A Story of Christian Cross Gender Friendship and Ministry

This is a more personal post. It's a somewhat risky post. 

Some of you know about my friendship with Jennifer who comments here.  Some of you have some kind of idea that we are close.  Others don't know that but suspect it.  My friendship with Jennifer is one of the reasons I am interested in writing an in-depth book on cross gender friendship.  The Lord has blessed me with several good cross gender friendships in recent years.  My friendship with Jennifer is one of them.  I wrote about the beginning of our story here from a "ministry" angle.

I'm not afraid to write on my blog, that I treasure my friendship with Jennifer.  Although we live two thousand miles part, our hearts are two thousand miles closer.  I give a little bit of this story from my side to encourage cross gender friendship and ministry.  My blog gets anywhere from 5-10 visits a week from  people googling  "cross-sex friendships,"  "cross-gender friendships,"  "friendships between  men and women," "cross-gender friendships and the Bible," etc. 

Ministry and Friendship

"It's the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals--my professional rosary" so writes Irvin D.Yalom in Love's Executioner.   I'd like to say something like, "It's Jesus who heals, Jesus who heals, Jesus, who heals."  Jesus is the Healer.  But I think Jesus' "ministry of accompaniment" while he was on earth, gives us a rich ground for at least one model of ministry (no presumptuous claims of the model), one model of spiritual direction, one model of healing presence to be an intimate friendship model.  This flies in the face of much contemporary wisdom emanating from psychology (including evangelical/Christian therapists) about the great need for emotional, physical, and spiritual distance in healing relationships.

Our friendship started out as a one directional pastoral friendship model with me praying with and for Jennifer and helping her walk through the impact of her youth minister sexually abusing her when she was a teenager.  I had this passionate belief that it was not me, but the presence of Christ in Jennifer's mind, heart and imagination that would be transformational for her.  We began once a week prayer appointments through IM.  I prayed with and for her once a week IM-ing.  Early on, I was so thrilled when I witnessed Jesus immediately releasing Jennifer from some chronic psychological/spiritual issues she had been wrestling with for several years.

During this time we exchanged  many emails between each other.  Jennifer was my first regular IM prayer appointment.  I think we prayed for a couple of months through IM.  I hadn't even thought of intending a cross gender friendship/ministry.   In some ways, I  was impacted by John Wimber and his simple emphasis upon watching where the Spirit moves and blesses and follow Him.   I had also thought highly of Leanne Payne's insight that we are to be "Presence-oriented people, rather than gifts-oriented."  I would not  make so sharp of distinction now, but Payne was making a point towards so many charismatics who were focusing on gifts. 

There were several places of drama in the early part of our ministry and friendship story.  After a few months, one of the parts of drama had to do with the nature of friendship and ministry.  Even though I was "just a friend" and was an amateur in the eyes of the professional therapeutic world, there was no question I found myself in a struggle over the professional distance model.  In hindsight, I wished I hadn't done this, but at one point, I felt we had become "too close" and I backed off for a brief period of time with Jennifer.  I wasn't backing out of the relationship but I was afraid of Jennifer developing a dependency on me.  I now consider that to be a mistake.  We had the makings of a good close friendship. 

Intuitively, I felt the "go-ahead" from the Lord to step back into a more ministry and friendship model.  I bounced it off my wife, and with a very good mentor friend.  What I read three years later described something of what I faced back then.  Henri Nouwen, in writing about Jane de Chantal and Francis de Sales wrote: In a time in which there is so much concern about the right professional distance with transference and countertransference, Jane de Chantal and Francis de Sales offer us a fresh perspective on a healing relationship.  They dare to take risks with each other and those they care for."  As I said, I read three years later, but these words about taking risks in an informal friendship relationship where prayer ministry was involved felt like a risk at the time.  My "conversion" into a friendship model of ministry was a process and this was a first decisive movement into the deeper intimacy that comes from that model.  At some point in time, if you believe in a friendship ministry model, you will have to process and pray over what a different world that model is from a psychotherapeutic distance model that emphasizes independence, individualism, and evangelical self-sufficiency ( "I" can do all things through Christ). 

This step I took was a risk because although I couldn't articulate it well, it felt like I was moving towards a much deeper friendship/relationship with Jennifer and one directional prayer ministry was in the heart of it. 

One of my decisions early on, was to not put myself in any kind of superior position over Jennifer in our relationship.  Yes, the power differential was present, but I had this powerful instinct that we pursue a spiritual friendship where mutuality was what we were aiming at.  So, even though I read this three years later, again, this observation from Henri Nouwen about Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal was very much at the core of my vision back then: "A mutual opening, a mutual sharing, a mutual confession of needs, a mutual confession and forgiveness, a mutual knowing and being known--that is the source of a community where God's strength is made manifest among weak people."

Marriage and Friendship

I am deeply thankful that Sheila, my wife cherishes Jennifer, and my friendship with Jennifer.  I am thankful that Jennifer's husband blesses our friendship.

Jennifer and I, when we are able to do it, naturally support each other in public, in blogs, etc.  There are things, like cross gender friendship, cross gender ministry, cross gender connecting where our souls connect and the connection is much bigger than the two of us. Jennifer's husband sees that and blesses that.  Sheila sees that. Jennifer values cross gender friendship;  I value cross gender friendship. We have spouses who value cross gender friendships. Neither spouse is insecure about the depth of our friendship.  Almost two years ago, when her family visited us during their summer vacation, Jennifer's husband told me how much he appreciated my presence in Jennifer's life.  This past December when Jennifer came out to visit me to celebrate my birthday, Sheila told her how glad she was that Jennifer was my friend.  I've had the rich, rich blessing of celebrating my last two birthdays with one of my closest friends, Jennifer.  Our families have grown very close.  We exchange Christmas gifts and we exchange birthday gifts.  There's nothing I wouldn't do for Jeff, and I know if I needed him (and sometimes I do!) Jeff steps right in there and helps me.  Jennifer's six year old son has become an avid Seattle Seahawks football fan.  He had some processing to do when his Seahawks played Uncle Dan's Chicago Bears.  He asked Jennifer, "Can Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears be friends?" 

The four of us have had to endure the social barriers of cross gender friendship.  I deliberately said the four of us, not the two of us.  Some well meaning Christians in cyberspace see us as being too supportive, or too close, especially when they see us encouraging cross gender friendship like Sondra's comment on this blog a while back:  "Some of us worry about both Jen and you, and your almost crusade-like push to preach the virtues of 'cross gender intimacy' whenever you can. I think you are naive, to use your word, to not also talk about the dangers."  The four of us are not blind to dangers--there's so much material, so many blogs, so many books on the dangers everywhere one turns, there's a culture of deep fear regarding the subject coming at it from several angles--the sexual angle, the too emotionally close angle, the dependency angle, etc.  To be honest, I would have been afraid of a comment like Sondra's if I had read something like that five years ago.  That fear comes under the audience challenge.

Sheila knows and is quite comfortable with the fact that when I am down, one of the persons who's going to be there for me, is Jennifer. Likewise, I know I can speak for Jennifer's husband, I can say ditto from his side.   We (Jennifer and me) both know we are there for each other.  Most recently, Jennifer has been there for me in big ways.   

You can't have cross-gender friendships enduring very long if you don't have the immediate and deep trust of your spouse.  Our friendship is an open friendship before both of our spouses.  Both of our spouses have heard us say to each other, or have seen us write to each other in emails: "I love you."  Lisa Gee in her book on Friends: "Brotherly love is the kind of love found not just among siblings, but between any people whose bond falls outside our more easily defined categories of spouse/partner; parent-child, etc....Such love is, inevitably, expressed through tenderness.For some that involves hugs and kisses, verbal declarations of love, or present-giving."

Eric Fromm writes that "tenderness is by no means, as Freud believed, a sublimation of the sexual instinct; it is the direct outcome of brotherly love and that is found in both sexual and sex-free relationships" (The Art of Loving).

Audience and Friendship

Our friendship has matured into a deep, intimate friendship--a friendship of intellectual, emotional, psychological intimacy.  That kind of cross gender friendship stirs up the audience challenge, where cross gender friendships grow (if they are going to grow)  in spite of, rather than with (big difference) support of social norms--especially in a  fundamentalist/evangelical environment.  Christian sociologist Dennis Hiebert writes about the audience challenge:  "Because these audiences can be influential through labeling and altercasting, cross-sex friends must 'adopt a strategic position vis-a-vis those who would threaten the relationship with rumors and attributions,' and 'orchestrate social perceptions of their relationship.  An inherent dilemma in this process is that privacy is a basic dimension of friendship in general, yet one generates audience suspicion of romance in cross-sex relationships."

He observes "Cross-sex friends encounter the homosocial norm, which is the tendency 'for the seeking, enjoyment, and/or preference for the company of the same sex."

This past summer, in a somewhat trusted context,  Jennifer had to endure the amateur psychologizing from a well-intentioned, well-meaning woman acquaintance in ministry who could not fathom the depth of our friendship in any positive regard--even though Jennifer and I are very happy and content in our friendship, even though our spouses know the depth of our friendship and bless it, even though some of our closest mutual Christian friends who know about our friendship and bless it, this woman could not believe such a friendship was a blessing from God.  When this woman overheard Jennifer telling another person that Jennifer and I had gone out for drink :-) at TGIF, she confronted Jennifer later on.  There was no way conceivable, that Jennifer and I should be doing that.  We shouldn't be praying together once a week over the phone, etc.  In the end, in this woman's mind,  psychological and spiritual healing for Jennifer, meant that  she could only be intimately involved in spiritual friendships with women and she needed "healing" from desiring and enjoying a close spiritual friendship with a man beyond her husband. 

Although I respect this woman for her beliefs, I don't buy into such segregated psychological reductionism.  One of the deepest gifts, one of the deepest blessings God had for me in this and his timing was impeccable, was just prior to this incident, I found out about Wendy Wright and her books on the intimate friendship involving spiritual direction between Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal.  She wrote of de Sales and then consequently of Salesian spirituality and direction, "The director in this situation did not see himself or herself as a professor dispensing information to the uninformed but as a fellow Christian walking the same road as the directee." 

She notes about the deep cross gender friendship "An intimacy between members of the opposite sex seems to have the capacity into being a whole range of personal response that creates a psychological climate in which one is drawn out of his or her habitual sense of self."  She says of Francis and Jane, "I would suggest that the male/female spiritual friendship has as one of its principal dynamics this stripping away of one's habituated way of being.  With Jeanne de Chantal and Francis de Sales, the whole range of that complex phenomenon, love was operative in their union...this friendship was creative of an entirely new entity as well, the 'us' that transcended them singly." 

Our friendship has grown stronger and deeper in the midst of "audience challenges." 

Now, you know, the rest of the story (at least some of the rest!).

I share this with the sincere endeavor to encourage out-of-the box thinking about friendships, ministry, and cross gender friendships.  Where the Spirit is, there is liberty.  I have been blessed with four fruitful years of friendship with Jennifer. 

Comments

[Ted Gossard]

Dan, This is something I would like to much better understand. I believe in it. And see it as a precursor of the life to come, when we'll know each other in wonderful ways, that will certainly cross genders. Why can't this begin in Jesus, even now? And why does this have to be misunderstood as affair-laden? But we're programmed in that way. So we miss out on alot, I'm afraid.

[Dan]

Ted,

Thanks Ted for your comments. This is a thick spiritual and relational phenomenon in our Western culture with mixed pop messages both within the church and the world. On the one hand, there is a definite movement for genders to embrace (Volf's book) each other in partnership, vocation, and ministry, etc. The non-Christian culture maybe even more ahead that the evangelical sub-culture on this.

On the other hand, the pop message (and this is a mixed message) is to avoid "emotional adultery" or any kind of emotional intimacy with another woman (not your mother or your sister) who's not your spouse. It's good, because properly so, the husband-wife relationship should have emotional primacy.

It's bad, because *all* or *every* movement towards emotional intimacy between an man and woman who are not married to each other is viewed on the slippery slope of danger in this paradigm.

[Jeff]

Dan,

I just had a chance to read this, very well put and thank you for you love and friendship you have shown Jennifer, Ian and I.

God Bless you and Shelia

Jeff

[Dan]

Jeff!!!!!

What a treat! Thanks for your support and comments! Stop by again sometime!

[djchuang]

I'm so delighted to read of your richly rewarding cross-gender friendship, as I too am a proponent of this kind of a relationship. I have experienced the real blessing of this, even though it does open oneself to misunderstanding and potential risk. But with risk is great reward too, if properly maintained. As a married person, it is very important to have the spouse's permission and sufficient visibility into the relationship to insure its healthiness.

And, it's also worth noting that (perhaps) many people cannot maintain healthy cross-gender friendships, because for them it is a slippery slope, and they don't have the capacity and/or self-control to grow and mature in this manner of relating. Such as it is in a fallen world and cross-gender friendships are forbidden in sex-crazed societies and traditional societies alike.

[Jennifer]

Hi DJ

I agree with you that some people just should not attempt cross-gender friendship at certain points in their lives.

But I also think that there just are not very many good models for cross-gender friendship. If all you've ever seen is friend-pairs who fall into sin, then of course you're going to be very nervous about any intimacy between men and women. But if you've seen long-term friendships that enjoy intimacy without falling into an affair, then its easier to imagine that you can do it too. {Thank you, Albert Bandura for Social Learning Theory :-) )

[Dan]

Hi DJ,

Thanks for stopping by, and for your perceptive comments!

[Candace]

I don't know if this thread is the most appropriate place on the Faith Dance blog for this observation, but I am here and this is where I feel moved to make it.

As a survivor of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of significant male figures in my youth, perhaps the biggest benefit I gain from my primary cross-gender friendship is intimacy with a member of the opposite sex who has no sexual interest in me (something a spouse would obviously not provide, and rightly so).

The value of this, I feel, cannot be over-emphasized. It has been incredibly, miraculously healing and was easily the biggest contributor to me finally coming to Christ, at the age of 50.

I'd be interested to hear if this resonates at all with Jennifer.

[Jennifer]

Hi Candace,

I think that having a good husband provides so much benefit for women who have been through sexual abuse. I cant even imagine what state I would be in without 13+ years of the love and healing that has come through my husband. None of the other healing in my life would even have a corner to grab hold of. BUT, I agree with you...a husband can not provide one thing that I (and many sexual abuse victims) deeply need : to know that I am valuable to a man even if I'm not going to have sex with him. Cross-gender friends really hit the spot here. And I soak this in at every turn – through close/intimate friendship, with male classmates that I talk about school things with, with guy pals that I joke around with, with men at church, etc etc. It is, of course, in intimate friendship where this is most profound – and it has been deeply profound for me, but I’ve also been surprised with the degree to which I enjoy the attention of some of my classmates who are a decade younger than me (meaning they are not likely candidates for deep intimate friendship).

Regarding what you said here, “intimacy with a member of the opposite sex who has no sexual interest in me” I agree with you, but, I think I would put it a little differently. If a male friend were telling me something like, “I have no attraction to you whatsoever, this is so totally platonic…” or something similar….well, first off, I don’t think I would even believe it :-) Not because I’m overwhelmingly attractive, but because attraction is just part of friendship. And when you’re talking about friendship between men and women, part of the joy is relating as gendered people. I have no interest in being “one of the guys” and being treated as if my femininity isn’t an enjoyable part of who I am. (I don’t need to be treated as a prissy girly-girl either, I think that forms friendship in odd ways, but that’s a different subject…)

In order for me to take in the goodness I talked about in the first paragraph, I need, on occasion, to hear that I am beautiful and attractive from someone besides my husband since he has great motive to say those things :-) :-) (and he is very good about saying them). Or, to put it a different way, I need to see a look in the eyes, or hear a tone of voice that tells me I am being enjoyed as a woman– and yet, I’m not going to be taken advantage of. And for me, this kind of innocent interest in me as a woman, as someone whose sexuality is feminine, undoes so much damage from the abuse. So, I agree with you…I just want to be careful to not say “it has nothing to do with sexual interest in any way” because there is a sense in which it does, an innocent sense where man and woman are allowed to be in deep relationship without pretending they lack a gender.

[Jennifer]

holy smokes that was a long comment...sorry to take over your blog there, Dan :-) :-)

But, since I'm here...I've been meaning to ask you if you know the book "Sensuous Spirituality: Out From Fundamentalism"? It's by Virginia Mollenkott - and there is a lot in it that is not helpful (primarily because it would give evangelicals heart faliure) But, she makes some good points, even if I dont always agree with the way in which she applies them.

[Candace]

Jennifer, what a great comment! Thanks. I'm glad you went into it so thoroughly, and I totally see what you're saying. I am truly right in the thick of figuring all this out, having just found this blog a couple of days ago and having dealt with cross-gender friendships within a Christian context for so short a time. I've written some comments on another thread that talk more about that.

I was married very briefly in my 20s -- more than 20 years ago. It was a disaster, and I've lacked the courage since then to ever try my hand at dating or marriage again. Perhaps, with all the good work God is doing in me, one day I will know from experience everything that you have expressed here.

Any prayers to that effect would be most welcome ;-0

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[michael]

wonderful...would that i could experience such sexfree tenderness