friends

'Friends'.

A bit like 'Neighbours', the word has been hi-jacked by the television programme of the name.

Which is a shame, since there's more to the notion of friendship than Monica, Ross and the four other flat-mates convey on the box.

There is such a thing as a friendship that's rooted in Christ. The strong and lasting bonds of genuine brotherhood (and sisterhood) which are tied to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. A deep and enduring commitment to one another in the alternative 'society of friends' (though that phrase has already been coined, of course, long ago, and is now a specialist term).

It was that friendship in Christ to which I was pointing the folk today who gathered to share in our lunchtime service of worship. Friendship whereby we covenant together in Christ and pledge to be committed to each other and to seek each other's good.

That's what it means to belong to the body of Christ. And when that sort of friendship pervades a congregation's life, then healthy growth ensues.

We work quite hard to cultivate the contexts where such friendship can take root. A quick dipping in and out of a Sunday worship service cannot really suffice. Try sowing seeds on a pavement in a gale force wind. There isn't a hope of the thing taking root.

Part of the Wednesday worship involves the lunch, of course. And for some, as well, the journey on the bus we run to bring them here and home. Friendships are formed, take root, and start to grow. There's the time and the space, and the 'warmth in the soil' as it were, which fosters the growth of such friendship.

But it's not just ensuring the contexts are there for such friendships to grow and to flourish. There's a need to work at attitude as well. That's where the commitment comes in.

We choose to bind ourselves to one another in the fellowship of Christ: to seek each other's good: to take each other's hand: to fight each other's cause. We're careful, thus, in what we say and how we speak, and how we live our lives. We choose to help each other, to promote each other's good.

That's the sort of people we aspire to be. Where this friendship is an integral component in our way of life.

And much of what I'm doing is entirely in that realm. I am friend as well as pastor. Relationship is basic to such leadership. I understand that. I have to work at that.

A lot of my time is thus spent in my working things through with my friends. Personal rather than professional.

You are my friends, Jesus declared. Which was a bit of an eye-opener to those who'd come to recognise increasingly just who he was and is.

Friends. To whom he was and is committed.

It's that he longs to be reflected in the life his people live.