Without friends, no one can thrive.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:12-13
We are forgetting how to be friends
- Shrinking Circles: One in two Australians report that their friendship circles are shrinking.
- No Close Friends: Nearly 1 in 8 Australians (12%) report having no close friends at all.
- Socially Isolated: Almost 30% of Australians currently feel a sense of social isolation.
- Lower In-Person Contact: Only 53% of Australians experience weekly in-person contact with family or friends outside their immediate household (down from 68% in 2019)
Building Block number one: Know your personality type
Modern psychology validates introversion and extraversion as a continuous spectrum of personality, rather than strict, binary categories. Measurable differences in brain chemistry and stimulus processing.
Both Introverts and Extroverts need friends… they just have different challenges:
Introverts find it hard to start friendships beyond their comfort Zone
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
Matthew 5:46-47
Extroverts find it hard to build “deep” friendships
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
Ephesians 4:15
Building Block number two: Find friends who are useless
The key to real friendship is a relationship that isn’t a stepping stone to something else but rather is a blessing to pursue for its own sake. One way to do this is to make friends not just outside your workplace, but outside all of your professional and educational networks. Strike up a friendship with someone who truly can do nothing for you besides care about you and give you good company. The quality to look for is uselessness (not worthlessness—we all have had those friends, too!). That requires showing up in places that are unrelated to your worldly ambitions. Whether it is a house of worship, a bowling league, or a charitable cause unrelated to your work, these are the places where you meet people who might be capable of sharing your loves, but without advancing your career.
Arthur Brooks
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:12-14
The church is full of people you wouldn’t become friends with to further your interests
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
James 2:1-4
Building block number three: Hold your opinions loosely
In one 2016 study, researchers created a humility score.31 They found that it was negatively associated with depression and anxiety, and positively associated with happiness and life satisfaction. Furthermore, they found that humility buffers the negative impact of stressful life events. The reason is not something neuroscientifically complicated; humble people just have more real friends, because they are more fun to be with.
Arthur Brooks
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
1 Peter 5:5-7
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Philippians 2:3-8
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Keys to developing humility:
- Admit quickly when you think you are wrong
- Welcome Contradiction
- Start with smaller issues
Building Block number four: Swap Romance for Companionate Love with your Spouse
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
The soul needs beauty for a soul mate
When the soul wants, the soul waitsNo I could never take a chance
On losing love to find romance
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a womanFor love and sex and faith and fear
U2 – A Man and a woman
And all the things that keep us here
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman
Keys to strengthening Companionate love:
- Lighten up
- Make it about “we” more than “Me”
- Pool your money
- Use conflict like exercise
- Be Faithful
Romantic love makes most people happiest when it’s one-to-one, emotionally and sexually. This isn’t popular with some people today, but this life advice is based on evidence, not morality. In 2004, a large survey of American adults found that “the happiness-maximizing number of sexual partners in the previous year is calculated to be 1.”
Arthur Brooks
A spouse is not the only friend you need.
Building block number five: Step out of your virtual world into the real one
Research has shown that deeper conversations bring more well-being than short communications.61 Meanwhile, in a recent longitudinal study, teens who texted more often than their peers tended to experience more depression, more anxiety, more aggression, and poorer relationships with their parents.
Arthur Brooks
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Matthew 11:19
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:24-25
A 2021 study revealed that the more face-to-face communication people had with others, the more understood they felt and the more satisfied they were with their relationship.66 When meeting up is impossible, use face-to-face technology or the phone. Text or use similar technology for only impersonal or urgent matters.
Albert Brooks
How many hours a day are you on your iphone: https://www.menti.com/alrou559874c
We live in a world that is robbing us of friendship… we have to fight to make and keep friends
We actively seek to do this at Citywide through:
- Dinner Together
- Small Groups
- Kingdom Cells
- Church Camp
- Quiz Nights and the MAANs
- Church Morning Teas and Lunches
- Serving together on Rosters and Mission
Our relationships with one another are Jesus’ strategy to change the world
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
Small Group Questions
- Looking at your current friendships, which of the five building blocks do you find most challenging, and why? What practical step could you take this week to grow in that area?
- Jesus intentionally built friendships with people who could offer Him nothing in return (Luke 14:12–14). Who are the “unexpected” people God might be inviting you to pursue in genuine friendship, and what holds you back?
- Philippians 2 calls us to humility in our relationships. When was the last time you admitted you were wrong, welcomed a different opinion, or chose understanding over winning an argument? What was the outcome?
- Technology makes it easier to stay connected but not always to be known. How has your phone or social media helped—or hindered—your friendships? What is one way you could prioritise more face-to-face connection this month?
- Jesus prayed that our love for one another would point people to Him (John 17:20–23). In what ways do you think authentic Christian friendships can be a witness to the wider community? How can your small group become that kind of community?