Friendly or Connected

I have over 400 friends on Facebook, and most of them I never talk to, see, or hear from. They are the ideal when it comes to low maintenance friendships. I’m concerned that the modern world has forgotten what friendship really is. In the movie Tombstone, someone asked Doc Holliday why he was always risking his life for Wyatt Earp; Doc Holliday said “because Wyatt Earp is my friend”. The man asking the question then said, “well I have a lot of friends” saying it in a trivial way. Doc Holliday said “I don’t”. Maybe we have trivialized what relationships are? I am a time share owner. Last year I got a letter in the mail saying “thank you for being part of the Interval family”. They call me family, but I don’t know them, they don’t know me. Maybe we have trivialized what family is. When it comes to church, what does it mean to be a member? I know that God adds us to the church when we are baptized, but what does it mean to be part of a congregation, to be part of a church family? If we are not careful, church rolls can look like a Facebook page, where we have lots of friends but no connections. There is not one place in the Bible that tells us that we need to be a friendly church, but there are many places that say we need to be a connected church. That is what I think Paul was talking about in Romans 1:11-12 when he said “ 11 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— 12 that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:11-12 NIV. Paul is saying here, I want to be with you; I want to be with my family. That kind of passion for each other is hard to find. The question should not be “are we a friendly church?” There answer there is yes, we are friendly. The truth is, I’m friendly at Kroger, at Walmart, and at football games, but friendly doesn’t build relationships. The real question should be, do people need each other here, do they connect here, do they trust, love, and help each other? Paul says I want to build you up, that we can be mutually encouraged. Some scholars say Paul is just being humble, but what if Paul is not just flattering these people, what if he is telling the truth? Paul needed these people just as much as they needed him. Strong spiritual relationships go further than friendliness, they require investment and a mutual level of appreciation and honesty. God is in the saving people and changing lives business, He invites His church to be part of that mission. The way we do that is to go beyond friendliness; so that we can strive for connectedness.