Have we forgotten about friendship in churches?
... and how to recruit and train leaders well. This week on the podcasts.
The Shock Absorber Podcast - Friendship
Most churches are good at two things: the big Sunday gathering and the small group. However, our intrepid co-host on The Shock Absorber podcast, Stuart Crawshaw, has emerged from a summer of PhD research and writing to share with me and Joel McMaster about the missing layer of friendship that makes the structured events of our church life together work well.
In this episode, we explored Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology of friendship as something far more than a sentimental extra. Stu’s dives into Bonhoeffer’s concentric circles (the 3, the 12, the 72, the 120), I share about my reading of Joseph Hellerman’s work on sibling language in the early church, and Joel throws in for good measure the oft-cited Dunbar Number. When you throw all of these into the mix, we found something fascinating: biology and theology agree. Humans are built for layered friendship.
The church should be the one place where all those layers exist — not just the crowd and the clique, but the medium-sized missional community we’ve quietly allowed to disappear. And it left me with a simple but confronting question: what would actually change this Sunday if we genuinely called the people at church our friends?
Watch or listen to the full episode in the links below or on your favourite podcasting app.
Cross Formed KidMin Podcast - Recruitment
This week is the first half of a conversation that Hunter and I had about recruiting leaders in Children’s Ministry. At Soul Revival Church, we value low-key, long-term, relational discipleship, but we also take seriously the Apostle James’ instruction that “not many of you should become teachers”. How do we balance the relaxed vibes of our church culture with the high bar of leadership set in Scripture?
That’s one tension that Hunter and I chat about as we discuss recruitment strategies in our different context.
Listen to the full conversation in the link below or on your favourite podcasting app.