Internal Challenges to Friendship

Retreat Summary

Friendship

Friendship is something we all agree is a good thing, but often fail to give it much attention. The idea of friendship is also deeper and richer than just having a couple buds.

A scriptural theme for this retreat was Proverbs 18:24,

"A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

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Session 2

In session 2 of this short retreat we heard from Cities Church member, and retired clinical therapist, Warren Watson. We discussed some of the challenges and barriers to having deep, authentic, friendships. We looked at three levels of friendship:

• Level 1 is surface level

• Level 2 invites risk

• Level 3 invites risk that is connected to Jesus Christ

We looked at the illustration of a fourway intersection to see how our professed theology (our understanding of the gospel), effected by our suffering and sin, will inform our functional theology. With our professed theology, suffering, and sin all entering this intersection – it can sometimes get messy. When our functional theology fails to closely align with our professed theology, we must find the disproportions present in the center of the intersection.

The practical goal of this session is to identify how men can understand their own life (functional theology) and how we can develop level 1 or 2 friendships into level 3 friendships – having Jesus Christ as the shared purpose.