What to Do with Friendships after The-Thing-That-Brought-You-Together has Ended

When we closed our church two years ago it presented a fascinating challenge: How do I (and should I?) stay friends with people I won't see regularly anymore?

In the fall of 2022 we closed our church.

The church which had been my community. My friend group. My social network.

And then, after a few months had gone by, I’d maybe seen or talked to a handful of those friends.

Coincidence?

Or, is there something about the ending of the Thing-That-Brought-You-Together that makes sustaining friendships afterwards a bit… clunky?

“We Were Only Friends Because…”

My perspective on adult friendships is clearly colored by the fact that my entire adult life has taken place in churches as a pastor. Which has meant that probably 90% of my friends over the past 22 years were people that attended the churches I worked out.

I’m not suggesting that they weren’t therefore real/true/actual friendships. Of course many (most?) of them were. But I do have to acknowledge that the dynamic of “pastor + layperson/congregant/muggle” is a dynamic. I don’t think it’s possible to entirely remove that dynamic from friendships, even if in the best of scenarios the dynamic is (attempted to be) greatly reduced.

The other day I wrote about the going away party we threw in 2011 after I was fired from the church I worked at. I specifically remember reaching out to a friend that I hadn’t heard from after the church announced my termination, asking if she’d be there.

Her response was courteous, but the bluntness of her reasoning illuminated the stark reality of the situation. She said,