Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World

by Jennie Allen

We are called to be a community of people, on a mission, delighting in God, delighting in each other, redeemed and reconciling the world, bringing them and inviting them into this family.

But ultimately community is meant to open the doors wide to every person on earth and invite them into a family that exists forever with God.

We must understand the war we’re in. We must understand that the enemy is subtle and sneaky and seeks to destroy you by destroying your relationships.

We have no better defensive weapon than having the people who love God rally around us, fight for us, and fight with us.

We all crave a collective belonging. Because God built us for it.

Christ followers enter human relationships full of hope and full of confidence to love others, regardless of the treatment they receive in return.

(Being Christian means we have been freed from the slavery of sin but not from the desire of it.)

Our priorities no longer center on “we” but on “me.” Individualism as we know it has long, deep roots that date centuries back.

For generations now, we have taken the bait, believing that siloed, individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps living will somehow satisfy in the end.

And yet the book I base my life on, as well as the God who built us, starts the whole, big story with these two lines: “Let us create man in our image.” “It is not good for man to be alone.” And deep down inside, we know this to be true. We are meant to live in community, moment by moment, breath by breath.

In the middle of my desperation, God had dropped into my life a college-aged babysitter who would go on to love my kids, fold dozens of loads of laundry for me, work at IF:Gathering, become part of our family, and to this day be one of my safest coworkers and friends in this city.

Romans 8:28

But what if that intimate circle we’re craving is actually found in the wider network of the village that we’ve been missing?

We wait for those perfect few friends to come along, and then we look for them to play so many roles in our lives.

What if the power of a little team of friends is that each one brings differe...

If I expected one or two people to fill all those roles, no one would ever hit the mark.

I start to see that God has put different people in my life to bless me in different ways, then I can both embrace who they are and rest in what I bring to those relationships.

Maybe the question we are really asking behind the question of “How do I make friends?” is this: “How can I belong to an intimate community of people?”

After coming to the States for the first time, he made this observation to me: “The more resources a person gets, the more walls he or she puts up. And the more lonely they become.”

So let’s go all the way to the very end, to heaven, where we will be surrounded by people who love God, people from every nation, every tribe.

living, working, relating, eating, loving, worshipping, enjoying God forever with a diverse group of people we recognize and who recognize us—forever.

Nothing in my relational life has helped me more than coming to terms with these simple truths: You will disappoint me. I will disappoint you. God will never disappoint us.

because our current world has been built on such rampant independence… it will take deliberate intention to return to the kinds of relationships that God had in mind for us to enjoy. But we can return.

Jesus has taught me more about friendship than anyone else.

Ephesians 2 tells us that we—you and I and everyone ever to live—were dead in our trespasses and sins, and that we were children of wrath, meaning that we deserved for God to send that meteor our way. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”[1] But God. Through Christ. Because of love. Rescued us. Made us alive.

Jesus rescuing us from our sin and giving us a way out changes not only our eternal future with Him, but it also empowers us to love like Him here.

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”[2] You and I are to give that reconciliation and hope away to living, breathing, broken, longing people.

God purposefully set you in your place and in your time to love people in such a way that they will feel their way toward Him and find Him.[3]

Acts 17:26-27

He chose to come to earth not only to die for our sins but to show us how to live as children of God.

Jesus’s people were all wrong—except that they were willing. And they were wanting. And they were all in.

God's favorite peope are imperfect people. He qualifies people that nobody thinks should be qualified.

we find our people, and together we build safe, beautiful outposts that offer the love of God.

But that type of community doesn’t come naturally. We have to look for it and then fight to protect it once we have it.

Everyone has pockets of sin in their lives, and you and I are no different.

You will always be doing community with sinners.

With that in mind, we approach this work with humility. A lot of humility. At the same time, we are told throughout Scripture to use discernment about the people we do life with.

we don’t approach all issues the same way, but we share a common pursuit of God. I love God more because of them. And hopefully they would say the same of me.

We’re not talking about five people who all know each other.

Your people might come from different groups.

Obviously, healthy friendships will inevitably have conflict, but in my experience these three qualities in a relationship help sinners stay together over time.

Run—don’t walk—away from toxic people who will lead you into sin and away from God. Instead, choose friends who will fight for you, friends who will fight alongside you, and friends who are as committed as you are to fighting against the dark. Pray for this.

Ask God right now for these people. Even if you haven’t prayed in a long time, right now close your eyes and form words begging Him to help you find people to live this way with.

Believe that He can and that He wants to bless you with people to do this difficult life wit...

We can’t have what we aren’t willi...

If you have been stuck feeling lonely for a long time or if you have been a little lazy when it comes to your relationships or a little bit obstinate and rude toward your friends, it can be really hard to change those behaviors. I hate to break it to you, but much of our problem isn’t with other people. It’s with us.

In the chapters to come we will evaluate how these five simple practices could redefine the way we live in relationship to others.

a way for us to put into practice this challenge from 1 John: “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”[8] That way of life is possible—with God.

But you have to show up and put one foot in front of another here.

Firepit flames seem to mesmerize us, and we can kind of get lost in their trance.

“Gathering around an evening fire is…an important opportunity for calm information exchange,”

Fires bring us together. Real life, face to face, no phones, together.

Who needed friends, anyway? Think of all the time I’d have, how much cleaner life would be. Things would be far simpler. No disappointments. No relational pain. I could have done it, honestly…maybe…except for one detail I just couldn’t shake: we were not created to live alone. I