how you are doing. It is a unique job field where people are called to care for one another beyond just the nine-to-five and where no wall should, or can, separate people from one another when they work relationally to stay together in Christ across all differences. This applies to every level of congregational (and many other) ministry settings.

Much of my own relational life was formed early inside ministry. Moving frequently growing up, and then beginning ministry at eighteen, meant that many of my deepest connections developed within congregational settings. Over time, I have learned that finding times for solitude is not withdrawal but recovery, and that “crowded loneliness” often only makes sense (in most cases) in hindsight. Ministry stretches most of us into being more present with people than we naturally are, and then asks us to step back so that we might also remain whole.

I don’t believe the danger is intimacy, but rather confusion. When expectations are unspoken, when a pastoral relationship is assumed to function like a traditional friendship without acknowledging the realities of calling, transition, or limits, harm is almost inevitable. That can be a harm that can cut both ways.

As some have said in the comments to my post, Scripture does give us language that helps here. The church is not a collection of clients or acquaintances, but a communal body shaped by love, commitment, and shared life. We are brothers and sisters, not because access is unlimited, but because love is covenantal rather than transactional. This is not a love that always looks like agreement, proximity, or permanence. A love that can endure for a lifetime, yet is sometimes meant only for the season of shared ministry due to a call away that also results in the call of another minister in their place.

For those of us who serve as pastors, this can be an especially difficult reality after walking with people through births and deaths, celebrations and disappointments. It deepens when you have spent years shaping sermons meant to challenge, comfort, and form a particular community, and when disagreement or necessary leadership decisions leave someone hurt or disappointed. Perhaps the hardest work is learning how to hold solitude without drifting into isolation, and presence without losing ourselves.

So yes, pastors should not deny themselves companionship or friendship. No one should do that. Yet, as Barnes notes in his article, pastoral relationships within a congregation DO require discernment, clarity, and sometimes restraint. The challenge is not choosing between pastor and friend, but learning how to hold both faithfully, without pretending the tension is not there.

That work is hard, and it is holy. For me, it deserves more nuance than a simple “yes” or “no.”