Friends?

During my travels recently, I found myself trying to find new language around the idea of the relationships that God is making as I go. A friend of mine explained that, for her, using the word “connections” felt not only unsatisfactory but somewhat unhelpful as it can sound like those who “network” with an ulterior motive in mind, like people who are always angling to meet the ‘power people’ in a room, or using contacts to meet other contacts – like those who harvest from your social media friends list, looking for more ‘targets’ to sell their product. Definitely not my heart but it got me thinking.

I have considered what the different apps call this group of people that I am ‘connected’ with – Google calls them contacts, Facebook calls everyone friends, on Instagram and Tiktok I have followers … Some of these words feel so impersonal but I do not want to assume friendship with those I am just getting to know, or be overfamiliar with those who are in the early stages of a relationship. Some quite honestly will probably never move beyond the superficial stages. We have a limited capacity and we cannot maintain hundreds of friends at a significant depth.

Jesus had different circles of interaction. He had the masses who showed up for what they could get, whether it was bread and fish at the feeding of the 5000, teaching, or miracles as he healed many. But he also had those who followed at a deeper level, giving up everything to join him on wherever he went, recognising that he alone had ‘the words of eternal life’ and was worth abandoning their previous life for. Then there were the disciples that he invited into a closer relationship and of whom he said “I call you friends”, even though one of them would go on to betray him. Then there were Peter, James, and John, the ones invited to go up the Mount of Transfiguration or to go further into the depths of the garden of Gethsemane. His inner circle.

I don’t know about you but I find myself increasingly valuing the depths of authentic, real fellowship, true friendship. Not the superficial, chit-chat of the after-service coffee time at church but the intensity of a vulnerable, hearts-open-wide relationship, where we are truly known, seen, and able to be our real selves. This is not for the faint of heart but also this is not for everyone we know. This is a select few. An inner circle. This is real community, close friendship and I believe it is what Jesus models in terms of fellowship. Look at the intimacy of the Trinity, so woven together!

What if we all had a close circle like this where we regularly encouraged one another, prayed for one another, championed, and challenged one another to be all that God called us to be. What if this is more like what church is supposed to look like. A life lived in close community. I have been thinking about this scripture from Hebrews 10:24-25

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

I think this scripture has sometimes been used to make us feel like we “should” be attending a church building regularly. However, what if the “meeting together” mentioned here is less focussed on “church meetings”, and more about being involved in each other’s lives in a much more real way. More like close family, in and out of each other’s lives regularly ~ practical, natural, woven together. Loving and being loved in all sorts of ways, not just a super-spiritual way that costs nothing more than sitting together for a couple of hours once a week or a quick prayer. What if it was about how we care for one another, help each other out, and provide for one another, practically as well as through prayer. What if it includes mowing the lawn for a sister in Christ who is not able, baby-sitting so that a young couple ministering together get a night off to see each other, taking food to someone who is sick, BEING community rather than talking about it. John 15:13 reminds us that

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

So the questions I ended up thinking about this are “What is the picture supposed to look like?” “What does love look like?” I understand the rhetoric about the Ekklesia, how the church is supposed to be a body that legislates for the kingdom of God on the earth. I understand about our authority that we have been given because of what Jesus did but I think it is easy to skim over the fact that Jesus talked a lot about love. He modelled a kind of love that we don’t comprehend. For example, he washed Judas’ feet when he knew he was about to betray him to death! That is another kind of love. We have some way to go before we reach the level talked about here John 13:34-35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I have been so disappointed in church community and how we have not loved one another well, whilst acknowledging I have been no better than anyone else. I have felt so very sad, broken-hearted in fact, at the level of fracturing in the body of Christ, the division, the siloing into groups, where we try to find those who think like us and are wired like us to avoid the misunderstanding and the hurt that comes from those who just don’t get us. We keep dividing into more and more factions. It feels very far removed from what Jesus is talking about in his prayer in John 17:20-23

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Concerning this, I think there is one gap we can all fill. As I travel, I come across so many people who have been hurt by their experience of church community. Honestly, I love the church, but I am not blind to her flaws. However, I know that the Holy Spirit is capable of bringing about the miraculous and as we surrender to his work in our lives, he can bring us to maturity and we can start to address some of the issues. For sure we cannot do it without the Holy Spirit at work in our lives because it is a supernatural kind of love!

We have all felt the ice-cold winds of criticism, harsh judgment, and condemnation from those who are part of the family, brothers and sisters in Christ; those who feel the need to correct and bring the “truth”, whilst forgetting the phrase “in love”. I am not suggesting we cannot ever bring correction, that is just not biblical, but it works so much better when brought over the bridge of genuine friendship, where it is brought in the context of a trusted voice that has built the capacity, the depth of relationship that enables the other person to receive it “in love”.

I have found myself returning to the need for encouragement time and again. There is a desperate need for the strengthening that comes from encouragement. What if we encouraged one another to press into their relationship with the Holy Spirit and stopped trying to do his job for him! What if we focused on reminding people who they ARE in Christ rather than who they aren’t and where they have fallen short. Most of us really don’t need more discouragement.

‘Encourage’ comes from the Old French meaning to ‘put in courage’, or to ‘put in heart’, to ‘hearten’. Since our heart is key to how we live, this activity may be more significant than we know. I have been challenged in these thoughts to consider how my actions and my words are received by those I am in relationship with. This is the exhortation that has focussed my attention.

encouraging one another ~ and all the more as you see the Day approaching

The point of this post is twofold: firstly to exhort us all to build community, genuine, real friendship – not just “connections” ~ in this context less is perhaps more! It feels like there is a real urgency for this. If we don’t yet have those close friendships, the “brothers in arms” alongside us in our faith walk, we need them even more right now and will do in the days ahead. Let’s prioritise meeting together, making time for real fellowship, not just church meetings – there is a big difference. Let’s really get to know one another. When we fellowship together in this way, we feel like we have eaten a three-course meal – we go away full, soul-full. And secondly, let’s be encouragers, of everyone, even those we think don’t need it or we are not naturally drawn to. We ALL need it. So let’s adhere to 1 Corinthians 14:1 and

Follow the way of love

This can look like strengthening our brothers and sisters through our actions, and in truth, as we are encouraged to do in 1 John 3:18, especially those we are in close fellowship with, but also it will look like encouraging the ones we don’t understand, who may feel uncomfortably different. Let us indeed develop the habit of following the way of love with everyone we encounter as, in the words of Ephesians 4:29 TPT, we

… let (our) words become beautiful gifts that encourage others; … by speaking words of grace to help them.