Hey Y’all,
I wanted to let you in on a conversation I’m having with myself and a few others… regarding a highly valued seldom regarded practice… its called “friendship.”
This morning I ate burritos with several men, we sat in a circle and talked about friendship. We read the bible, quoted Timothy Keller and CS Lewis and fumbled our way through articulating this rather basic yet often elusive relationship. Mornings like this make me wonder how many of us actually have real friends? Or if we could even define what real friendship is… (Facebook doesn’t count)
My hunch is that a lot of us are fairly lonely… and… I… HATE… lonely!!! Lonely is harmful and unnecessary.
We’re lonely because we’re busy. We’re lonely because of technology. We’re lonely because we don’t see friendship as important. We’re lonely because we don’t know how to have friends.
I want to start an uprising against “lonely”… I’ve seen what this “dark vacancy” does to people, I’ve worked in a church the majority of my adult life and I’d venture to say most of the trouble people get into could have been prevented or at least greatly diminished by “real friendship.”
So here is the beginning of my “Anti-Lonely Campaign”— Four steps:
One. Start the conversation. Give me some feedback. “What is real friendship?” “How do we put a stop to lonely?”
Two. I’m gonna get post happy for awhile with daily thoughts on “real friendship and the death of lonely”
Three. Be a missionary against loneliness. If you’re rich in friendship… search for the lonely, pray for wisdom & invite them into your life. If you lack friendship… fight against isolating, accept invitations, pray for 2-3 “real friends”, learn to be a friend.
Four. Listen to Timothy Kellers sermon on “friendship”… https://youtu.be/8Tc4VIQrXdE (from which I will be stealing most of my ideas for future posts)
Comment on this post, share with me your thoughts and lets take this “ring” to Mordor (a clever metaphor for destroying loneliness)
I Love Y’all!!
Bryan