I want friends.

I want friends. Do you know what I mean? Real friends. I want friends who want us as friends. People my wife and I can be ourselves with. The type of people who are deeper than you think, who challenge you to grow and encourage you through it. The type of people whose friendship is about friendship.

I want to be a friend who loves the interaction with others, willing to sacrifice some TV time in order to spend some face time. I want my wife and I to enjoy the same people, to laugh in the company of others and to grow together because of our community. Roxann and I are great friends. The past couple of years, especially, have been incredible for our marriage. We are open, supportive, and each others biggest cheerleaders.

Roxann is smart AND beautiful, and really makes my life more than it could be without her. However, as much as we love each other’s company, we are better with others. Our continued growth as followers of Christ and as people on this planet depends on the solid friendships we forge.

So… I want a community of friends, a tribe, where I don’t have to be a mentor… where I don’t have to be guarded all the time. Where who I am becoming is as important as who I am. We have had great friends in the past: Tracey & Tom Conner, Heather Williams, John Ratz & fam, Sweeney’s (all of them), Stoeckles. We also have great friends now: the Lewies, Vaughns, Phoenixs. Kudos to them for liking us back.

So, where do I go to find community, that tribal experience? I go in search of it.

Branded as…

After years in church ministry, I have noticed that one of the most common struggles among church people is in the area of community. We simply struggle to maintain relationships that allow us to be ourselves. It makes me wonder if we are afraid of being branded as ‘less than.’ Less than a good Christian. Less than a man of character. Less than a someone who has it all together. The risk of ‘less than’ inhibits us from becoming ‘more than’… more than we can be on our own.

“To belong to a group of real friends is to be armed against influences from without.” – C. S. Lewis

Britney Spears and Barack Obama

Why is E! or even the TV Guide Channel such valued channels? Why are People Magazine or Seventeen or Entertainment Weekly so popular? Is it because the people featured within the pages are so much better than us? Do they have less problems or more answers or greater wisdom? Do we really think Britney Spears or Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt or Barack Obama have it all together? Let’s be honest… in today’s world the majority of people who get ‘admired’ are the wealthy, or the famous, or the guy who is ‘bigger-than’ or ‘ better-than’. I think we look to these people hoping they know something… something that can effect our lives.

Remember the movie Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade? In one of the scenes, Indiana had to choose the ‘cup of Christ’. The cup  was supposed to be what Jesus drank out of at the last supper. The choices were immense. Which of the dozens of cups could it be? One of the golden cups gilded with jewels? No. It ended up being a simple cup. A wooden cup. A carpenter’s cup. According to the movie, drinking from this cup had healing powers. A simple, unassuming cup had the power to change a life.

We can certainly find people who embody the ideals, the foundational ideas, that mark who we are as individuals. I would think we should be more careful about who we choose though. Not only can we look to people like Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, Martin Luther, Marie Curie and Thomas Edison, but we can look to Mr. Theis, Carol Kessler, Melissa Larimore, KC Maddox, and Al Lewie. People who are closest to us have the greatest impact on us.  I will take Mr. Theis who believed I could do more than I thought I could, or Carol Kessler who invests in the lives of girls who are decades younger than she is, or KC Maddox who challenges me to think more than I sometimes want to. I can admire, and even emulate, some of the more famous people I find significant in history. If I am honest, however, others have made a deeper impact on who I am becoming. These unassuming people have the power to change a life… my life.