There is Another Way; We Start with Conversations
Foundationally, our culture is living in a different way than any generation or culture has lived before throughout history.
We saw a shift in the way that community was done. No longer were people stuck in their little villages, where they rarely left all of their lives. Families lived together generationally. Communities grew up and raised their kids together.
Why do I start here?
The ground that you're standing on is broken. However, like the title of the chapter, ‘There is another way’. We can build a different way to do this.
The Class on How to Make Friends
None of us got the first-grade class on how to make friends. Nobody ever taught us how to make friends: how to keep them, how to deal with conflict, how to set appropriate and right expectations, how to have grace for each other.
We needed this class because it's the most foundational part of living. The only things that go into eternity are God, His Word, and His people. Our relationships go on into eternity. It is more essential for your well-being than any other thing that will happen on the planet.
Research says that your health is more impacted by your relationships than if you drink, smoke, or are obese. Your health is more impacted by your loneliness than it is by all those things. It is more dangerous to be isolated. It's the worst form of torture we have in the prison system.
“We need to have people around us. We have to connect with them because when we don't, our minds aren't well.”
This is the state of the world right now: Our bodies are not well. Our spiritual lives are not well.
Throughout the scriptures, you see people that encourage each other - that is the way we were built to live. Why does scripture say that? It says so that we are not hardened by sin; to see that we hold each other up. We need each other to make it in life.
As Thompson says, we are looking for someone looking for us. It’s how you were built; it's what you crave. We have to do a little dirty work to get there. Not only do we live in a culture that is very independent, and isolated, but we also have forgotten how to do relationships.
The Funnel; Acquaintances,
A Village, Close Friends
There’s a chart on page eight of chapter one, that shows a funnel. At the top of the funnel, there are acquaintances. Then the next part of the funnel is our village; that's a diverse community of consistent interconnected people. Then the last part of the funnel is our close friends.
You may be thinking to yourself: “I don't have time to go build a village.” That village probably already exists around you. What are you doing today? You're probably seeing a few people. Those people are put there strategically and beautifully. That's your village.
It's the moms that you sit next to at gymnastics or soccer while your kids practice every week.
It's the Sunday school teacher.
It's the person you volunteer with.
It's the person that is next to you in your apartment, the coworker, or the other college students on your floor.
We skip that part, and we go through life scrolling and not connecting. We miss the village. The 20-50 people that God has put in your path, you miss them.
The 2-5 never show up because we never noticed the 20-50 walking in and out of our lives every day.
“I'm not telling you to add something to your schedule. I'm saying lift your head and look at what's right in front of you.”
ACQUAINTANCE: we have the capacity for about 150 people to be in this category of our life. You can know their names and casually what's happening with them. Ironically, that is how people have lived in villages throughout history. That's your capacity as a human.
OUR VILLAGE: we have the capacity for about 50 people in that village level; where we could take them a casserole if their mom died suddenly. We could know the problems and the real issues that about 50 people are facing and jump in and join that meal train, go for walk with or catch up casually with them.
DAILY CLOSE FRIENDSHIPS: we have the capacity of knowing truly everything happening in and out of somebody else's life for about 2-5 people. Even introverts have this capacity. You were built for connection. You were built by the same God with the same parts of you that crave deep connection. The way you're going to go about it is slightly different. Your value system in relationships is slightly different, but you're good at that deep connection part.
We're also all built for time alone. Varying degrees of how much time we need sometimes puts us in categories like extroverts or introverts.
Here's How You're Going to Get There
I looked at the Bible, history, other cultures, and science while researching. Science will tell you that it takes about 200 hours to get to that lower level of this funnel; the best friends level.
You want to have those people that you can depend on for years; that you can let into the crevices of your life and share the hardest parts of your life with.
That inner circle is going to take about 200 hours of your time to build in depth.
That number might feel overwhelming to you but it's very possible. When you start to add up date nights out with friends, then possibly getaways, you could clock in a lot of hours. If you could build some intentional time, you could get to the 200 hours in a year or less. It's doable.
The good news is that it takes a lot less to have the village level. To have that 50, just start having conversations with the people that you're noticing regularly show up in your life. Start having those conversations and those 2-5 will blossom out of that.
Go get your book from Amazon, and let’s go through it together. Everything can change!
