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Transformative Friendships: 7 Questions to Deepen Any Relationship
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.The third book in the Church-Based Counseling series, designed to help churches mobilize and utilize levels of care from friendship to mentoring to counseling groups.Learn how sharing your story and hearing others’ stories will cultivate a sense of belonging and encourage mutual understanding.Useful for individual, one-on-one, or small group book discussions.
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.The third book in the Church-Based Counseling series, designed to help churches mobilize and utilize levels of care from friendship to mentoring to counseling groups.Learn how sharing your story and hearing others’ stories will cultivate a sense of belonging and encourage mutual understanding.Useful for individual, one-on-one, or small group book discussions.
162 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 18, 2024
47 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 2, 2024
I thought this book posed some great questions, but I found the system and structure a bit confusing. The author’s writing style didn’t quite resonate with me, and I often found myself feeling lost. However, the content is scripturally sound and relevant, particularly challenging for men. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to deepen friendships, though it’s not the kind of book you simply read through. It would be best suited for a group setting, with participants who are willing to engage deeply and work through the exercises and questions posed. Overall, I see myself referring back to the questions, but I likely wouldn’t read the entire book again.
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June 13, 2024This will certainly be in my top 3 books of the year, if not number 1 when all is said and done (read?). Transformative Friendships is profound on so many levels, but mostly because it is so practical - as evidenced by the 150+ examples of questions to ask to deepen your friendships. There are no wasted words and his insights on the biblical nature of friendship are so simple and helpful. I will be buying copies of this book for all of our small group leaders in preparation for this coming year as we focus on friendship and hospitality.
July 23, 2024
This resource is exceptional. It’s biblical and practical. To ask and answer these questions requires intentionality and vulnerability. Yet, there’s potential to experience the blessing of being known and loved, encouraged and supported, challenged and strengthened in the faith. I took so many notes while reading this.
The Lord made us for relationships, with himself and one another. He uses meaningful friendships where there’s relational depth to build us up in the faith. This resource helps readers cultivate meaningful relationships. I certainly plan to put to practice what I’ve learned.
I HIGHLY recommend this resource.
The Lord made us for relationships, with himself and one another. He uses meaningful friendships where there’s relational depth to build us up in the faith. This resource helps readers cultivate meaningful relationships. I certainly plan to put to practice what I’ve learned.
I HIGHLY recommend this resource.
July 23, 2025
This is the most helpful book on friendships that I have ever read.
December 1, 2024
The value of this book is that it models a way for friendships to intentionally nudge from shallower to deeper. Hambrick’s questions are useful at each depth. This is a book to pick up and read with a friend (or a spouse). You’ll be well rewarded.
June 9, 2025
What a unique and thought-provoking way to look at how to grow friendships deeper. This is more than a list of questions (though questions are included), but an approach. Very helpful!
March 7, 2025
Excellent little book. There is a lot here I would like to come back and revisit as I look to deepen friendships. The questions are great suggestions for meaningful conversations that can lead to growth and change.
My only confusion, and this was very small, is that sometimes the questions were to be asked of a friend while others are to be asked of yourself. A little explanation of that would have helped me track a bit better.
My only confusion, and this was very small, is that sometimes the questions were to be asked of a friend while others are to be asked of yourself. A little explanation of that would have helped me track a bit better.
July 6, 2025
Christians are created for connection - first with Christ, and then with His body, the Church. Those important connections with the body of Christ take place in the form of Biblical friendships. But too many of us have felt the strain of developing those meaningful relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ. If you’ve felt that strain, pick up this book and step into the freedom of cultivating friendships in an intentional & biblical way that leads to meaningful & transformative friendships.
If you read this book, you’re not given a manual on how to have perfect friendships. Rather, you’re equipped with tools and practical concepts that are the springboard for deep connections.
Friendship is like a garden, taking time and intentionally to cultivate and flourish. This book provides you with the gardening tools, in the form of questions & conversations, that will help you grow your friendships steadily over time as you faithfully invest in the lives of other people. The questions are simple and they take place in the context of common interactions, so friendships grow and deepen in a meaningful & authentic way.
If you read this book, you’re not given a manual on how to have perfect friendships. Rather, you’re equipped with tools and practical concepts that are the springboard for deep connections.
Friendship is like a garden, taking time and intentionally to cultivate and flourish. This book provides you with the gardening tools, in the form of questions & conversations, that will help you grow your friendships steadily over time as you faithfully invest in the lives of other people. The questions are simple and they take place in the context of common interactions, so friendships grow and deepen in a meaningful & authentic way.
November 27, 2024
Hambrick's book on friend is excellent and helpful to intentionally think about friendship. The book is broken down into 7 main questions (or "levels" of friendship). The 7 questions are, "What's Your Story", "What's Good", "What's Hard", "What's Bad", "What's Fun", "What's Stuck", and "What's Next". Hambrick breaks down each of these questions in 5 sections (or depths of friendship). The first section is usually something you may get to over coffee. The final depth is something that you will likely only have with a few people across a lifetime.
I really enjoyed this book. The most helpful part for me was after each question and the following 5 sections on that question, Hambrick included a "Summative Exercise". These exercises were extremely practical and I have already used a few of them. These exercises alone are worth the read of this book.
I really enjoyed this book. The most helpful part for me was after each question and the following 5 sections on that question, Hambrick included a "Summative Exercise". These exercises were extremely practical and I have already used a few of them. These exercises alone are worth the read of this book.
November 25, 2025
“ Friendship is never fake yet here is a challenge for you, doubt your fears about friendship. Doubt those fears enough to leave room for the possibility that the friendships you long for are possible.” – Author, Brad Hambrick
The author wants readers to explore the book in terms of pursuit, small wins/big wins, and growth while practicing the topics in terms of rhythms, habits, and lifestyles to cultivate an expansion of growth and deepened connections. “What’s your story?” is the beginning where you establish a background for your new friend asking questions about the journey and remembering mundane details to create a sense of belonging and intimacy. Themes are the biggest topics for this chapter where the explores depth going beyond the surface to find the core of a friend's story. In a transformative friendship, you should be able to write a middle school book review on your friend’s life not with every specific detail but key details that dictate their distinguishing storyline. The next chapter covers the question “ What’s Good?” where the author explores deep questions that unearth your “quirks” specifically what are things you do that require no effort, things that you love but are ashamed to admit, and things that define your role in life. A big component of asking what’s good specifically in roles requires sacrifice and some of those sacrifices can help shape or break a person. “ Feeling known is an excellent balm against feeling used. The compassionate and curious ear of a good friend can do wonders for building our resilience. “ – Author, Brad Hambrick
“What’s hard?” and “What’s bad?” correlates suffering and sin respectively where the author explores weaknesses and hardships that may negatively impact your friendship. The hard part of our story is usually the inner parts that define but could create shame due to the nature of the actions and the respectability we have gained from our friendships. The truth the author wants to convey is that the hard and bad collectively shape us into the version that our friends meet and allowing them to experience the unpolished truth strengthens the bonds. “Regardless when we tell those closest to us our unpolished story, we are breaking free of image management.”– Author, Brad Hambrick
Hard is sometimes easier to fathom than bad as the latter has a more negative connotation that deals with sin, disobedience,and disrespect. To embrace the bad means admitting the faults which is a non-traditional approach to creating a polished personification. Bad explores the depth of sin beyond what is respectable to code red type sins where readers use reflection to identify sins and communicate the sin intentionally with your trusted circle.
“Here is the good thing about sin in a sinister sense, it is never too busy and it always understands. It will always meet you where you are and take you further than you want to go. Sin is the best bad friend you have ever had.”– Author, Brad Hambrick
After a long day, I
When I feel misunderstood, I
When I disappoint myself, I
When a conflict goes poorly, I
When I am bored, I
After analyzing the “worst” parts of our story, Brad transitions to more light weight topics exploring the fun and determining the next steps to enhance the friendship moving toward the future.
Transformative Friendships is not a light read but more of a guide for those who want to move beyond casual companionship and cultivate relationships marked by vulnerability, trust, and growth. Hambrick’s practical questions and compassionate tone make this book a valuable resource for anyone seeking deeper, more resilient friendships.
The author wants readers to explore the book in terms of pursuit, small wins/big wins, and growth while practicing the topics in terms of rhythms, habits, and lifestyles to cultivate an expansion of growth and deepened connections. “What’s your story?” is the beginning where you establish a background for your new friend asking questions about the journey and remembering mundane details to create a sense of belonging and intimacy. Themes are the biggest topics for this chapter where the explores depth going beyond the surface to find the core of a friend's story. In a transformative friendship, you should be able to write a middle school book review on your friend’s life not with every specific detail but key details that dictate their distinguishing storyline. The next chapter covers the question “ What’s Good?” where the author explores deep questions that unearth your “quirks” specifically what are things you do that require no effort, things that you love but are ashamed to admit, and things that define your role in life. A big component of asking what’s good specifically in roles requires sacrifice and some of those sacrifices can help shape or break a person. “ Feeling known is an excellent balm against feeling used. The compassionate and curious ear of a good friend can do wonders for building our resilience. “ – Author, Brad Hambrick
“What’s hard?” and “What’s bad?” correlates suffering and sin respectively where the author explores weaknesses and hardships that may negatively impact your friendship. The hard part of our story is usually the inner parts that define but could create shame due to the nature of the actions and the respectability we have gained from our friendships. The truth the author wants to convey is that the hard and bad collectively shape us into the version that our friends meet and allowing them to experience the unpolished truth strengthens the bonds. “Regardless when we tell those closest to us our unpolished story, we are breaking free of image management.”– Author, Brad Hambrick
Hard is sometimes easier to fathom than bad as the latter has a more negative connotation that deals with sin, disobedience,and disrespect. To embrace the bad means admitting the faults which is a non-traditional approach to creating a polished personification. Bad explores the depth of sin beyond what is respectable to code red type sins where readers use reflection to identify sins and communicate the sin intentionally with your trusted circle.
“Here is the good thing about sin in a sinister sense, it is never too busy and it always understands. It will always meet you where you are and take you further than you want to go. Sin is the best bad friend you have ever had.”– Author, Brad Hambrick
After a long day, I
When I feel misunderstood, I
When I disappoint myself, I
When a conflict goes poorly, I
When I am bored, I
After analyzing the “worst” parts of our story, Brad transitions to more light weight topics exploring the fun and determining the next steps to enhance the friendship moving toward the future.
Transformative Friendships is not a light read but more of a guide for those who want to move beyond casual companionship and cultivate relationships marked by vulnerability, trust, and growth. Hambrick’s practical questions and compassionate tone make this book a valuable resource for anyone seeking deeper, more resilient friendships.
March 11, 2024
Have you ever wished that your friendships were deeper? That you were able to share more honestly with each other, both the joys and the challenges that you each face?Hambrick provides a simple yet effective guide to deeper friendships - through the use of seven questions: What’s your story? What’s good? Hard? Bad? Fun? Stuck? Next?
Each is broken down further into five depths of growth. The breadth of questions and the various depths to which they are explored is quite extensive. It is designed for mutual friendships, where both are committed to deepening the relationship. He also cautions - not every friendship will move to the deepest level. It’s appropriate to have numerous friends, all at different levels.
There is no overarching theological framework of friendship and how it could look. It assumes you are a Christian who wants to deepen your friendships with other Christians and dives in at that point. This keeps the book short (150 pages) and easy to read, with each mini chapter being only about 3 pages. Of course, enacting it will take much longer with considerably more effort!
Hambrick’s goal however is to produce friendships “that enrich our lives a little more each day”. You could implement it by sharing a bit more and allowing space for a friend them to do the same, or you could read it with a friend and intentionally plan to utilise it together. However you use it, this book will give lots of prompts and encouragements to invest in good, supportive, honest friendships.
For a more detailed review, see https://musingsinadelaide.blogspot.co...
Each is broken down further into five depths of growth. The breadth of questions and the various depths to which they are explored is quite extensive. It is designed for mutual friendships, where both are committed to deepening the relationship. He also cautions - not every friendship will move to the deepest level. It’s appropriate to have numerous friends, all at different levels.
There is no overarching theological framework of friendship and how it could look. It assumes you are a Christian who wants to deepen your friendships with other Christians and dives in at that point. This keeps the book short (150 pages) and easy to read, with each mini chapter being only about 3 pages. Of course, enacting it will take much longer with considerably more effort!
Hambrick’s goal however is to produce friendships “that enrich our lives a little more each day”. You could implement it by sharing a bit more and allowing space for a friend them to do the same, or you could read it with a friend and intentionally plan to utilise it together. However you use it, this book will give lots of prompts and encouragements to invest in good, supportive, honest friendships.
For a more detailed review, see https://musingsinadelaide.blogspot.co...
March 24, 2024
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.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
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.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
November 12, 2025
I started out really enjoying this book and feeling like it was a helpful way to think about friendships and also great to get to know people better. As the book went on I started to have a few issues with the author seeming to use passages to fit his needs rather than actually interpreting them faithfully. At the end he listed all of the “one another” scriptures and I think utilizing these to encourage biblical unity and friendship may have been more helpful than many of the places he did cite. The book at times also seemed very “me centered” and put a lot of pressure on friendships and introspection. I don’t regret reading it but I can’t say it will be a must read/recommend for me.
June 24, 2025
Great framework of seven questions to explore in order to deepen friendships. The author is clearly a fine counselor and this book has nice nuggets of wisdom. The book creates a structure of five levels of depth for each question, with a chapter for each depth level for each question. It creates too many artificial boundaries in the chapter, where seven longer chapters would have worked fine. That said, I’m going to regularly return to these questions when I’m with friends:
What’s your story?
What’s good?
What’s bad?
What’s hard?
What’s fun?
What’s stuck?
What’s next?
What’s your story?
What’s good?
What’s bad?
What’s hard?
What’s fun?
What’s stuck?
What’s next?
September 27, 2025
Interesting framework and helpful questions for friendships! The systematic approach and distinctions between levels of friendship didn’t always resonate with me, but still contained lots of nuggets of wisdom. The topic of this book could be for anyone, but I almost feel this approach would resonate with men slightly more.
November 13, 2025
I’m gonna agree with my girl Hanna on this one and give it ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I think the questions were helpful for self reflection and as springboards to what to talk about with your friends. I don’t know that I would read it again or recommend it as a must-read. The last chapter is a good summary of the whole book :)
October 4, 2025
I'm never impressed by questions but I loved and was impressed with all of the questions in this book. i cant wait to deepen my friendships and encourage others to do the same through these principles and shooting for the 35 level friendships
December 30, 2024
Practical, wise help to deepen your friendships...if you do it!
January 15, 2025
Great book with practical advice to develop biblical friendships that go much deeper than just surface level.
June 15, 2025
4/5. Good simple book on theologically and practically thinking through what it looks like to develop lasting and God glorifying friendships.
July 11, 2025
Very good book. This has some really good questions and things to think about as we engage with our friends. Ways to take them deeper and more meaningful.
July 24, 2025
Good framework for how you can intentionally grow friendships at different depths
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews