By Ken Williams
Our meeting hall in Rochester, New York, was filled with laughter and the hum of voices after a worship service two years ago.
Suddenly my sense of tranquility was broken by the determined stride of an obviously frustrated member coming to talk. "What on earth is a friend?" he asked.
I was caught off guard with his question and asked him to explain what he meant.
He looked me in the eyes and with total sincerity said, "I've been a member here for nearly six years and I don't know if I have a single male friend in the entire congregation!"
He added: "I want friends but only seem to have acquaintances. I don't know if anyone really cares if I'm here or not."
Other men in our congregation felt lonely. We have always been a friendly congregation, but our male friendships remained superficial.
About that time, several of us were talking about our need for greater depth in friendships. We weren't certain what we were looking for, but we knew God was telling us to do something about it.
Twenty men wanted to participate, hoping to experience bonded relationships. This was the impetus for starting our men's ministry.
We surveyed interested men to see what we wanted. We discovered these common goals: 1) work toward more honest and sensitive communications; 2) provide activities to help us to be closer; 3) have men's interactive Bible studies; and 4) increase our awareness of racial, cultural, ethnic, disabled, professional, career and age biases and discrimination.
Our first meeting in 1996 was a retreat. We spent 24 hours in praise and worship, meetings, eating, praying and fellowship. We gained some understanding but ended the two days realizing we didn't trust each other enough to open up and discuss how we felt.
It was sobering to realize we wouldn't gain close friendships without a lot of work and time together. Since most of us have to travel long distances to get together, the challenge seemed even greater.
We continued meeting monthly, trying to fulfill the goals we selected from our survey. While this gave us a sense of accomplishment, we were not realizing deeper relationships.
The group spent time learning better listening skills, but we seemed to want to vent frustrations more than listen to each other. Exercises to nurture closeness and deepen feeling seemed to have little effect. We needed God to bring us together.
The men's ministry scheduled a second retreat the following year. Thirteen men participated in a further attempt to discover what Christian friendship is.
The 24-hour retreat was filled with worship, prayer, education and discussion. Once again we came up against a wall that stopped us from making progress. We knew we needed a new process.
Like Ray Meyer ("Are You Swingin' for the Fence?" Jan. 27 WN) we use the Promise Keepers book Brothers! Calling Men Into Vital Relationships by Geoff Gorsuch.
It has taken us two years, but we have now made a commitment to each other. Determined to help one another in our Christian walk, we recognize there's some work to do, and with God's help we want to get there.
In one way this commitment goes deeper than just being members of our church. All of us want to worship our God and learn to love one another just like Jesus loves us.
We are willing to let him work through us. We not only want to help each other, but would like to expand our ministry to help other men develop Christian friendships. We are learning what on earth a friend is. If I can help you, please e-mail me at ken_h._williams@wcg.org
April WN, page 18
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