Chapter 2 - Hangs with Other Believers

This is a continuation from last month's blog post. This is Chapter 2 of S.H.A.P.E.D. - Hangs with Other Believers.

For some, the thought of being connected to a community of people scares the living daylights out of you. I get it. You are ok with being around other people, but your preference is to be by yourself. When the doorbell rings at the house, you’re not thinking, “Yay!!! Someone is here, kill the fattened calf!” Your thoughts tend to be, “Oh no! Not today!” Those of you who are energized by people don’t get this. Anytime the doorbell rings, you immediately start praising Jesus for guests!

I actually land in the first group. My nature is to be more of a loner. I’m a private person and I enjoy being by myself. That’s not my wife. She thrives around people. She’s always game to have people over or to take a trip to someone’s house. I tell her our couch is comfortable and we should just stay home. She doesn’t care.

With her help, and by listening to the Lord, I have learned an incredible truth. A life lived to the fullest is a life lived in community. Having accountability, encouragement, friendship, and intimacy is truly life changing. It has been instrumental in my life even as far as helping me hear God’s voice.

When I sensed God was releasing me from a previous ministry, I went to a handful of respected people in my life that I have a close relationship with and asked them what they thought. The first gentleman I asked responded with, “Have you thought about church planting?” I had not. The next person said, “Have you thought about church planting?” I mentioned it had crossed my mind. By the time I heard the same thing from the fourth person, I knew God was calling me to plant a church. This wasn’t a direction I was pursuing. God used community to help me hear His voice.

However, again, this is not my bent, my tendency. I grew up in an era where being saved was described as a personal relationship with Christ with the emphasis on the word personal and that it should remain personal. With that upbringing and my personality mix, it was easy to believe I could be successful and as healthy as I could be on my own as a Christian. I didn’t need anyone else’s help. Truthfully, I did ok. I made it in life without screwing up a ton and seemed to grow in my relationship with Christ. I never knew there was more until I finally experienced genuine community. 

Kim, my beautiful bride, dragged me into a small group of adults who were willing to be vulnerable. The more we met, the more our meetings together turned into less of a formality and more into a connected group of friends living life together. There was transparency and genuine love for each other. It didn’t happen instantly, there was awkwardness, there was hard work, but eventually it happened.

I personally made the effort to be around these people and I attempted to open up with things going on in my life. I soon noticed that life was much more fun when I could share it with more people. Not only was it more fun, but genuine growth was happening in my life because of this community. It was an aha moment to realize this was actually what the Bible prescribed for believers.

Was it scary to be real with people and show vulnerability? Absolutely, but I found that the risk had a payoff. And you need to know our group of people was far from perfect. In fact, it was extremely messy. We had to help couples through debilitating financial problems to multiple counts of infidelity. Yes, multiple. Truthfully, we all had junk in our lives, and we pitched in to provide all the help and support we could.

For a lot of us though, a utopian society would involve little to no other people. To some degree, we have all experienced life without people, whether we choose it to be that way, or loneliness chooses us. But living without relationships never feels right for long. A part of us still craves the tension that comes with learning to live in relationships with people despite how difficult and trying the process can be.

It is obvious with all of the ways that exist to communicate with people; the need thrives in every one of us to make a meaningful connection. Take a quick look at how much time people spend on social media. Many studies show that the average person spends around 2 hours and 25 minutes a day on Social Media apps and websites. 2.5 hours a day is a lot of time.

Who do you not know that isn’t on social media? I bet that list is a lot smaller than the user list. That begs the question…why do so many people use social media for extended hours? A multitude of reasons, but I will say at the core, many people use social media as their community. They feel like they are connecting with other people even though there is very little to no actual interaction with another person. But deep down we all recognize how important it is to have community and sometimes the easiest way to achieve a version of that is to do it virtually.

In the depths of our soul, we feel our lives are better with the help of others. In fact, we see this in Scripture, from the very beginning to the very end we see that the Christian life was done in community. People living everyday life together. Not just your biological family, but like-minded people with the same vision and desires.

Think about it, when you try to get away to be by yourself you end up on some social media site watching someone else’s life from afar. Or you stream a reality tv show and live vicariously through someone else and their relationships. Think about tv’s heyday and how most popular sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, were all based on community. We watch because deep down we want that type of connection with people. 

Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, these are attempts to relate, connect to someone. But those relationships that stay at the virtual level typically remain superficial. We may have hundreds of friends on Facebook, but when it comes down to it, we really need a living person around. We want someone to celebrate the good times with us, and we want someone to walk through the hard times with us too.

We know that at the core of our souls, we all long to belong. We all long to connect with another person or persons. Something inside of each one of us is desperate for contact with other people. We desire to be in relationship with others. God created us to connect with others. God calls us to be and live in relationship with others.

You feel it when you compulsively check your phone, your Facebook to see who is reaching out to connect with you. We want a connection. We feel a need to have other people in our lives who know us, and really get us, is deep within us - even if we don’t want to admit it to others. The truth is, we not only need to be in relationship with God, we need relationships with other people.

When we try to go about a relationship with the Lord without the help and encouragement of people, we have actually lost the heartbeat of Christianity. In the beginning, when God said it was not good for man to be alone and He created Eve, God isn’t just referring to man needs a wife, but that man needs companionship, community. The animals weren’t enough. People need people.

This idea of community is modeled for us all throughout Scripture. I’ve already mentioned that Jesus shared His life with a group of 12. Really, it was more than that as we see other close friends like Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. In Acts 2 as the first believers gathered together, they did every day life together. They ate together, they shared stuff with each other, they prayed together, and thus, they formed true community. Acts 2:42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (we talked about last chapter), and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper).

They devoted themselves to being together. They studied the Word of God together, but they also just hung out and connected and they ate together and did spiritual things too together like the Lord’s Supper. Eating other people’s food is an extra level of trust for me. But as they did this, the Lord kept adding to their number and they grew in their relationship with Him and each other. It was clear, they became stronger followers of Christ.

What we need to learn is that to a great degree, the people you hang out with and the kinds of friends you choose will determine the course of your life. If you choose positive people, I promise you, you will be a more positive person. If you choose negative, dishonest people, you will be dragged into the gutter with them.

The Bible puts it this way in I Cor15:33, Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.” Paul is specifically referring to people with bad theology. There were people claiming there would be no resurrection and Jesus Himself was not resurrected. He says that type of person is “bad company.” It never fails. If you hang out with the wrong crowd consistently, you will become the wrong crowd. So you need to choose your friends wisely. Be smart with who you are deciding to hang out with. Because the reverse of this verse is also true. The verse could read good company helps your morals. 

Have you ever seen the couple that looks alike? You get creeped out because they are holding hands, but you think they are just really close sibling. But then they go to the next level and you see them kiss. Thankfully there isn’t a blood relation, they just have spent so much time together they just look alike!

A University of Michigan psychologist conducted an experiment to test this phenomenon. He analyzed photographs of couples taken when they were newlyweds and photographs of the same couples taken 25 years later. The results showed the couples had grown to look more like each other over time. And, the happier that the couple said they were, the more likely they were to have increased in their physical similarity.

He suggested that older couples looked more alike because people in close contact mimic each other’s facial expressions. If your spouse has a good sense of humor and laughs a lot, he or she will probably develop laugh lines around their mouth - and so will you.

The Bible is very clear that spiritually you will mimic the people you associate yourself with, the people you hang out with. Prov 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm (ESV). 

The interesting thing is, the result for the individual who is hanging out with wise people is wisdom, but the person hanging out with the foolish doesn’t result in becoming foolish. The result is suffering harm. We see in both the Old Testament and New Testament how important it is to have wise, Godly friends. Because your friends will affect your future and will influence your Christian walk.

It doesn’t matter how spiritual you think you are either. You might think that your relationship with God is so good there is no way you are messing up. There have been mighty Godly people who have fallen. I know too many that have messed up like that.  I’ve done ministry with people who fell big time. Over the years I have partnered in ministry with close to staff members that have had an affair. Don’t ever think you are too spiritual to mess up and that you have no need for accountability.

This reminds me of California’s giant redwood trees. They can grow to be 300 feet tall. They are the tallest trees in the world, yet they have very shallow root systems. A strong wind could easily blow over and uproot a redwood standing by itself. That’s why you almost always see a cluster of redwoods growing together. Their roots intertwine and the group can stand strong as the wind howls around them.

Good friends are the same way. They give us shelter and help us stand strong and tall, even when the winds of adversity are blowing against us.

We hear Ecclesiastes 4 in weddings a lot but it’s not just about marriage, it’s about friendship. It explains this same concept of community when it says “9 Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. 10 If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 11 Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

If you are a Christian, you ought to have Christian friends. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t develop friendships with people who are not believers. After all, being a friend to someone is the very best way to help that person see God’s love. We will talk about this in Chapter 7. But, if you are a Christian who has no Christian friends, you are at risk of drifting into dangerous waters. You need to have friends who share your faith, and you can lean on in times of trouble. Friends who will support you and help you keep your eyes on Jesus.

So choose friends who are wise. These will be your workout partners. From within this circle of friends, you need to have an inner circle that you can trust to hold you accountable. These are more the personal trainer. This group has experience and faith that can push you to new heights and new health.

Who should this be? Someone who can hold you accountable is a friend that you trust to bare what is genuinely going on in your life. A friend that you can be completely honest with and trust them to give you sound Godly advice or the devotion to pray for you and lead you to wisdom.

Accountability is opening ourselves up to recount our actions and to be held responsible for them. With that, you are way more likely to succeed.

It is important to note, in order to have that type of friend, you first have to be that type of friend. You can’t get friendship from someone else if you’re not willing to give your friendship in return. 

In the Bible there are over 50 “One Another” verses that describe how we should treat other people. Be at peace with one another, live in harmony with one another, love one another, wash one another’s feet, serve one another, greet one another with a holy kiss. Over and over again, we are taught how to love other people. I really believe if you make love your aim you will never be alone again in your life.  

The most important part of biblical community is the spiritual factor. You can have community around a sports team, or a hobby and those can be good. But for your life to be affected in a major way, it’s going to take a spiritual component. When you have the freedom to ask someone to pray for you and you know they will, that is changes everything. When you can tell someone your junk and they genuinely love you and want to help you through it, that open the flood gates of change.

Growing up, I was never an outdoorsy type of guy. I was never involved in Boy Scouts and my family didn’t take camping trips. I loved sports and could be found playing basketball anywhere, but fishing and hunting were not on my radar. As an adult, I thought I should give my wife and kids that outdoors experience.

My idea of camping is staying at a less than 3-star hotel, but I needed to be a man, so we packed up and went on a real camping trip in the woods. Thankfully, we also went with some friends that could help me with some of the essentials like setting up a tent. The memory from that trip that rises to the top is that at night it was brutally cold. Even though there wasn’t snow, I felt like the “Frozen Jack” meme from the Shining. My family and I had multiple layers of clothing and incredibly insulated sleeping bags, but the cold was almost unbearable. We didn’t grasp the bite of the cold before saying our “goodnights” because we had all stayed around a toasty campfire chatting the night away.

I learned something important about campfires. While the campfire released its sweet heat, we felt warm and cozy. The logs together burned brightly, but when a log fell off to the side, the embers quickly died out and grew cold. When you face the difficulties of life, as we all surely will, you’ll be thankful for the love, support, and prayers of your faith family. When we gather together as a church family, the impact will be far greater than us on our own. It is when we get separated from the warmth, then the cold takes its toll.

Practically speaking, make spending time with your brothers and sisters in Christ a priority for your life. Be careful not to create excuses, instead, hold your spiritual community with great value. Your church involvement should be one of the first things on the calendar. If you don’t set your priorities, other people will do it for you. Don’t let other people determine how important it is for you to be connected with other believers.

We all need someone pleading with us, encouraging us, and urging us to live for God. Don’t be fooled – you can only do so much on your own. There is an old African proverb, “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.”

I’ve got the Nike running app on my phone. When I was more active with my physical shape, I would use this app to track my runs. After I would finish, the app would cue someone to say, “Great job! Keep it up! Way to get out there and run!” Why do they do this? They know if you have people encouraging you, you are more likely to keep going.

God wants to accomplish great things through us. When we embrace community, we now have a greater variety of gifts at our disposal. There is so much more we can do together. Proverbs 15:22 

Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.

Find a workout partner today. The faster you get started, the quicker you will be in shape!