Why are some churches the most vicious places? Why are some churches the last place you would look to find friendships? Are your closest friends inside the church or outside the church?
I think we've largely lost the art of friendship in the church. Sure, some of us have deep, solid friendships, but I wonder if the majority of us don't go beyond mere acquaintanceship with other Christians we know. We sure don't go out of our way to spend time with people who are members of the same church we are.
Friendship might be on the back-burner in our lives because we focus more on the actions and processes of following Jesus, such as discipleship and evangelism. But at the core of these processes is a developing relationship, or, friendship.
In fact, in Luke 6:12-16, Jesus teaches a principle of friendship. He called his disciples together and then chose some of them to become apostles. This implies he had a larger group of followers than the twelve he chose to be apostles. We don't know why he chose these twelve, except that he prayed all night before making this decision.
At the risk of reading too much into this text, we might imagine Jesus' followers as the church-at-large and his selection of twelve as a model for us to follow in our friendships.
In small churches, we often make excuses not to reach out to others by saying things like "We don't know everyone in the church yet." But if we look to Jesus' example, is it possible to say that he didn't know everyone in his church (group of followers)? That one of the reasons he selected twelve was to develop relationships and friendships with a few, rather than acquaintances with many?
Crowds followed Jesus and he taught and healed many out of these crowds, but when it came to learning, mentoring, and growing, he did so with a few. He taught his disciples differently than he taught the crowds, providing more spiritual content to his disciples (Luke 8:9-15; 12:1) and his disciples were with him at crucial times in his life (Luke 9:28; 22:39).
Does this create a model for us? What if we understood both discipleship and evangelism in the context of relationship and friendship? Didn't Jesus "disciple" and "evangelize" his disciples through the friendships he had with them? When do you best understand a lesson or a bible passage--when you hear it taught, or when you can discuss it or pray about it with another person or a group?
What if we stopped trying to force programs, discipleship, and evangelism and instead simply befriended others and developed our friendships with a few? How would it look if we gave up our attempts to "know everyone" and focused on really knowing just a few?
How would your spiritual growth be different if you understood it within the context of friendship rather than external action?
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