This may sound strange, but as a pastor, I’m probably one of the least qualified people to write an article titled “One Relationship at a Time.” Anyone who works in Christian ministry as a vocation needs to be a highly relational person, but that’s the problem–I spend a lot of time relating to people, so much so, that at times I forget to have relationships.
It’s not a problem for just those who work on church staffs either. It’s cliche to say now, but it’s still true that in this day and age where human connectivity is virtually unlimited through a global social media, we “know” more people than ever before; but what we’ve gained in quantity of the relating we can do, we’ve lost in quality of the relationships we can have.
What’s the difference between relating to others and having relationships with others? I think the main difference is time. Not just time, but also discipline. To have relationships with others requires a choice, similar to the disciplined choice one has to make to get up for early morning exercise or to do homework.
This is why I love our new vision statement at Faith Church, to restore the world one relationship at a time. In that statement is disciplined choice: to really have relationships with others, we must choose to slow down and make time for the hard work of relationship. It’s not enough to “check-in” with a mass of people, ticking names off lists, like wishing a half-dozen people you hardly know “happy birthday” on Facebook every morning. No, we have to be disciplined to take time to have real relationships with others.
Jesus says in John 15:13, “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” One commentator says that we can know who Jesus’ friends are because they “are objects of his love.” This is the Gospel. We have experienced Jesus’ great love for us in his own choice of discipline to go to the Cross and die in our places so that we could be reconciled to God as His friends, to be in relationship with Him!
Because of this, Jesus says just one verse earlier, “this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). If we are going to have real relationships, we are to make others the objects of our love in the same manner as Jesus does for us. This means time, investment, and cost to our own personal lives.
So how can someone go about this practice? Try putting yourself in the position of disciplined choice. This may mean that everyone at the family dinner table puts away their phones and asks meaningful questions of each other (and that means actually making time for family dinner as well). Maybe instead of leaving right after worship at Faith Church, you might need to start lingering around after the service, even invite someone you often relate to out to lunch so you can build a relationship with them. At the Dyer campus you could join us for Wednesdays where you could come for dinner, join a small group and meet some new people to build relationships. Maybe it’s time to learn your daily Starbucks barista’s name and show up at a slow time to get to know their story. The possibilities are endless; it just requires the disciplined choice to make others the objects of our love.
