Transformative Friendship by Brad Hambrick Book Review

About the Book:

Transformative Friendships shares seven simple questions that will help you be intentional with your relationships and offers a springboard to deepening and strengthening friendships that will enrich your life.

Building meaningful friendships is not as easy as we wish it was. A culture that is lonelier and more disconnected than ever proves how hard it can be. In Transformative Friendships, counselor Brad Hambrick encourages readers to develop new rhythms, habits, and lifestyles that will shape and grow their relationships, both with casual acquaintances and closer friends.

The goal is not to develop perfect friendships, but rather learn to how to cultivate deep connections that grow steadily over time through conversations based on simple questions and common interactions. Hambrick’s biblical vision for friendship calls Christians to engage with one another in the transformational way God intended.

My Review:

Having a good friend is powerful but cultivating such a friendship may be difficult. Hambrick suggests seven questions to help develop meaningful engagement. Each of those seven questions has five levels and Hambrick gives questions to ask to stimulate movement through each deeper level.

My favorite part of the book dealt with the question about what is hard. While there is much a friend can do, Hambrick clarifies that a friend cannot be a substitute for God's perfect compassion. His section on what's bad is thought provoking in that we must be willing to talk about sin. That is challenging.

We are reminded that transparency may be the most “powerful, yet most neglected, tool for character formation." (995/2072) “In friendship, we must take the risk of being known if we are going to know the joy of being loved.” (1887/2072)

Friendships are so important and I really appreciate Hambrick's suggestions for developing transformative ones, ones that help us become more the people God wants us to be. I found this book to also be valuable for personal learning and development. I recommend this book to those willing to take a journey of self-awareness and friendship intentionality.

My rating: 5/5 stars.

About the Author:

Brad Hambrick, ThM, EdD, serves as the Pastor of Counseling at The Summit Church in Durham, NC. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Biblical Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition

He has authored several books, including God's Attributes: Rest for Life Struggles, Making Sense of Forgiveness, Angry with God, and the Church Based-Counseling series. Hambrick also served as general editor for the Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused curriculum.

Hambrick, his wife, Sallie, and two sons live in Raleigh, NC. You can find out more at  bradhambrick.com.

NewGrowth Press, 160 pages.

I received an egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)