“Do you take hugs,” my friend Shannon asked.

Admittedly a bit surprised, I stretched my arms wide and with a grin said, “Absolutely!”

And there we stood, two large-size grown men, embraced in a bear hug with a sea of people around us. No shame, and no quick bro pat on the back here.

Shannon, the police chief here in my not-small-but-not-big town, was retiring after three decades in law enforcement, and while I knew I couldn’t stay long, I knew I had to drop by his retirement celebration just to say thank you.

You see, prior to eight months ago, I knew the chief from whatever I read in the news. And he likely didn’t know who I was. After all, prior to taking on the CEO role at our local emergency shelter, housing and food pantry mission, I didn’t have nearly the community profile I do now.

But just weeks into my very public, very challenging start at the mission, Shannon reached out and invited me to lunch. My first and probably understandable reaction to the invitation back then was, “Oy, the police chief wants a word with the new head of the shelter. Can’t be good.”

On the appointed day and time, I arrived at the restaurant, where the chief and his police captain were already seated. “Good afternoon, Chief,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand.

He pointed at the chair opposite, and said, “Grab a seat. It’s just Shannon here, no chief.”

He went on to say that he knew a little about what it was like to be in a very public leadership role, and he just wanted to offer his friendship, just wanted to be a listening ear. And lunch that day stretched nearly two hours long.

In the past eight months, we’ve repeated that lunch a couple of times. There’s also been encouraging phone calls, texts and emails. And when we embraced the other night, we did so as unexpected friends brought together by unexpected circumstances. Two people who shared similarly isolating roles, who grew to find an even deeper friendship.

Chief Monroe was among the first people to reach out a hand in those first, disorienting and chaotic weeks at the shelter, and I will be forever grateful. But his friendship has persisted even beyond the crisis days, and that act of compassion will forever be imprinted on my heart.

That is the gospel, my friends. Reaching out to those in need, those who could just use a friend. We don’t have to complicate this faith thing, but we do have to invest ourselves in others.

Thank you, Chief, for being a leader with and without the uniform on. Cheers to a well-deserved retirement. Amen.

Devlyn Brooks is the CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.