Hopes & Dreams For Gilead – Making "Necessary" Connections

In my last post I told you that I had been thinking a lot about the kinds of relational connections that God wants His children to be making. In particular, I mentioned the importance of making “new” connections and “necessary” connections. You could also think of this as growing broader and deeper in the relational patterns in our lives. Last time I went to some length to describe what new connections are and why they are so important in the life of a Christian fellowship, but now I want to consider the importance of growing necessary relationships. A necessary relationship is one which you feel is deep and important enough that losing it would make a significant impact on your life. New relationships are important, but they naturally come and go. You can make countless new connections in a week or over a period of months, but they are by their nature relatively shallow. If someone is only growing broader in connecting then he or she will be like butter on a slice of bread: tasty but not terribly filling; or like a large but shallow pool in which you can do little more than get your feet wet. God not only wants us to have big hearts but deep hearts as well.

This depth of heart comes through necessary relationships with people to whom we are intensely devoted and with whom we are increasingly honest. One of the best biblical examples of such a relationship was that between Jonathan and David. Samuel tells us that, “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (1 Samuel 18.1 [ESV]) Do you hear the depth of connection in this description? Jonathan and David felt that their friendship and brotherhood was necessary to them. Obviously, there will be few relationships in the life of a Christian that can be described in this way, but there should be some. My fear is that the majority of Christians have no brother or sister in their lives whose input and encouragement is necessary. Paul told Timothy, “I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.” (2 Timothy 1.3-4 [ESV]) In those words you can hear the affection and devotion that these brothers had one for another. They knew one another and prayed fervently for one another and God used them to do incredible things for His kingdom. The early Church grew because believers were going new places in order to make new connections with new people, but it also grew because believers were making necessary connections with people that they had known for some time. That same dynamic continues to be relevant to us today. I am thankful for the relationships that I see growing inside our fellowship through our small groups, because I know that the Lord is using them to make our Church stronger and more fruitful. Even so, I desire for us to grow more in this area.

I do not want our fellowship to be a mile wide and an inch deep. I want Gilead to be a family where people can find new relationships that God wants to use to broaden them, but I also want it to be a place where people find necessary relationships that God uses to deepen them. I realize that making this dream a reality will require us to be daring and deliberate in how we come together. That is why we will be engaging in a LIFE Group emphasis in August that will serve as a challenge to us to grow deeper in our fellowship with one another. I ask you to be in prayer for this emphasis. Pray that the Lord will help us as we seek to open our hearts more to Him and to our brothers and sisters in Christ.