Connection: Made for the Joy of Friendship
Have you registered for an NCT group?
For the hundredth time since we moved to London from Dallas, someone had asked me a question about my pregnancy that I didn’t quite understand. We had arrived in the UK twenty weeks pregnant, thrilled and naively believing that we knew the language of gestation—it’s all English, right? Turns out it isn’t.
Actually, no, I’m not sure what an NCT group is.
She explained that an NCT group offered an antenatal course covering pregnancy, childbirth, and baby basics and—here’s the kicker—they placed you in a group with eight or so other couples who are due the same month as you and live within a mile or so of you.
It’s quite a lovely way to make friends.
We went home and signed up.
For five nights across ten days, we trudged through the February cold for two hours of something that exists in the overlap of college class and UK sitcom. Nine years later, I remember the seventeen people in the room represented seven different countries and that one dad-to-be may have had a side hustle as a standup comedian.
Over the next two months, I became especially close with Clare—a proper English woman who showed me the ins and outs of English culture and the new parenting lexicon I needed as a mum in London. Once summer arrived, a group of us started meeting up. Clare and I, plus two other women from our NCT course, would converse in a park before nap times, laying out blankets and babies and dummies (that’s a pacifier), walking prams (that’s a stroller) with sleeping babies through museums, having lunch at the Kensington High Street Whole Foods because the tables were long enough to park prams and the bathrooms boasted nappy (that’s a diaper) changing tables, and opening our flats for our children’s tea (that’s a kids’ dinner). Once Clare and I even took our tinies to The Electric Theatre for a mum’s movie meant for women with small babies, where they kept the lights and the sound low. When we moved back to the States and our second child joined our family, we gave her the middle name Clare.
In a new country, with a new baby and a husband that had to travel for work, I could answer the question “How are you getting on?” with “Fairly well, actually.” Without the friends that came from my NCT class—particularly Clare—the odds are high that my answer would have been more like, “I’m not sure—am I supposed to be falling apart?”
Created for Friendship
In the earliest chapters of the Bible, before sin rushes in and taints everything, there’s one aspect of the world as it stood that God deemed “not good”—the man being alone. Most of us are probably conditioned to mentally move on to the next part of the story, but wait, let’s not move on yet. I have some questions.
Didn’t God create a world for Adam to enjoy and in which he could flourish perfectly?
And wasn’t God himself there?
Didn’t God walk with Adam in the garden of Eden?
Wasn’t companionship comprised of true presence with God?
Yes, on all accounts.
Well then, shouldn’t God’s companionship in God’s world be enough for any one person—particularly a sinless one?
Apparently not.
I guess we should have seen that coming. From the jump, God declares humanity is made in his image. A core belief of Christian orthodoxy is that God is relational in his own triune self—living in perfect love and fellowship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So in Genesis 2, when God recognizes a kind of loneliness in his good creation and declares that something is missing, we should already be nodding in agreement—Adam was made to bear God’s image, but there’s just the one person.
This is when God provides Eve and directs the couple to multiply—exponentially increasing their pool of relational companionship. From this point on, the Bible story can’t be separated from the story of connection. The journey from Seth and Cain all the way to Jesus with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and on to Paul with Priscila and Aquila, repeatedly tells the tales of people, made in the image of God, who miss the goodness of God and his kingdom when they are at odds with others. And, conversely, they enjoy the goodness of God and his kingdom when they develop true friendship with one another.
Christ’s Call to Friendship
In the modern era, we often do one of two things with biblical companionship. Either we think of marriage as the singular relationship meant to fulfill all our relational needs—a claim the Bible doesn’t back up with all its calls to community, brother and sisterhood, societal engagement and care, and philia love that emphasizes comradery. Or we downgrade friendship on the list of Christian priorities—friends, so we’ve come to believe, are nice to have, but they aren’t required for a deep, spiritual, kingdom-minded life.
Jesus Christ offers a course correction. Conscious of his impending death, Jesus speaks one last time to his disciples. He would have chosen the content of his teaching with care. And what makes it into Jesus’ last teaching lineup? A call to friendship.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. (John 15:9-17)
How has Jesus loved us? Among many ways, as a friend. The perfect friend.
Friendship in Light of the Kingdom
In these words of Jesus, a theology of friendship begins to solidify: Our relational God knows perfect communion within himself, he made us to flourish in the goodness of relationship as well, and when we link arms with others in friendship, it brings us the joy Jesus prays for us and the fruit he has chosen us to bear.
We may think that deprioritizing friendships will help us do the “holier” work of caring for our family’s needs or focusing on our marriage—both incredibly important priorities. But the Bible shows us friendships are meant to make our spiritual ecosystem healthier and to usher us toward the joy God has for us.
A certain message on a coffee shop chalkboard has been making the rounds on my social accounts. It says: "You haven't met everyone who will love you yet." I smile every time I see it. We will add friends as we move throughout life. We have yet to meet some of the other moms whose kids will be in next year's school class with our child. Maybe we'll sit at the same coffee shop as someone next year and get into a conversation that we’ll talk about years later when we throw a wedding shower for their child. Maybe someone who knows us already will say, "You should meet my friend—I think you'll get along great."
And just as new friendships are kindled, others will dim and that's ok; some friendships are a gift for a season. There won't have to be love lost, just less time shared when life takes us to different places. As friendships grow and change, we can put in the work—and sometimes it is work—to deepen our connection to one another and enjoy the good gift of friendship. Because people need people, so says the God who crafted and created them.
Friendship is joyful kingdom work, according to the King. And all of God’s people are better off when we say amen.
Reflection Questions
Part of parenting is modeling obedience and discipleship for your children. How can developing deep adult friendships be a gift to your kids?
When you think about friendship, do you instinctively value or devalue it as a category? In what ways can you more closely align your value of friendship with God’s?
At what point in your life (and maybe it’s now!) have friendships brought you spiritual flourishing and delight?
Developing adult friendships can seem hard—and at times it will require work. What are some ways you can create more life crossover (a.k.a. time) with your current friends, neighbors, or other people you’d like to develop a friendship with?
Application Ideas
Summer is the perfect time for a standing play date or multi-family activity. Take the endless planning out of trying to get together and tell other moms that you plan to be at the park every Monday morning at 9 (maybe with a dozen donuts) or at a nearby splash pad for BYO popsicles.
Opening your home creates a space for friendships to develop. Host a first Friday of the month pizza night in your backyard or do Sunday Supper and have people over for lunch after church.
Talk to your child(ren) about how God is a God of friendship. Ask them to think of a friend that brings them joy to spend time with, and thank God together for that gift.
Can’t be together in person with a close friend? Jump on Voxer or Marco Polo and send a funny message or just check in.
Add friends to the daily activities you are already doing. Take a morning walk? Have someone join you. I bet you eat dinner—have someone meet you for a picnic. Going to Sonic for a happy hour? Pick up some friends on the way. Watching the big game? Starting a movie? Jumping in the pool? Be the initiator and ask people to be a part of the normal, everyday life you are already living.
Do you make a summer bucket list? Have your kids put a star around three activities you want to do with another family that you love being friends with or want to be friends with, and have them help do the inviting.
Did a new person or family move into your area? Try not to let momentary awkwardness keep you from friendship. Take a deep breath, remind yourself that friendships are God’s gift to everyone, and call/text/DM them to get together and get to know one another (and maybe include your children too). I know I am grateful that Clare did.
