Nurturing Meaningful Connections
Embracing the 3 C's of friendship.
What is a friend?
Last week I wrote an article about loneliness.
This week I want to talk more about friendship. I am defining friendship as the commitment, continuity, and compassion that bonds persons in unity.
Friends are individuals whose lives are so intertwined with ours that we cannot fully comprehend ourselves and the world without them.1
Commitment
Friendship is formed from a loyalty that gives each other permission to challenge one another, with the freedom of knowing that I love you and am wishing for God’s best in your life. Commitment entails assuming positive intent and working together through disagreements with a resolve to see one another through it to the other side.
Assuming positive intent is a necessity because it is often our own misunderstandings, our own insecurities, and our own pride that prevents us from receiving a friend’s rebuke or reproofing in the reality from which it was framed. Sometimes our presuppositions and presumptions allow us to infuse negative (and false) contexts into the circumstances. And sometimes the truth hurts and we need to particularly allow our friends the space to give us that message. What I am describe is discipleship, iron sharpening iron; thus, friction is apart of the relationship and it is OK. Unfortunately, the slightest discomfort, perceived wrongdoing, or hurt is enough for many people to sever relationships. Our loyalty to one another transcends our interpersonal difficulties because Christ has already torn down every hostility that has previously separated us (Eph 2:11-22).
It is true, that the Christian who desires healthy friendship and community must also possess the ability of being alone with themselves. At the same time, we tend to value our privacy much more than community. The heightened sensitivities to discomfort and the prioritization of isolation can be attitudes that are unchristian. Community offers much more, “Walking worthy of one’s calling in unity means living a life of lowliness, gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, and striving – exerting real effort to maintain the unity created by the cross (Eph. 4:1 – 3).”2
Friendship: Continuity
For the continuity of friendship, it is important that persons engage in quality time on a continual basis over time. As I am defining it, friendship requires a commitment of multiple, face to face, contact points throughout the week ranging from the organic to the intentional. Ronald Rolheiser gives advice for sustaining community, “What sustains a relationship long-term is ritual, routine, a regular rhythm that incarnates the commitment.”3
Of note, I have friends that I speak with daily through the available means of technology. However, as wonderful as those relationships are, we are still missing an important aspect of local fellowship. I wrote about us gathering together as families for the first time since my wedding in 2009:
Technology affords us wonderful opportunities to connect ‘face to face.’ Yet, the biblical authors (who used the technology of their day – letter writing) still saw the importance of in-person interactions, “I have many things to write you, but I don’t want to write to you with pen and ink. I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face” (3 Jn 13–14).4 Biblical friendship and community calls us to the importance of a localized communal context, without disregarding important long-distant relationships. This is a core differentiator between Christianity and other religions. The God of the Bible becomes fully human and walks among us! He preferences the intimate face to face interaction (even though He knew it would kill Him). This is a distinguishing characteristic from cosmic entities who keep themselves completely separated from Creation emotionally, physically, biologically and/or communicably. Jesus localizes His deity, Personifies God’s revelation, and is an example of how we are to live our lives.
This is an area where we need to re-envision the ideals for biblical fellowship to reflect the communal relationship seen in the Bible. Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the transformational underpinnings that should bolster Christian community as 1) a dependency on Jesus 2) a dependency on one another and 3) a freedom that enables an eternal unity in Christ.5
Friendship: Compassion
Biblical community thrives on a healthy interdependency that encompasses economic, spiritual, and physical aspects within our friendship. Acts 2:41-47 (copied in the footnote)6 provides a glimpse into this transformative compassion, highlighting essential elements:
Commitment (vs 41-42, 47) – These are individuals who accept the message of Jesus, are baptized, and devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. They are committed to Christ and to one another. The worship of God is an overflow of the community’s unity and discipleship in Christ. This community enjoyed each other’s favor – the sense of belonging to one other, communal encouragement, accountability, vulnerability and unity. This type of community is attractive and will experience God’s success.
Compassion (vs 43-45) – Believers are filled with awe, witnessing the miraculousness of a united global community (Acts 2:1-13). This radical community of strangers and foreigners had a unity and collectiveness that only the gospel could induce, and it attracted thousands. They were ‘together and held all things in common.’ They voluntarily sacrificed for each other, and everyone’s needs were being met! A radical gospel transformed community will have tangible and spiritual fruitfulness.
Continuity (vs 46) – Every day, they devoted themselves to meeting together. In other words, attending a Sunday and Wednesday church event is NOT fulfilling your commitment and need for community. The early church’s devotion was to consistently meet in their homes and share a meal with joyful and sincere hearts. They didn’t need programming, they weren’t too busy or too tired, and they experienced the benefits of something they knew they needed.
Friendship Practices
The good news is that the 3 C’s of friendship is simpler than we often perceive it to be. However, simplicity does not equate to easy or natural! Friendship is as straightforward as 1) sending and receiving text messages, 2) inviting others to join you in activities you are already involved in, 3) opening up your home for a shared meal, 4) soliciting a partnership in your daily rhythms, and/or 5) desiring kingdom good in another person’s life. Reread Acts 2:41-47 and notice all the communal words in the text – fellowship, breaking bread, devotion to meeting together, had all in common, house to house, eating with joy and sincere hearts, and enjoying the favor of all. God added to their number – the ‘visible community is grace.’7
Making Space for Friends
The New Testament contains over fifty instances of the phrase "one another," with the command to love one another being the most frequently repeated. These actions and attributes characterize believers, indicating their devotion to God's Word and to one another.
Where do your priorities, time, and money indicate your devotions are?
The Bible’s ‘one another’s’ require commitment, continuity, and compassion. They require multiple, face to face, contact points throughout the week that consist of organic and intentional interaction on a continual basis over time. This is for your own faith journey and impacts your neighbor’s growth. Such community is the intersection of God using the body’s giftings to bless one another. We cannot fully embody the church, grow in Christlikeness, nor obey His teachings without embracing the opportunity to actively participate in local community.
The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more everything else between us will recede, and the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is alive between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we really do have one another. We have one another completely and for all eternity.8
The question is not, "How and where do I start?" Instead, the question is, “What is the next step we can take to make space in our lives for the friendships Scripture has called us to?”
Tish Harrison Warren. Liturgy ff The Ordinary: Sacred Practices In Everyday Life. InnerVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL: 2016. 115
Bob Kellemen, Kevin Carson. Biblical Counseling and the Church: God’s Care Through God’s People. Zondervan: Biblical Counseling Coalition 2015. 259.
Ronald Rolheiser. Domestic Monastery. Paraclete Press: Brewster, Massachusettes. 2019, 44.
See also Rom 15:23, 29; 1 Cor 4:19-21; 16:12; 2 Cor 1:15-16; 1 Thess 2:18; 1 Tim 3:14; 2 John 12
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Reader’s Edition. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015. 5.
41 So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. 42 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. 45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch, Reader’s Edition., Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 2.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Reader’s Edition., Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015. 9.