Tag Archives: growth group

Friends Wanted: How to Cultivate Friendships in a Lonely World

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I think it’s pretty easy to say that we all want friends, not just acquaintances or friends on Facebook. We all legitimately want those few people in our lives who love us and understand us and want to be a part of our lives. We crave deep friendships with people, yet most of us haven’t figured out how to find those kinds of friends, let alone invite them into the deepest parts of our hearts and homes.

Find Your People

I’m reading Find Your People by Jennie Allen right now, and it’s been both encouraging and convicting at the same time. She deals with this issue of building community in a lonely world.

The fact of the matter is, we all want friends and people to do life with. Yet, I daresay most of us would say that we feel all alone in this world most of the time. In this digital age, we have people around us 24-7 through social media, emails, tv, blog posts, etc. So, how come it is that we go to bed feeling all alone in this world?

The 3-5 Friends Challenge

The scientific proven number of people that we can track closely with is 3-5 people. That’s it. While it sounds like we should have more friends than that, if you truly stop and think about it, that’s probably more than we could say we’re truly close with.

Here’s a challenge. Take a moment and write down the names of 3-5 people that are your closest friends. By close friends, this is what I mean:

  • Someone that lives near you that they could drop everything and be at your house in a few minutes if needed (Note: one of my good friends lives an hour away, but we make it work)
  • Someone who truly cares about you and wants to know how you’re doing
  • The person that loves you just as you are and isn’t trying to change you but is willing to confront you if you get way off-base or off-track
  • The person who sees you for you with all your faults and flaws and still loves you and wants to spend time with you

If you’re like me, you found this exercise a little harder than you thought it would be. That’s because we all struggle in this area of making friends. You may have hundreds of followers on Facebook but not any friends that you do life with day-to-day.

My Answer to Finding Friends and Cultivating Friendships

Making friends is something I really struggle with. I don’t let people into my life easily. I’m a very independent person and hate to be a bother to anybody. I used to stress because I knew I needed friends, but I didn’t know how or where to find them. I had no idea where to even start. Then one day, all that changed in a way I never saw coming.

One day, out of the blue, Matt told me he wanted to start small groups at our church. He handed me a book to read on the topic. I read the book and understood all the in’s and out’s and why’s of starting small groups in our church. I’ll be honest, though, I wasn’t really looking forward to it. That was over seven years ago.

My Small Group

Fast forward several years. It took several groups and reshifting people and groups before we finally started gelling with our group. We have now been with our small group for six years. They have been become such a vital part of our lives that I can’t imagine doing life without them.

our friends in our small group

These pictures were taken at our last Friendsgiving. We started as strangers and have now become close friends. I know that I could call anybody in my group in an emergency and they would drop whatever they were doing to come help. We’ve been through so much life together—the highs and the lows, the good and the bad. We have forged such deep friendships over years of meeting together weekly and settling around our table with good food, fellowship, Bible study, and prayer.

I’m not good at tracking down friends to do life with, and my small group has become the outlet for me to meet with my friends faithfully each week. I know that without the structure of meeting with my group every week, I would not invest in those relationships like I need to. I would probably let those relationships just slip away.

Starting a Small Group

If you, like me, have found yourself lonely and wanting to develop deep connection and community with people but don’t know where to begin, let me encourage you to join Matt and I tomorrow morning at 9am EST on our Manney Resources Facebook Page.

We are doing a training on small groups. We are going to share with you the simple system we use to get groups started.

These are the words Matt wrote about the training tomorrow: Small groups are the difference between those who make it and those who don’t. Life is too short and difficult to go at it alone. Learn the power and impact of developing a small community, finding a rhythm for your schedule to meet, and how to leverage the power of friendships to grow your faith and change your life.

We will be answering all these questions and more:

  • How do I start a group?
  • Who should I invite?
  • Where should we meet?
  • What’s the format for a small group?
  • What Bible studies should I use?

If you want to cultivate friendships and stop doing life by yourself, be sure to tune in tomorrow morning at 9am!

For More Encouragement

Jennie’s book, Find Your People is a great read! I’m really loving it and being challenged by it. You can also read one of my posts about our growth group, Love is Still the Answer.

Beautiful Chaos

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beautiful chaos-our group

Tuesday Nights at Our House

On any given Tuesday night, if you were to drop by our home, you would hear the noise and chaos before you ever even stepped foot inside. Tuesday nights are full of what we call “beautiful chaos” in our home. It’s the night our small group from church gets together. Twenty-one of us gather in our small home. Thirteen of that twenty-one is kids ages ten and under. It’s pretty much a circus.  

When everyone first arrives, it’s a time of hugs and greetings. The kids take off right away to play outside or downstairs in the basement. The adults shrug off their coats and sit on the couches or at the tables. Usually, I have a few last-minute things to finish in the kitchen. Then we call the kids in, and we all gather together to pray. Then the real madness begins— getting thirteen kids and eight adults through the serving line and settled.  

I’ll admit; it gets a little crazy for a few minutes. Soon, though, it quiets down a little as everybody begins eating. We laugh and talk as we connect and eat. In a few minutes, we will clear the plates away and make room for dessert. Matt will get us set up with whatever Bible study we are currently doing. The kids will be sent to go play so we can begin our Bible study. They will come back and interrupt at least thirty times, but that’s just part of the deal.  

The Best Part of the Night

I love all of it, but this moment, right here is my favorite. I lift my fork to my mouth and take a moment to look around my table. A smile comes to my face as I study each of the faces that make up our small group. It’s a group of people that the world would have never put together. None of us even knew each other a few years ago.  

We are black and white and mixed. We come from all walks of life; we have different religious backgrounds and contrasting political values. Yet, somehow, we have become good friends, even the best of friends.  

These moments, when we’re all gathered around the table with plates piled high of barbecue chicken and mashed potatoes or nachos or fajitas, are precious. It’s a time when we can take a break away from work, away from the pressures of life, and just be together. The longer we sit around the table, the more everybody relaxes, letting their cares and concerns go for just a few blissful hours.  

Around Our Table

At this same table, we have shared heartbreak and sorrow, victories and accomplishments, frustrations and fears, prayer requests and praises. We’ve cried around this table and we’ve laughed. We’ve laughed so much, sometimes it hurts. We share a bond that goes deeper than casual friendship. It’s a bond you can only get with time.  

In a few hours, we will push away from the table and head out in different directions. The pressures of life, jobs, relationships and finances will once again come to the forefront. But for now, we push all that away and just enjoy being together. We laugh, talk, and connect with each other.  

What Grace Looks Like

To me, this is a beautiful picture of what grace looks like. Grace is what allows people from all different backgrounds to come together and form friendships. Grace allows the working moms to be gentle and non-judgmental to this stay-at home mom. Grace allows each of us to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes.  

Grace allows us to see past the flaws and imperfections of each other. This is the way God views each of us. He doesn’t see our mistakes and failures; instead, He sees the masterpiece He created. That’s how we are supposed to view others, but that’s usually not the case. We’ve been conditioned to notice those who are different than us. Of course, if they’re different than us, that automatically makes them wrong.  

Choosing to Just Show Up

Our small group isn’t perfect. We will be the first to admit we have a lot of flaws. We have arguments and disagreements with our spouses, we get frustrated with our children, we get weary and discouraged, we don’t always do things the best way. But one thing our group gets right each week is grace. We each choose to show up and love the others in our group with a God-kind of love, a love that overlooks imperfections. We’ve spent enough time together over the years that we know each other’s weaknesses. We could point those out and focus on those imperfections, but we don’t. Instead, we choose to overlook those imperfections because we remember we have our own. That’s grace.  

We show up each week and step into the chaos, ready to extend grace to one another. We spend time fellowshipping and encouraging each other through a good meal and a Bible study. Then we head out to our perspective workplaces for the week, ready to extend the grace that’s bubbling up inside of us from being together to other people. 

Choosing Beautiful Chaos

If you want beautiful chaos in your own life, invite people into your life and into your home who don’t believe like you do, who don’t vote for the same political party as yours, who don’t see life the same way you do. Instead of trying to change any of those differences, simply accept them. Then sit back and watch as God does something amazing as He intertwines their lives with yours and creates beautiful chaos.

**This post is an excerpt from my newest book, Finding Free: 5 Simple Steps to a More Peaceful, Content, and Happy You.

  

For More Encouragement

For more encouragement on this topic, read Love is Still the Answer.