Friendlessness and Fellowshipping

Fellowship is a significant part of life in the Body of Christ. It’s the natural part of people who enjoy being with each other and the means by which we encourage and exhort each other outside of the sermon and hold each other accountable. It’s the primary method the Holy Spirit uses to work out our sanctification.

So when does a typical church enjoy this necessary fellowship? It doesn’t happen during a worship service. Unless your Sunday School or Bible Study class is merely social it doesn’t happen during that time. Unless there is a special time set aside, churches only fellowship before or after services or classes. People might develop deeper relationships and meet somewhere outside of church for that fellowship we all need. If you can’t develop those kinds of relationships, you never get the fellowship you need to grow effectively as a Christian.

So let’s take Sunday morning for example. Those short before and after times are filled with most people giving courtesy checks:

“How’s it going?”

“Fine. You?”

“Fine.”

Most people don’t expect, or likely they don’t hope, others to actually have any problems. What would someone say if they asked someone how they were doing and they got this answer:

“Well, not too good. I don’t think I have any friends.”

I imagine they might respond, “Well, uh, sorry to hear that. Let me know if I can do anything.” All the while they are really thinking how they could get out of talking to this person any more. So let’s imagine a typical Sunday after church or even a special fellowship event…

I arrive and look around to see if anyone notices me. No one does. So I look for someone.
I see someone I know talking to someone else. Maybe I’ll try saying hello. So I walk up and neither notice me right away. So I stand there. Someone else comes by and says hello and immediately walks away after I return their hello. Realizing that no one is particularly interested in me, I go and hang out in a corner to see if anyone comes up. A few people pass by and say hello, but no one cares to stop.

Suddenly, someone comes up and says hello. I practice what I’ve read about in good conversationalism and ask him something about himself. So he launches into a lengthy monolog about something that interests him. I pay attention, but have no ability to interject other than a simple, “Uh-huh…sure…no kidding…that’s something else…”

Otherwise, I just hang out there alone. Someone sees me and tries to talk. They ask a question that I know they really don’t want me spending all day answering, but I start to talk anyway. Before a couple of sentences are finished someone else comes up and the person I’m with is obviously glad to have someone else to talk to for a while.

I've been advised by my counselor, who wouldn't give me the time of day were it not her job, to "just put yourself out there." The method for doing such a thing effectively eludes me.

A couple of times a year, perhaps, someone will engage me with a fruitful conversation or actually spend some time together at some event. It doesn't end up as a deeper long-lasting friendship however. So this is my depressing social life.

What shall I make of this in light of what we are supposed to be as the Body of Christ? Some may be tempted to shake their fist at God and lose faith. But if God wanted me to have a friend he would give me one. Since he hasn't, then I can only conclude that God doesn't want me to have a deep friendship with someone. That's his prerogative. My fate is to deal with the fallout of exacerbated depression in light of a few individuals who unwittingly patronize me with disingenuous concern. Now I could let my heart grow cold and hard against people, but I want to honestly love them with the love of Christ. So I bear their ignorance toward my condition.

If you suffer from depression and are similarly awkward socially and relatively unable to develop deep and lasting relationships, I urge you to strive diligently not to blame people for their ignorance and unconcern. Forgive them and accept God's lonely purpose in your life.

If you don't suffer from depression, but know someone who does and is socially awkward, then my advice is to not be disingenuous toward them. If you don't love them in Christ enough to try to care for them, then don't pretend that you do. Don't also pretend that it's okay not to love your brother or sister in need. Pray that God warms your heart because your heart is cold.

If, on the other hand, you do love your brother or sister who suffers from depression, then by all means, a) adopt them as your own friend and b) strive sacrificially to help them learn to behave less awkwardly. People like me need people like you because frankly most people really don't love us that much - and that's depressing.

The Need of a Christian Loner

I love John Piper's admonitions here. We need community. We need fellow Christians. I want to address one thing that he said toward the end of this Ask Pastor John podcast. He first addressed Christians who would rather just be loners. Then he spoke to Christians like me who have trouble developing those deeper relationships. He expressed sorrow over the difficulty that we have. Then he admonished us to trust God to guide us. Finally he said this:

"Be for others what you long for them to be for you."

In my previous post, I detailed some areas I typically have difficulty with in socializing with other people. First, John Piper said some great things and I encourage you to listen to what he said.

But secondly I have a little trouble with the advice I quoted here. You see, I don't know how to be for someone what I long for them to be for me. What I long for is the kind of rapport I see others have. I long for the kind of relationship that I see others have for each other where they go and visit each other. In other words, I see people who have the kind of friendship where they know where their friends keep the keys hidden to the back door and know that they are welcome to use them. I could invite someone to the house, but I wouldn't know what to do with them once they got here.

If someone out there knows how to teach me how to develop that kind of relationship, then I could perhaps follow what John Piper says here. Of course, even that requires being able to develop that kind of relationship it seems. So, if you know how to teach people like me how to develop relationships like this and you see people who could use your help, then I urge you to take the initiative because someone like me probably won't be able to effectively ask for it.

Sluggishness

So I'm responding to a post on Desiring God entitled "Lay Aside the Weight of Sluggishness" by Jon Bloom.

I like Desiring God and support their message. This post was probably aimed at normal Christians, but I have to respond to some of what was written there.

The passage used as a basis is Hebrews 6:11-12:

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

The illustration given is a runner who is being sluggish:

Sluggishness in a runner signals danger to a coach. Something isn’t right. Something is causing ambivalence, draining confidence. The runner is losing heart. Half-hearted running is a forerunner to quitting.
That’s when a caring coach intervenes.

 That's assuming that a caring coach is present. One of my beefs is that I can't seem to get wise counsel from anyone. I don't have a coach. When I get sluggish, who is there to exhort me on? I've asked for help and some have tried, but they always stop short of giving me what I need.

So perhaps I need blog posts from Desiring God to serve as my life coach since no living person will do it.

When we feel like this we typically want an arm around the shoulder and a gentle word of understanding and commiseration. What we typically need are loving reproofs, like these:

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” (Hebrews 3:12)
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (Hebrews 4:1)
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27)

So perhaps I just need the Bible. I hold the authority of the Bible in high regard. As far as I'm concerned it is the source of information from God by which all other information should be judged. But do we not all need help applying it effectively?

So what does Jon Bloom give us as a list to go by?

1. Identify the doubt. Sluggishness has a cause. What is sapping your faith?
2. Repent. Unbelief is a sin. Seek to actively turn from it.
3. Target that unbelief with biblical truth. Stop whatever else you may be doing for devotional reading and focus on and pray through texts that deal directly with this issue. Lay aside your other book reading and read things that address this doubt.
4. Don’t go it alone. Humble yourself and share your struggle with trusted counselors God has given you. Our great Coach often speaks through assistant coaches (Hebrews 3:13).

So let's go through the list.

1. Identify the doubt.

What doubt this is Jon doesn't say. If I had a doubt, it's that God really wants to use me. I've tried to minister to people. In fact a couple of people have mentioned that I minister in ways that I don't know about. They have told me what those ways are and I suspect that they are just saying that hoping that it's true because they can't really think of anything specific to mention.

2. Repent.

I haven't been convinced that my particular doubt is a sin. God uses people. God uses some people more than others. Some people have the greater honor. Some people are so pitiful that they have to be hidden (1 Cor 12:23b). I often wonder at passages like this if Paul is giving us an ideal that is rarely followed by churches today or if we are to assume that this is the way churches really function. If this is an ideal only, then it must be true that many people simply aren't used the way that Paul indicates that they are to function within the Body of Christ.

So what am I to repent of? How am I supposed to change? Do I simply decide to believe that God will use me and he suddenly will? I used to believe this and he didn't. so I must conclude that not everyone is seen as worth using in the Body of Christ by those who determine such things. Show me a pastor, deacon, or elder who actually organizes the work of the church according to 1 Cor 12, and I will repent. Otherwise, there is nothing to repent of.

3. Target that unbelief with biblical truth.

I just tried that. I think my doubt is biblically and practically justified.

4. Don't go it alone.

Find me someone who will give me wise counsel and follow through with it and I won't go it alone. If you can't, do it yourself. I've tried and people back away. I really wish people wouldn't ask socially awkward people like myself to go find someone on our own. That's like asking a 2-year-old who got lost at Disneyland to go find his own parents. No. The parents go looking for the 2-year-old. I've asked people to help. I've even had some people offer. However, no one will stick with me.

I know. Depressing, isn't it?