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Once we leave school, be it high school or college, something interesting begins to happen in our lives. We start to lose out on having meaningful relationships with others.
When we were teenagers going to high school, our lives were basically curated for us. Every weekday we would go to a place where we had to intermingle with people of a similar age, in situations — team sports, group projects — that were favorable for meeting and relating to others.
Once school ends, we are thrown into the real world, away from our friends. Some of us move, while others simply grow apart. That begs the question, how do we make friends after school ends?
In this article, I want to share one of my experiences for growing my social circle, and how it made me a better man in the process.
Life Groups
Christian’s have small groups known as life groups. They are groups of people from a church, who do life together and share the Gospel. Throughout any given week my church (Southpoint Fellowship) has multiple life groups that meet in the homes of people who attend the church.
Once a week, one scheduled day is set aside for sharing a meal, reading scripture, and serving the community around us. The purpose is to inspire one another to become fully devoted to their love of Christ.
The Value of Life Groups
When Christians share the Gospel in closed-knit settings, there is tremendous growth on both the individual and group level. That growth pushes us to direct our focus towards pushing for spiritual transformation in the communities we live in.
Do not get me wrong; I LOVE going to church. However, there is something special about gathering in a more intimate setting that causes me to reason differently than when I’m at church on Sunday. That special thing I’m referring to is friendship.
More Meaningful Relationships
The word friendship has a double meaning inside life groups. Not only does friendship describe the state of being friends, it also represents accountability.
Life groups are where I go when I want to take my “mask” off. The people there know me, really know me, my life is more transparent because I have to be honest about my sins.
The friends I’ve met in life group have learned how to read me, and they will call me out if they noticed that I need to repent, this creates opportunities for me to confront any difficulties that surface in my life. And, that helps me become a better man.
Lacking Male Friendship
I wrote this article for two reasons and both have to do with a call for submission put forth by the Editors of Good Men Project earlier this year.
The lead-in for the call for submission was a comment where a guy stated not having any close male friends in which he could share things on an intimate level. Moreover, the call asked for articles that answered the questions — “What kinds of social outlets are available for men who don’t want to focus on alcohol or sports” and “What happens to a man’s quality of life when he has male friends?”
Those two questions are my two reasons for this article. If you’re someone who is looking to make male friends, life groups are a great place to start. We welcome all — Christians and non-believers alike.
In life group, we develop a meaningful relationship and push for everyone to share with the group (or someone in the group) on an intimate level. If they do so, they will experience growth in many areas of their life and have people to support them whenever they’re struggling.
When a man has friends he can be open and honest with, he becomes motivated to work through his problems, and that is key to becoming a better man.
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Photo by Phil Coffman on Unsplash
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