How can we be
surrounded by people and still be starving for intimacy?
Hundreds of United Methodist pastors will gather in Indianapolis this Thursday and Friday for something the Bishop calls “Our Life Together.” I will be hanging out with three friends I have known for more than 25 years. Each one of us loves God very much, and yet we are human…so very flawed…and cursed with a very immature sense of humor. (Okay…Herb is kind of grown up, but the rest of us are sometimes 8th grade boys trapped in the bodies of middle aged men.)
Now here is the mystery: pastors are often the loneliest people in the world. They can be like hunger relief workers who feed the crowds. We preach fellowship, we sign people up for small groups the way relief workers hand out cereal, and bread, and milk, and then we look around for some place where we can be real…human. Tell our story. Speak of our angels and confess our demons.
John Ortberg recently wrote an article talking about how, even when he is worn down, life feels different when his best friend prays over him (over the phone from four states away). Ortberg, a pastor in California, talks about something he calls “a full-disclosure friendship.”
He cites the example of a man who has become a part of a small group with four other guys. They met in an exercise class. Just hit it off. One of them proposed “An Experiment in Friendship.” They began meeting regularly for dinner. The evenings last for three hours. They talk about everything: family, work, sex, religion, dreams, fears, what ticks them.
Two of the men are Buddhist. One is a “religious mutt.” Another is kind of a Christian and the last is a seminary president. One man says it is the “most profound group experience he’s ever had.”
Here are the rules they live by in their group:
Hundreds of United Methodist pastors will gather in Indianapolis this Thursday and Friday for something the Bishop calls “Our Life Together.” I will be hanging out with three friends I have known for more than 25 years. Each one of us loves God very much, and yet we are human…so very flawed…and cursed with a very immature sense of humor. (Okay…Herb is kind of grown up, but the rest of us are sometimes 8th grade boys trapped in the bodies of middle aged men.)
Now here is the mystery: pastors are often the loneliest people in the world. They can be like hunger relief workers who feed the crowds. We preach fellowship, we sign people up for small groups the way relief workers hand out cereal, and bread, and milk, and then we look around for some place where we can be real…human. Tell our story. Speak of our angels and confess our demons.
John Ortberg recently wrote an article talking about how, even when he is worn down, life feels different when his best friend prays over him (over the phone from four states away). Ortberg, a pastor in California, talks about something he calls “a full-disclosure friendship.”
He cites the example of a man who has become a part of a small group with four other guys. They met in an exercise class. Just hit it off. One of them proposed “An Experiment in Friendship.” They began meeting regularly for dinner. The evenings last for three hours. They talk about everything: family, work, sex, religion, dreams, fears, what ticks them.
Two of the men are Buddhist. One is a “religious mutt.” Another is kind of a Christian and the last is a seminary president. One man says it is the “most profound group experience he’s ever had.”
Here are the rules they live by in their group:
- We can ask anything, no holds barred.
- If you answer, you must tell the truth, as much as you know it.
- If you don’t answer, you must say why you won’t or can’t answer.
- Everything that is said to each other will be held in absolute confidence.
- We will make absolutely no judgments of each other.
Ortberg wonders how many people are starving for this kind of honesty, this kind of community. He wonders how many pastors crash and burn because of their loneliness.
Ortberg, who says Twinkies are a gift from God (and who is quite concerned about the Hostess Corporation going bankrupt), intended to help us get through the day saying, “Everybody needs help facing a world without Twinkies.”
I keep bumping into people here and out in the community who seem eager for some kind of “Experiment in Friendship.”
See you Sunday. If you look closely, you’ll notice my eyes are twinkling (not Twinkie-ing!) because I have been with my buddies…
Welcome to the adventure!
In Christ and for Christ,
Mark
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