A Friendship Crisis

HARVEST UPDATE (Harvest Series Slide from 2018) Before we get into our new friendship series, I want to update you on something important. Over the last month or so, we’ve been talking a lot about our future church building. And I mentioned that in order for us to break ground in a couple of months, we were going to have to raise one last round of money. And, because of rising construction costs in our good economy, we needed to raise a pretty significant number in pledges: $210,000. The pledges are all in, and we’ve calculated the results, and our total is: $443,402 That’s more than double. The Gracious Hand of God is on this project! Now listen… I’m telling you…we’re not setting the goal numbers low $210,000 is what we needed… And based on the rate in which people pledged in our past fundraising endeavors…it seemed a little difficult…but possible. But for God…all things are possible! So yeah, you better believe it…we are breaking ground on this building in just 2 or 3 months!! This is where you say “Amen” J I know the first question on your mind is probably, “What will we do with this extra money?” Well, a number of things. As I mentioned 6 or 7 weeks ago, with the rising construction prices, getting to budget on this building was not easy… And so there were a number of painful cuts we had to make in this building over the last year in order to get to budget And now, some of the things we previously cut will get to go back in the building. Like our baptismal in the stage Which we previously had to cut…and were just hoping we could afford it a year or two later. Now, we’ll be ready to baptize all of the new believers…right in a service! We’re now going to add in a large mezzanine level behind the entire stage…which will give us a lot more storage…and our building had virtually no storage, so this is a huge win Many of the things that were pretty bare bones, we can now bring life to. For instance, we had zero landscaping around the building perimeter…now we do We’re adding carpet back to the office area…which was just concrete We’re going to be able to get nice new Bibles under every chair Better chairs! And many, many things like that Plus, we’ll be adding a decent amount to our contingency fund Which is our safety net in case things go wrong during construction… Which, can happen with a project of this size Our contingency fund was quite low previous to this, and now, we’ll be able to go into this project with significantly less risk to the church. That’s just a high level overview. If you have more questions, ask me after the service, or any one of our building team members. All in all, it’s an amazing day. God is good. Let me just pray and thank Him (PRAY) STATS/STUDIES (Friending Series slide) All right, we are starting a new 4 week series on friendship today. The Bible has much to say on friendship. Particularly on the importance of it. Our passage for this morning comes from a book written by the wise King Solomon…called Ecclesiastes (Page 541) (Renovation App) We’re going to take a look at what Solomon has to say about friendship This is a passage that people often use at weddings, but contextually, it’s actually about friendship. We’re just more obsessed with romance as a culture, so we put romance into almost anything. (Ecclesiastes 4:9 10) – NIV 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. This is a passage for us…in America Solomon says, “Pity the one who falls and has no one to help them up.” That’s us. (“A Friendship Crisis” Slide) It’s no secret that we are in a friendship crisis here in America. According to data from the General Social Survey, the number of Americans who say they have ZERO close friends has roughly tripled in the last few decades. Tripled! Things have changed dramatically since the 1980’s and earlier. And most people are keenly aware of it. In fact, 75% of Americans report being dissatisfied with the state of their friendships. 75%! That’s a crisis. Loneliness isn’t reserved to just a small slice of Americans anymore. In fact, look at these stats from a monumental survey that was completed a little over a year ago: 21% of Americans say they “often or always feel lonely” 30% of Millennials 20% of Generation X 15% of Baby Boomers And the research is just beginning to come out for the next generation, Generation Z. I think far too often, we think of college kids as Millennials, but that isn’t even true anymore. The oldest millennial is now just under 40 years old And the youngest is 23. And so 18 to 22 year old adults are actually a part of Generation Z And the earliest studies that have been published on Generation Z show that they are the loneliest generation of them all. Which, shouldn’t be the case, right? For many of you, especially if you’re a bit older, the time in your life that you felt the LEAST lonely, was probably when you were 18 22. But times are changing. So what’s happening?? It’s not as simple as just saying “social media” is to blame In reality, massive societal change like this can never be pinned on one thing. What I want to do is give you 10 changes that have contributed to this friendship crisis. It’s hard to fix something if you don’t understand how it broke in the first place This is not an exhaustive list…but just one I’ve been working on for a while. I could just have easily put 5 things on it or 15…but I want to show you that change in society is always complex. 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society People move around now more than ever. Considerably more than they did 50 years ago…and undoubtedly more than 100 years ago. Gone are the days of growing up with your high school friends, and staying in the same town. Friends come and go. 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear One of THE most fascinating studies I have ever read was by a guy named Roger Hart who studied a New England town by mapping out how far kids could roam from their home in the 1970’s. Then, 30 years later, he came back and mapped the exact same town! In the 70’s, by the time kids were in 5th grade, Hart found that they had the freedom to basically ride their bike all over town. When he did the study the 2nd time, 30 years later, he found kids could barely leave their yard. And yet, the crime rate in that particular town had remained completely unchanged. It was still just as safe. We live in a culture of fear…and it keeps us from even doing things like going out to meet friends. We’re always thinking about the worst that could happen, and it paralyzes our entire family’s ability to make friends. 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment It started with the radio, and then the TV…hundreds of cable channels…and now streaming… We don’t spend time with friends, because according to Nielsen, we entertain ourselves for 50 out of 58 hours of our weekly free time We say that we have no time for friends…but what we really mean is that we aren’t prioritizing friendship. And unfortunately that leaves us in a place without friends…especially when we need someone to help us up 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet This may be the most significant thing on this list…and many of the things on here are just subcategories of this one. The internet allowed us to do things alone, in isolation, like never before Which leads us to #5 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home I read a study this week that said one of the new factors leading to loneliness is the exponential rise in the number of people “working from home.” Listen, it’s great to work in your pajamas, but God also created you for social interaction. So if you work from home, you’ve got to work extra hard on pursuing social interaction. And it’s not just working from home, we can do everything from home now. You can work, order basically anything on Amazon, order your groceries, fast food to your door, the list goes on I feel like, 10 years from now, people won’t even leave their house anymore Which, will at least solve all of our traffic problems 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home Smart Phones & Social Media These inventions, of course, gave rise to the feeling that we were connecting with friends…and that it was the same. Except, it’s not. While it’s probably better than nothing, nothing beats being in the presence of a friend. And all too often over the last decade, we have let technology replace reality 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home Smart Phones & Social Media An Erosion of Social Skills Plenty of things that have already come on this list have led to an “erosion of social skills”…which thus impedes our ability to make friends. I know teenagers now that are terrified to do a simple social tasks like ordering their food at a Fast Food Restaurant I tell my 6 year olds at Culver’s, if you don’t order yourself, you don’t eat. “Speaking of Culver’s, every time I’m there, there are more people looking at their phones than each other. Just this week, I noticed two young adults out to eat with each other… And they didn’t even talk to each other. They just stared at their phones the entire time. Should have just done door dash apparently. We’re losing the ability to talk to each other…to develop friendship like God wants us to 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home Smart Phones & Social Media An Erosion of Social Skills Less People Go to Church One of the main places that people have found and developed friendships over the past 50 years has been in the church! The less that people attend church, the harder it is for them to meet friends. And even many Christians now are attending churches online instead of physically coming to a church. But you can’t have a friend support you when you attend an online church. And God created you to be supported by REAL people. 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home Smart Phones & Social Media An Erosion of Social Skills Less People Go to Church A Prioritization of Activities Over Friendships Millennials (particularly younger ones), were the first generation raised where their summers and evenings were full of extra curricular activities, but had little room for free time. My daughter played Tee Ball last summer. But when our kids go to play tee ball, what do we have them do? Play tee ball. I guarantee you she couldn’t tell you the name of one kid on her team. In America, we prioritize “structured activities with supervision” over letting our kids just have free time to play on their own with their friends in the neighborhood or from school. And this too has oddly begun to erode social skills 10 Changes That Led to A Friendship Crisis We Are a Mobile Society The Rise of Fear The Accessibility of Entertainment The Invention of the Internet The Ability to do Everything from Home Smart Phones & Social Media An Erosion of Social Skills Less People Go to Church A Prioritization of Activities Over Friendships The Idolatry of Children I assure you are great grandparents would think we are insane. We structure our entire lives around our children and their activities…to the point where we say that we just don’t have time to develop our own friendships. To our great grandparents, “children” were just another farm hand…not the center of their lives. Now, clearly there’s a happy medium here but you get the point. Anyway you spin it, we are in a friendship crisis. THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF HAVING NO ONE THERE And look again at our passage (Ecclesiastes 4:9 10) – NIV 9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. The effects of loneliness…the effects of having no one there to help you when life is hard…are many. There have been a lot of studies released on this in the past decade about friendship & health. One study said that socially isolated people are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease One review from 2010 said that having strong friendships protects your health as much as quitting smoking…and even more than exercising. So instead of making a new year’s resolution to go to the gym… Just a make a new year’s resolution to invest time in your friendships this year! In the garden of Eden, one of the first things God said was “it’s not good for man to be alone” Even Jesus didn’t live in isolation…but in community with his 12 disciples. We weren’t meant to live in isolation And yet, far too many of us are. You know, this time of year, when things get really icey, I’m always conscious of the fact that just one slip, and I could be back in the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. It was just about 2 years ago now, that I was shoveling my driveway really early on a Sunday morning, slipped, and ended up not being able to speak at church because they had to put me under to pop my shoulder back in. And so now, sometimes, when I go outside, I literally think to myself, “If I were to fall here, “Would anyone be around to pick me up?” When I need to yell, “Help, I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up…” will anyone be there? And this is a question everyone must ask of their lives. When you fall… If you mess up your life… Or life gets really hard… Or tragedy strikes… If life knocks you over, who’s helping you back up? NEXT STEPS And for a lot of us, our minds are blank. We don’t have a friend like the Bible describes in Proverbs 18 (Proverbs 18:24) – NIV One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. But you can have a friend like that… God can do that in your life. It’s what He wants for you. He’s made you for friendship. Two are better than one. But if you want things to change… you have to do something about it As the old adage goes The only way to have a friend…is to be one. Stop waiting for everyone else to reach out to you. You’re going to have to initiate something. We’re going to talk a lot about friendship these next few weeks, but I want to give you some practical first steps towards growing in this important topic Friending: Next Steps #1: Join a House Group This is step #1. Our House Groups are our groups of 20 30 people that meet together weekly for friendship, to study the Bible, and grow in faith. And listen, 80% of our people are in a house group…that means they’re awesome House Groups make Renovation Church completely counter cultural by the way. The average American adult hangs out with friends a few times a year…while our people do it about 30 times a year in House Groups J This is step #1…it gives you your best shot at getting the type of friend you need About a month ago, a guy from our church pulled me aside in the hallway and shared with me how he had recently had appendicitis and needed emergency surgery. He texted his small group from his house group to let them know he couldn’t make it to a hangout they had planned. He said, within minutes, he had a flood of offers to pick up his daughter, so his wife could be with him at the hospital A prayer request was then sent out to have the whole house group praying for his family. And a meal train was immediately started to help make meals for his family in their difficult time. And then he said, “But get this, the day after I was released from the hospital my wife ended up in the emergency room with a medical emergency!” He said, “Without hesitation his wife’s small group leader came to stay with her as he was obviously unable to be there.” At the same time several guys from his house group showed up at his house to help him. They shoveled his driveway, cleared off the porch, made food for him, and even got his daughter ready for bed and cleaned up the kitchen! Some of you ladies are like, “My husband doesn’t even do that at MY house!” That same night he found out his wife's grandmother had passed (that’s a tough week by the way…one you don’t want to handle alone) And when his wife had to leave in a couple of days to go out of state for the funeral, his House Group continued to provide support, transportation, meals, friendship, and prayer. You want to know what makes this church unique? A lot of things, but that’s #1 right there. And we do that because that’s what friendship and community looks like in the Bible. We need friends like this. Do you have a friend like that? Our 2nd semester of House Groups starts this week. This is a PERFECT time to sign up If you’re not in a House Group yet, sign up today! There’s a card underneath your chair… Go ahead and pick it up. You can put it in the offering bucket later if you want, and that’ll sign you up! Friending: Next Steps #1: Join a House Group #2: Prioritize Friendship House Groups gets you in the door to develop friendships, but it most likely won’t be enough. If you really want to get to the level of having a “close friend,” one that can really support you and know you…it’s going to take time outside of House Groups. And this is where I think a lot of us get stuck. Because we haven’t prioritized friendship Friendship requires initiative, and it requires time. The problem is, “Time for friends” is the one thing that always seems to get squeezed out. You have to work. You want to make time for your spouse Your extended family wants your attention You feel like you have to take your kids to a 1,000 activities (which, you don’t) You’re tired at the end of the day, so you choose Netflix over friends And it’s our “friendships” that always seem to get squeezed out…in part…because we feel like we can survive without them. But we can’t. Friending: Next Steps #1: Join a House Group #2: Prioritize Friendship #3: Pick a Practical Next Step Many of us are a bit rusty at friendships nowadays, so we need to hear basic, practical steps. I want to give you some recommendations based off of what I’ve seen some people in our church do…people that I really admire on this topic. What if you invited someone over for dinner at your house…once a month? Or 6 times a year if that feels too intimidating to you? And you just put it on the schedule? Or you went out to eat with friends if you’d rather do that? What if, once a month, for those of you with kids… Your family got together with another family in church and you all hung out on a Saturday? What if you joined a bowling league, or a softball team, or a community ed class, or hosted a monthly neighborhood get together just to spend more time with friends? What if you told your best friend you wanted to meet twice a month in the mornings to keep each other accountable? Or, honestly, one of the best ways I see people developing friendships at this church it is that they just “do life together” If you’re a stay at home mom, and you’re taking your kids to the park or the library, text some of the other moms in your house group…and go together. A lot of friendships in our church have been forged this way If you’re going to watch the Vikings game today…why not cry with friends at the end of it? You need someone to “help you up” today. You’re already going to be watching it…just do it with someone else. That’s what we mean when we say “doing life together” One of the best ways to grow in friendship is to just invite your friends into the “regular rhythms” of your life And listen, this is going to take work. It’s not going to happen in a day. You’re not going to try House Groups for the first time, and have a best friend 7 days later. But this is worth it It’s how we live out the love of Christ for each other. Christ, the one who pulled us up when we were down. He’s called us to do that for one another…and He’s calling you today to take another step towards this thing called friendship Let me pray Copyright: David Sorn Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.