Navigating Friendships with a Big Heart for Ministry

A few years back, while working as a Youth Minister, I was in a small group of Catholic guy friends (still am) — maybe five or six of us. Once a month we’d sit down with coffee or whiskey (depending on the severity of the month), and we’d check in on the deep stuff:

How’s your prayer life? How’s chastity going? How are you holding up mentally and emotionally?

It was vulnerable, honest, sometimes uncomfortable — and intentionally small. Mostly because if we tried to do that with 10 guys, we’d be talking all day/night. We also wanted a group of guys that would keep things confidential and encouraging for one another.

After months of doing this, one of the guys in our friend group shared that he thought this type of group was exclusive and even toxic for Church community. He described that not letting it be an open-door to anyone from young adult ministry who wanted to join was inappropriate as Christians, even though this wasn’t a ministry group. With the best of intentions, he wanted others to not feel excluded in a sense of close brotherhood and friendship, but he misunderstood something important at the core:

Ministry isn’t always close friendship.
But friendship is always, in some way, ministry.

And confusing the two can cause trouble. It can also be confusing because the word friendship can mean so many things to so many people. So where to begin?

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Aristotle, Aquinas & The Friendship Spectrum

Aristotle described three kinds of friendship:

1. Friendship of Utility — we help each other accomplish something.
2. Friendship of Pleasure — we enjoy one another’s company.
3. Friendship of Virtue — we pursue goodness together.

Most ministry relationships aren’t necessarily going to be deep virtue friendships — (although it’s a real gift if they lead to that) and that’s okay. Oftentimes we are holding short conversations with people in ministry, leading with them, maybe even praying with them. This doesn’t mean they will or should be someone we are watching movies with on the weekends, checking in with daily.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not discouraging growing in friendship by any means, I encourage and pray for everyone to have a handful of friends they can cry with, be held by, and vent angrily to. But we need to take the pressure off when working in ministry. We can breathe, and let God work.

Aquinas clarified that charity is universal, but vulnerability is wisely selective.

“To love is to will the good of the other.”
— St. Thomas Aquinas

You can will someone’s good no matter what— pray for them, walk with them, serve them — without giving them full access to your life, your wounds, or your inner circle. Close friendship requires active discernment, intentionality, and even discipline to accompany another and be accompanied. Close friendship is a commitment to love.

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Ministry, Not Besties

In ministry culture, especially Youth and Young Adult Ministry, there can often be an unspoken rule or pressure that if we’re loving people well, then every relationship should be equally yoked. Transparent. Personal. Shared.

But that’s not reality — and it’s not even healthy or possible.

Scripture gives us permission for layered relationships:

“He had the Twelve, and among them He had Peter, James, and John.”
— cf. Mark 9:2

Even Jesus had different circles — the crowds, the disciples, and His closest friends.

He had various levels of self-disclosure and directness. He loved all, wants to heal all, but not all relationships were the exact same…and that is good.

With these distinctions we have the beautiful mystery of the transfiguration, the varying Gospel accounts. Each encounter with Jesus was personal, different, and very good.

Boundaries Aren’t Barriers — They’re Wisdom

Looking back at my group of friends, and most of us still check-in to this day, we were never secretly hoarding friendship or prestige like mean girls, but we were protecting a space where vulnerability could grow. Where we could share our struggles, even difficulties with faith, in the safety of brotherhood.
And vulnerability needs trust, time, and intimacy — which don’t scale infinitely.

Not everyone we minister to is meant to become a coffee-and-confession-buddy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go get coffee with many people we want to share the Good News with.

St. Francis de Sales puts it bluntly (and beautifully):

“Let us be what we are and let us be that well.”
— St. Francis de Sales

Be a minister. Be a friend. But don’t confuse the roles — or hold onto a false guilt for having circles, seasons, and limits. Sometimes it’s really us who needs to take the pressure off ourselves. We can’t be 100% available to everyone we encounter, but we can always be open to the Holy Spirit helping us encounter others the way He wants us to encounter and accompany them. And from there we have the authority and gift to discern how much and in what we can enter into friendship with others.

Jesus fed the 5,000 — but He only brought three to witness the transfiguration.

You can minister to a hundred.
You may only deeply confide in five.
That isn’t toxic — it’s sustainable.

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Boundaries Aren’t Betrayal

If you’re serving in ministry, evangelizing, praying with strangers, hosting groups and retreats — amazing. That’s Kingdom work.

But you’re allowed to have an inner circle. A few people who know your story in full color (ugliness and all).

And so are others.
Because friendship is a gift — not a requirement to prove your holiness.
And ministry is love expressed outward, even when friendship doesn’t follow.

The goal isn’t to close doors — it’s to open the right ones with wisdom.

In turn, if others have a small group to confide in that doesn’t include you, that doesn’t define you in any way. It may be a sign that a group really needs a certain type of support at this moment in time. A sense of rejection is never easy, but we can also remember that someone needing support from others isn’t a reflection of our worth.

Friendships also change over time.

The more we discern and invest in mutual self-giving friendship, dynamics change. We have/don’t have friends for seasons, but we can be slow to conclude or judge ourselves and our worth if others in ministry aren’t immediately our besties.

Either way, your identity is in the Lord. He is claiming you as a beloved son or daughter, with whom He is well pleased. We can lean into loneliness and longing as a sign to grow in deeper intimacy with the Lord, and we can pray intentionally to see what doors He is both wanting to close and open in your life with the friendships and relationships around you.

No matter what. He is in control and He’s got you. You are not alone.

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Life Saving Vulnerability

Lastly, I want to give a quiet shout out to those 4-5 men in my life who have been accompanying me for 10+ years. They have been life savers, faith-savers, to help carry my crosses on parts of the journey where I couldn’t go it alone. They have been Jesus’ hands, feet, ears, in my life in very real and tangible ways.

If reading this post you are feeling hungry for community and connection, consider asking a couple people around you to check in intentionally.

Don’t wait for someone else to ask you.

Often, someone has to go first, initiate, for others to even know a deeper closeness is a possibility and wanted. The Holy Spirit might be prompting you right now to build your support, rely more on the Body of Christ, to grow in faith, hope, and charity.

And you don’t have to have it all together either to start such a group. These groups are for support, not judgment, and Scripture reminds us that iron sharpens iron.

If you feel called to start a small group of intentional friends for support, accountability and prayer, consider using this framework to get started:

• Set the tone of the group – not about judgment, but support and accompaniment
• Meet monthly or bi-weekly
• Keep meet ups to a reasonable time (maybe an hour or two over coffee)
• Be ready to listen, not give advice
• Share openly and honestly (remember no judgment) — how are you doing?
  • emotionally (sad, mad, glad, afraid, etc.)
  • mentally (what’s been on your mind most recently?)
  • spiritually (where do you want to grow? what holds you back?)
  • physically (how are diet, sleep, and exercise going?)
  • in pursuit of chastity (sobriety, dealing with temptations, etc.)

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Reflection Questions for Readers

• Do I feel pressured to be emotionally available to everyone I minister to?
• Where might God be inviting me to set healthier, more realistic relational boundaries?
• Who are the few people I can entrust with deeper friendship, accountability, and vulnerability?
• Who am I called to love through ministry — even if the relationship doesn’t become personal friendship?
• More Resources