On Christian Friendship: A Few Lessons Learned Along the Way
One of the tougher areas of the Christian walk is navigating friendships with other Christian women. We live in a social media culture that has taken the concept of friendship and presented it in a way that has skewed how many women understand it today. Deep friendship is often portrayed through regular coffee dates, girls’ trips, shared hobbies, and #girlgangs. But in the local church, friendships can be a bit more complicated. After all, the church is often made up of people who may have very little in common apart from Christ. Add to that our varying personalities, introverted or extroverted tendencies, busy schedules, and emotional complexities, and the very place where women ought to experience meaningful fellowship can sometimes become one of the loneliest.
Having moved around quite a bit as a military wife and now serving as a pastor’s wife, I’ve navigated numerous friendships over the years. I’ve also heard from many women who have expressed how difficult it can be to find meaningful, deep friendships, particularly as they enter their middle years. But when I reflect on both my successful and failed friendships, I see a few common themes:
The friendships that grew the deepest were those built on the foundation of our personal relationships with Christ, our love for Scripture and the local church, and a shared desire to fight for holiness alongside one another. Those friendships weren’t always easy. In fact, we weathered some difficult storms along the way. But it was through those very trials that our friendships were refined. We came to know one another more deeply and often emerged stronger than before.
On the other hand, the friendships that failed often shared their own common themes: unmet expectations, a lack of communication, isolation when things became difficult, selfish ambitions, and hollow promises—love verbalized but never actually demonstrated.
(I’ve personally found that being a lead pastor’s wife further complicates things, as there can be various motives surrounding friendships because of my husband’s position in the church. But that is another conversation for another time.)
Over the years, I’ve made a number of observations about friendship. These are certainly not exhaustive, nor do I claim to have mastered any of them. But they are lessons the Lord has taught me through both the joys and disappointments of friendship.
1. Be cautious of “fast friendships.”
Have you ever met someone you just clicked with right away? It feels a little bit like dating. You connect over a shared interest, discover numerous things you have in common, bond over similar past hurts or experiences, and before you know it, you’re spending all your time together. You’ve become “fast friends.”
The danger in this kind of friendship is that it sets the pace of the relationship very quickly, before either person has had sufficient time to truly get to know the other.
How does she handle trials in her life? Is she teachable? Are there areas of her life where her words don’t necessarily match her actions? Does her profession of faith align with the fruit of her life?
Before you’ve had the opportunity to observe these things, you may have already established a rhythm and frequency of spending time together that simply isn’t sustainable in the long run.
I’ve seen this play out in my teenagers’ friendships. They meet someone they connect with and hope that perhaps this will finally be the person who doesn't disappoint them the way previous friends have. I’ve encouraged them to temper those expectations because once the “honeymoon phase” of friendship wears off, they will inevitably discover that this person is just as flawed as the last. Is there enough substance or foundation in the friendship to move past those flaws? Or was all that time spent together simply superficial connection?
What I find interesting is that Christians tend to approach dating with far more caution than friendship. We understand the wisdom of taking our time, getting to know someone’s character, and observing how they respond to the storms of life. Yet when it comes to friendships, we often throw that same wisdom out the window. This isn't to say that we should be unfriendly toward women we naturally connect with or suspicious of every new relationship. Rather, wisdom calls us to proceed with discernment, allowing time to reveal the fruit of a person's life before placing the weight of a deep friendship upon it.
2. True friendship can handle confrontation because true friendship desires one another’s holiness.
Another telling sign of a healthy friendship is whether it can withstand confrontation.
Do you feel as though you have the freedom to lovingly point out sin in your friend’s life? Is she teachable? And perhaps more importantly, are you willing to receive that same correction from her?
I’ve witnessed people who profess to be teachable, but the moment something is brought to their attention, they respond with defensiveness, excuses, and an unwillingness to actually apply the biblical principle of iron sharpening iron. This doesn’t just extend to issues within the friendship itself. Sometimes it involves blind spots you may see in other areas of her life, whether in her marriage, parenting, or personal walk with the Lord.
True friends desire one another’s holiness and that can be expressed through concern. One of the most loving things we can do is allow Scripture to be the standard for our friendships, using it to help one another recognize the blind spots in our lives. But how deep can a friendship truly be when the things you most desperately need to say to one another remain locked away in your own minds? An unwillingness to confront hard truths essentially builds a wall that prevents the friendship from growing any deeper.
The reality is that it takes trust and courage to speak the truth in love. We cannot control how the other person will receive it. She may respond with humility, become angry, or even appear gracious to your face while speaking poorly of you behind your back. But we are still called to love one another enough to speak the truth.
And we must be willing to receive it ourselves.
In every difficult conversation, a friendship has the opportunity either to grow stronger or to reveal weaknesses that have been there all along. While confrontation doesn't guarantee a deeper friendship, avoiding it altogether will never produce the kind of honest, Christ-centered relationship we ought to desire.
3. Stop looking for duplicates of yourself in friendship.
Many years ago, when I first became interested in photography, I desperately wanted a friend who was just as obsessed with the hobby as I was. The problem was that many of the friends I found who shared my enthusiasm for photography also seemed to idolize it. Their relationship with God was either secondary in their lives or seemingly nonexistent. We may have shared a love for the camera, but we didn’t share a desire to fight for holiness. As a result, those friendships often felt shallow.
I quickly learned that the number one priority in a Christian friendship shouldn't be a shared hobby, personality, aesthetic, or set of interests, but rather a shared love for the Lord and a desire to grow in holiness.
I also discovered that what I really wanted was simply a copy-and-paste version of myself.
That became especially apparent when the Lord brought women into my life with whom, apart from Christ, I had very little in common. Yet our shared love for Jesus proved to be the very glue I needed in a friendship.
In one particular friendship, she was the athletic one, and I was the artsy one. We had very little interest in one another’s hobbies, but we found ways to learn from each other and expand our interests. She challenged me in areas where I was weak, and I did the same for her.
While the Lord has kindly blessed me with a Christian friend who shares numerous interests with me, I’ve learned that there is something equally sweet about having a friend whose strengths expose my weaknesses and whose weaknesses give me an opportunity to encourage her.
We don't need duplicates of ourselves. We need friends who will help us become more like Christ.
4. Be cautious of the flattering friend.
Ministry is tough, and when someone expresses their appreciation for my husband’s preaching or their love for our church, I am genuinely encouraged. But over time, I’ve learned that there is a difference between sincere encouragement and flattery.
Flattery cheapens encouraging words by using them as a means of serving selfish ambition. Rather than seeking the good of another person, the flattering friend often seeks to gain something for herself. In ministry, I’ve seen this take the form of someone desiring access or proximity to my husband because of his position. In other friendships, it might look like someone using a relationship to gain access to certain social circles, resources, opportunities, or a particular reputation.
In the church, pay attention to how people treat others. Are they genuinely interested in getting to know people from all walks of life? Or do they consistently gravitate toward those who have something to offer them? Consider James 2, where believers are rebuked for showing partiality toward the wealthy while dishonoring the poor. Why were they so eager to welcome the rich while overlooking those who had little to offer them? Scripture exposes the sinful motives behind this kind of partiality. We would be foolish to assume that everyone who attends church does so with pure motives.
Of course, we cannot know the hearts of others, and we ought to be careful not to assign motives where we cannot truly discern them. And of course, sound preaching and teaching will iron out immaturities in genuine believers. But we can still observe patterns of behavior, remain friendly toward others, and allow time to reveal whether their words are supported by genuine fruit.
Sincere encouragement is a gift. Flattery, on the other hand, is often a warning sign.
5. A true friend will not invite you into sin.
Some friendships are formed around little more than a shared enjoyment of gossip, crude humor, materialism, or self-obsession. This is hardly a healthy foundation for Christian friendship. If a friend is willing to gossip with you, there is good reason to consider whether she might also gossip about you. Titus 2 makes clear that Christian women are not to be enslaved to much wine, given to slander, or lacking in self-control. Rather, we are called to lives marked by godliness, sound judgment, and faithfulness in the responsibilities the Lord has entrusted to us. A true friend will encourage you toward these things. She will encourage you to love your husband and children, care faithfully for your home, exercise self-control, and walk in obedience to the Lord. She won't continually fuel your discontentment, feed your sinful desires, or invite you into conversations that dishonor others. And when you are the one drifting toward sin, she will love you enough to redirect you.
Friendship should never become a place where we feel comfortable indulging the very sins we are called to put to death.
6. Friendship is not a covenant marriage.
Friends come and go for many reasons, but when we hold on to friendships as though they carry the same obligations as marriage, we place burdens upon others that Scripture has never required them to bear.
Kelly Needham addresses this in her book Friendish:
“The Bible tells us that marriages alone are to be exclusive, binding, and have a level of ‘you-belong-to-me’ ownership. (Gen 2:24, 1 Cor 7:4, 39) No other relationship gets the title of ‘one-flesh.’ ... To treat a friendship with the weight, exclusivity, and ownership of a marriage has serious dangers.”
The basic premise is that when we treat friendship like marriage, we establish unfair and unbiblical expectations of one another. We begin holding on to friends as though they belong to us.
Have you ever felt jealous when you had to share a friend? I know I have. Unfortunately, this isn't something that simply disappears when we leave childhood behind. Satan can use our desire for exclusivity in friendship to stir up jealousy, resentment, and disunity within the church. This ought not to be so. Friendship is a gift from the Lord, but it was never intended to take the place of our relationship with Him.
As Kelly points out, Scripture does not encourage the kind of codependency in female friendships that our culture so often celebrates. If we aren't careful, our closest friends can become what she calls a “counterfeit Jesus.” Instead of turning to our Savior and resting in the sufficiency of His grace, we begin looking to our friends to satisfy desires that only Christ can fulfill. We make idols of them and then become disappointed when they inevitably fail to meet our expectations.
While I can't endorse every thought in her book, I do recommend reading it and gleaning some of the practical wisdom she offers about how we ought to view friendship.
We should love our friends deeply, serve them faithfully, and remain committed to their good. But we must also hold those friendships loosely, remembering that they are gifts from the Lord, not possessions to be guarded.
7. Don’t be deceived by the “girl gangs.”
It's easy to envy those groups of friends who seem to do everything together. You know the ones. They're always taking girls' trips, spending weekends together, and posting pictures of their latest outings. From the outside looking in, their friendships can appear effortless and enviable. But consider this: maintaining even one deep friendship requires active, intentional work. Multiply that by the number of women in a group and consider whether it's actually possible to maintain equally deep relationships with every person. And generally speaking, there are varying levels of closeness within larger friend groups, and it's not uncommon for someone to feel like the third, fourth, or fifth wheel.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with having a group of friends. These friendships often develop naturally during shared seasons of life, especially when both the parents and children enjoy spending time together. There can be numerous benefits to these relationships.
My caution to you, dear reader, is simply not to envy what you see online. Social media gives us a glimpse of the outings, celebrations, and memorable moments, but it rarely reveals the actual depth or health of those friendships. And on a practical note, we ought to consider how much time we devote to socializing and whether that time comes at the expense of other responsibilities.
There is certainly room for coffee dates, fun trips, and time spent enjoying the company of friends. These can be wonderful gifts! But when maintaining a social calendar begins to take precedence over our marriages, children, homes, local churches, or other responsibilities the Lord has entrusted to us, something is out of order. And I would add that it is a major red flag when friendships formed within the local church eventually lead women to neglect that very church in favor of spending time with one another. What began as a shared love for Christ and His church should never become a reason to neglect either.
Frequency of time spent together is not necessarily evidence of depth. A friendship shouldn't be measured by how often you're photographed together, how many trips you've taken, or whether you're included in every gathering. Some of the deepest and most faithful friendships may not be the ones that are most visible.
A Few Final Thoughts
This is certainly not an exhaustive list of observations about friendship, but these are a few lessons that have stood out to me over the years. If I could offer one overarching piece of advice, it would be this: Give friendships time. Get to know women who genuinely desire to grow in their faith. Look for humility, teachability, a love for Scripture, and a commitment to the local church. Then allow time to reveal the fruit of their lives.
And I do mean time. Sometimes years.
In ministry, I have witnessed numerous people make grand professions with their lips, only for their actions a year or two later to reveal that those words carried very little weight.
A dear friend once told me that her father used to say, “A real friendship takes at least five years.” When I asked her why, she explained that five years gives a friendship sufficient time to be tested through different seasons of life. By then, you have likely experienced enough joys, disappointments, and difficulties together to see whether the friendship can withstand them.
I don't share any of this to make you cynical or suspicious of other women. In fact, I hope it does quite the opposite.
My desire is to encourage you toward greater intentionality, discernment, caution, and wisdom. Get to know many women. Be hospitable. Be friendly. Invest in the lives of others. But don't be deceived by what you see on social media or assume that the most visible friendships are necessarily the deepest.
Shallow friendships are celebrated all the time, leaving many women feeling envious, lonely, or convinced that they're somehow missing out. Yet appearances tell us very little about the actual health of a relationship. Instead of striving to build an impressive circle of friends, seek to be a faithful friend. Find women who love Christ and His Word. Fight for one another's holiness. Be willing to have the hard conversations. Extend grace when you disappoint one another, because you inevitably will. And hold your friendships loosely, knowing that the Lord may give and take away friendships through various seasons of life.
Ultimately, our deepest contentment cannot be found in another person. Even the most faithful friend will eventually disappoint us, just as we will disappoint her. But Christ never will. He is the friend who is always faithful, who never fails to keep His promises, and whose grace will always be sufficient.And in that, we can rejoice.