People come to us, the church, with the request to "find me a friend." At GCC, we don't accept that responsibility.
We do, however, encourage them to shift their focus from finding a friend to being a friend. When you move the focus from finding a friend and shift it to being a friend, amazing things happen!
When the focus is on finding a friend, the searcher is needy. The searcher is lonely. They are motivated to remove their own pain.
Who is attracted to being a friend with this person? Not many. It's very tragic because their inward focus is their own barrier to connecting with others.
When the focus shifts to being a friend, the searcher is generous. The searcher reaches out to others. They are motivated to respond to the pain of others.
Who is attracted to being a friend with this person? Many. The outward focus is counterintuitive. It's Jesus. To find a friend, focus on being a friend.
I love this post: simple and with the appropriate "stickiness" factor.
Miss everyone; it's waaaay too quiet around here.
Posted by: Julie Smies | October 05, 2007 at 12:33 PM
I love these posts! We deal with the same thing here at NCC. People email me quite a bit to request a friend, a mentor, and accountability partner, etc. Personally, I would never want to be "assigned" a friend, mentor, or accountability partner, but it doesn't seem to bother some.
The church is the only social structure in the world that is expected to provide friends for people. No one would ever go into a bar and announce to the bartender, "I've been coming in here for 4 weekends straight, and I still haven't found a good friend. You need to do something to make it easier for me to meet people."
That would be silly. And yet that's what people do with church.
Posted by: Heather Zempel | October 15, 2007 at 10:42 AM