July 30, 2025 • 46 mins
Wednesday is International Friendship Day and we're going to celebrate on with a conversation with the founder of Friendship Lab, Sheridan Voysey. His goal is to help adult friendships flourish. The bad news is there is a lot of work to do. Loneliness is at epidemic proportions. About one in five U.S. adults and 30 percent of pastors report they have no close friends. What's the answer? Find out on Chris Fabry Live.
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Friendship Lab
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Drive Through the Bible by Colin S. Smith
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:06):
It's International Friendship Day. Did you know that? And you
don't have to have a friend who lives in another
country to celebrate. But guess what I do. And you're
going to hear from my friend Sheridan today at the
Radio Backyard fence. Sheridan has been studying adult friendships and
has some startling statistics to share. The bad news is
(00:26):
about 1 in 5 US adults, and about 30% of
pastors report they have no close friends. Is that you?
Are you friendless at the back fence today? No wonder
we have a loneliness epidemic with those numbers, right? What
is social media doing to help or hurt that problem?
I want to talk about that and about what Sheridan
(00:48):
calls the friendship recession. But I also want you to
hear some good news, because Sheridan has been researching and
creating what he calls Friendship Lab over the last few years,
and I really think this is going to encourage you.
That's straight ahead on Chris Fabry live online Chris Fabry live.
And I want you to think about this question. Do
you have a 2 a.m. friend? If you do, how
(01:12):
did you find that person? Let me thank our friends
behind the scenes. Ryan McConaughey's doing all things technical. Trisha's
on vacation. Lisa is in the chair today. Anthony will
be answering your calls. And let me thank our friends
who support this program. We cannot do what we do
each day without you. Uh, and that was on display.
I got an email this morning from Carol. There are
(01:33):
people who hear this program who benefit, but who aren't
able to give. So thank you for those of you
who do give. And it helps everybody. You provide that support.
Carol said she heard about the resource we were giving
in June and really wanted a copy of it, but
she was only able to donate a dollar and she said,
I promise I will give more when I'm paid again,
(01:55):
which is, uh, this week. And she writes, You sent
it anyway, and I just got it. And it means
so much to me. Thank you. So she's planning on
sending another gift later this week. And I said, Carol,
when you give, don't just send the check. I want
to send you this month's resource, which is Drive Through
the Bible by Colin Smith. We're going to do a
(02:15):
whole program on this tomorrow and you get to drive
the bus. But I told Carol, this little book gives
a great overview of how all the scriptures fit together.
And I say that to you. There's only two days
left in this offer of Colin Smith's book, Drive Through
the Bible. If you call that number 866953 or go
(02:35):
to Chris Fabry live and give a gift of any size,
you will help us meet the goal for July. You
will get this great resource and then you know that
you're providing this for yourself and others. What could be
better than that? Help us to get over our goal
in July. Two days left today and tomorrow. Eight. 29532279
(02:59):
or go to Chris farrell.org. Now here he is, my
international friend. Live from Belfast today. Prolific author speaker, broadcaster Sheridan. Voysey.
Since last we spoke, he has founded the Friendship Lab,
the first organization dedicated to helping adults build meaningful friendships
through evidence based tools. That's our featured resource at Chris. Sheridan,
(03:25):
welcome back to the program. How you doing today?
S2 (03:27):
Oh, so good to talk to you, Chris. Yeah, and
great to join you from Belfast. I'm sure that there's
a whole bunch of C.S. Lewis fans listening today, and
I'm at a C.S. Lewis conference, which I've been speaking
at on this very topic of friendship. So this is
just a great way to end the day, because it's
a few hours ahead here in the UK, and I'm
just ending my day with a with a chat with
(03:48):
my old friend Chris. I can't think of a better
way to end the day.
S3 (03:51):
I love it. Okay, so what did what did Lewis, how.
S1 (03:54):
Did he inform your idea of friendship? What did he
say about it?
S2 (03:59):
Oh my goodness. So anybody who's read his wonderful book
The Four Loves will know that he dedicates a whole
chapter on friendship to, uh, to friendship in that when
he looks at the Greek word philia. And it's amazing, Chris,
because I read, you know, I've read so many of the,
the main, uh, literature about friendship and the main books
(04:20):
about friendship and the secular ones, the Christian ones, they
always quote C.S. Lewis. Some of them disagree with him,
some of them, most of them agree with him, but
they always come back to him. He wrote that book
in 1960, and the things that he says in there
still hold true today, number one being one of the
reasons why friendship, uh, seems to be kind of vanishing
(04:42):
is the fact that very few of us actually experience it.
He wrote that all those years ago, and sadly, that's
one bit of the book that certainly is very, very
true today, too.
S1 (04:51):
Yeah. Well, why did this bubble up in your heart, then,
because you've written about a lot of talks we've talked
about here, about facing unplanned events in your life, turning
your broken dreams into new beginnings. You've written about infertility
when God says, no being resilient. Why friendship?
S2 (05:11):
Yeah. You know, there's two answers to that question. The
first goes back to a retreat that I took in 2019,
just a one day prayer retreat just by myself. Um,
took myself off to this lovely little manor house here in,
in the, in England and just was really seeking God
about what the next season of my life should look like.
Should I keep on kind of talking about, you know,
(05:32):
broken dreams, starting again, those things that had been the
subject of my last few books, or was there something
else for me to do? I had a hunch that
there was something. There was something big to launch. I
had a hunch, but I didn't know. And you know,
I really was okay keeping on going with what I'd
been doing, but I was just wanting to be present
before God. And by the end of that retreat, by
(05:54):
that afternoon, I really had this sense that Friendlessness should
be something I looked at. And, you know, I went
away from that retreat thinking, okay, well, I'll just go
and do what I normally do. I go and research it,
and then I go and write a book on it,
and then I'll, you know, do some speaking on it and,
you know, have conversations like this on the radio and
do other broadcasts around it. About a year later, there
(06:15):
had been a number of things that had confirmed that
I was on the right path. Um, and, but I
felt like there was a handbrake on the project, and
it was strange because I'd done a year's worth of research.
I had an outline for a book, had a publisher interested,
but it just felt like I shouldn't go forward. So
I went back on retreat. Same place, same day of prayer.
(06:37):
And by the kind of mid-afternoon I really felt the
Lord say internally to me, Sheridan, you're thinking too small.
You've been thinking about writing a book, and, you know,
like all of us authors, how do we then get
that book out into into the audience? What if, instead,
you focused on the 20 to 25% of adults in
the UK, the United States, in Australia and elsewhere who
(07:01):
have no close friends, and bringing that percentage down? What
would that take? And you know, Chris, I just thought,
oh my goodness. As much as I would like to
think a book could somehow move the dial on that,
in reality it takes a lot more than just a
book to do that. And I thought, well, what would
that take? It would take media collaborations and arts collaborations
(07:22):
and educationalists collaborating. We'd have to get schools involved, universities involved.
We'd have to have evidence based courses, plus documentaries and
podcasts and everything else in between. And and it's funny,
you know, Chris, I left that retreat shaking in my boots,
but feeling like, okay, I think that might have been
(07:42):
the voice of God. And so that's kind of where
the idea of Friendship Lab as an organization came in.
And can you believe this? I still find it hard
to say. We are the first organization focused on adult friendship.
Can you think about how many resources we have on dating, marriage, parenting, family?
And I thank God for every single one of them.
But up until now, we have had no dedicated charity,
(08:04):
nonprofit organization, ministry focused on adult friendship. And that's, I think,
the space that we're called to to fill.
S1 (08:12):
And that friendship lab is up and running. We have
it linked at Chris. Org. There are some free resources
that you can get through that. We're going to talk
about those. But I think at the bedrock it's it's
a it's a question of vision. Meaning if we you
can just keep going on in your life the way
(08:33):
things are. And yeah, I don't have close friends. It's
not that big of a deal until you see somebody else,
until you hear what has happened to someone else who
has had a deep friendship and you say, well, wait
a minute, I'd kind of like, I'd kind of like
to have that is is that part of what you're
trying to do?
S2 (08:53):
Oh, very much so. You know, if I can just
share a personal story, there's a second answer to your
question as to how this friendship lab thing came about.
It's just it happened so many years ago. I never
knew what it was going to lead to. But, you know, 2008, Marin,
my wife and I were eight years into a ten
year journey trying to start a family, which you and
I have talked about on this show before. It's been
(09:14):
the subject of a couple of other books. And, you know,
so by this stage in the journey, we are looking
at fostering and adoption and, uh, where in this seminar,
discovering just what's involved. And we have one of these
straight talking Australian seminar leaders who leaves us in no
doubt as to what's involved. She says, yes, I know
that you're here. You want to have your dream fulfilled
(09:36):
of starting a family, and there's going to be some
wonderful blessings in having a little boy or girl coming
into your life through adoption or through fostering. But it
could also be very difficult indeed, and she gave us
some examples. She said, you're going to need a support
group around you. And then she asked this question that
just burrowed under my skin and has never left me since.
(09:56):
She said, who can you call at 2 a.m. when
everything has gone wrong? And Chris, I sat there, my
pen hovering over the workbook because I couldn't think of
who's name to write down. And, you know, I don't
think I was alone in that. Far from alone, I
had friends. It's just that we had recently moved to Sydney, Australia.
(10:17):
At that stage. We'd been there about two years by
that stage. I had friends in Brisbane. I had friends
in Perth in Western Australia. But was I keeping in
touch with them? Was I being intentional about keeping in
touch with them? No, I wasn't, was I being intentional
about trying to make new local friends in Sydney? No
I wasn't. And this is the thing is that while
we can talk about all the barriers to adult friendship
(10:38):
today and we can explore that if you like, the
biggest barrier, I think is plain old neglect. We have
sidelined friendship as a culture. Even as a church, we
have focused so much on marriage, so much on romance.
Our our secular culture has focused so much on eros,
the Greek word for everything to do with romance, sexuality
(10:59):
and everything else that we have sidelined friendship. And yet,
what is the basis of all those great relationships in
our lives? It really is philia. The Greek word for friendship.
S1 (11:08):
That's shared and voicey. And I'm this is energizing. Maybe
this program is just for me. Maybe. And I'm going
to explain my story in our next segment. But maybe
you're listening today and you say, I have that 2 a.m.
friend and I want to tell you about this person.
And here's how I made that friendship and here's how
long we've been friends. I'm going to open the phone
(11:31):
lines for you at 87754836758775483675. We have a link to
Friendship Lab. It's at Chris Fabry lives. And if you
don't have a 2 a.m. friend, I want you to
stay with us as we talk about friendship today. If
(11:51):
you are lonely and you say, this is exactly what
I need. Then you stay with us. This is Chris
Fabry live online. Chris Fabriclive.
S4 (12:10):
Thank you for being a friend. Traveled down a road
and back again. Your heart is true. You're a pal
and a confidant.
S1 (12:23):
I remember listening to this song on the bus as
we were going to school and when I was a kid.
Thank you for being Andrew Gold coming in at number
142 here on the hit, uh, countdown of the hits.
Founder of the Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boise is with us
today at the back fence, and we're talking about Out
that topic of friendships. I told Sheridan before we started. See,
(12:47):
I grew up on a farm. I was the third child,
the youngest child, and there were several years between me
and my older brothers. So I basically grew up kind
of as an only child wandering the hills, and that
did a lot for my fiction writing. I think I was,
I had my I rattle on and had a lot
of imagination, but I didn't have very close friends, and
(13:10):
I saw the kids that would go to school and
they would have these lifelong friends. It's like, I didn't
I didn't have that. And so I went, I've gone
through my life having a lot of acquaintances. I can
I can pick up the phone and call a lot
of different people on my Rolodex. I can even call
Sheridan voice and talk with Sheridan voice. But it sounds
(13:30):
like the kind of friendship that you are talking about.
There's different levels. The kind of friendship that you're talking
about with a 2 a.m. friend is is something deeper than. Oh, yeah, I,
you know, good, good friend of mine. It's something different.
Is that true?
S2 (13:47):
Mhm. Yeah it really is. With Friendship Lab we work
on a five stage model. So yes you've got the
acquaintances at stage one then. Casual friends. Friends. Close friends.
And then what we would call a two way in friend.
And you know the 2 a.m. friend. It takes a
long time to develop that. So I really want to
kind of just help everybody ease back a little bit.
(14:09):
If you don't have a two way in, friend, it's okay. Uh,
you can have one. It takes time. But the fact
is that this is this takes a lot of a
lot of investment and a lot of intentionality. But we
can move relationships kind of through those stages. As much
as both parties are wanting to be party to that.
(14:29):
You know, one of the big things of friendship is
the fact that it's got to be equal, mutual and
freely chosen, and the other person has to freely respond
to our overtures of, you know, wanting to get closer
and wanted to take the friendship deeper. But I think
many of us are like that. And also, I think, Chris,
many of us men now need to be careful here.
(14:50):
It's not really statistically, it's not really that men have
a greater problem than women. Here we do a little
bit more. Most of the stats come out at maybe 55, 45,
in terms of the breakdown to men who've got fewer friends, etc..
So it's not really a case of, well, it's 80%
men have got the problem and only 20% women. Um,
(15:11):
but what happens? What seems to happen is that women
are faster at responding to the problem. All of us
are going to be a part of that. 20, 25%
of people who have no close friends. Uh, it might
be a season. It might be the fact that we
move cities. It might be the fact that we moved villages. Move,
move homes, move suburbs. Uh, start a new job somewhere.
(15:31):
So we will all be part of that. So I
want to kind of normalize that and then say, right, well,
what do we do about that? But here's the thing, Chris.
Anybody who's listened to you, anybody who knows anything about
you and yes, indeed, you know, you and I speak,
you know, once every few years. I love our conversations.
And I reckon if we lived in the same country,
in fact, the sociologists talk about a 25 minute radius.
(15:53):
If we can live within a 25 minute radius and
have more time together, I think there's a lot about
you I would love to get to know more. I
think you've got a huge amount of value to offer
to a friend, so you probably you've probably got closer
friends than you think. But I really appreciate your vulnerability
and your honesty there, because you're giving voice to what
so many other people will also be feeling, because we've
(16:13):
never been taught what to do next. You think about
it in our schools, we're not really taught about friendships,
how to make them, how to really form them. We're
kind of it's just kind of assumed that we should
absorb that information and are just somehow generically developed, that
it's one of the biggest myths, I think, that it
should be organic. Um, we're not taught it in, uh,
(16:36):
any seminaries we go to or any universities we go to.
In fact, the great kind of golden years of friendship
is university or college year because, you know, you may
well live on the same campus. You may well even
live in the same dorm rooms. You may have very
similar timetables, so you can bump into each other a
lot after we leave university or college, that's when it
(16:59):
gets difficult. We move towns. Maybe for our first job
we might move again for another job. Uh, we might
get married. We've got less time for friends, we may
have kids, we got even less time for friends. And
combine all of that in this part of the reason
why we've got so much of a challenge with friendship today. Yes.
S1 (17:17):
Okay. So there's a lot of hurdles to get over.
Is the is the 2 a.m. friend? Is this this
have to be a person that you are face to
face with? Or a 2 a.m. friend that somebody I
can call who's in another time zone?
S2 (17:31):
Great question. So two of my closest to Am Friends
still live in Australia, even though I've lived in the
UK for the last 14 years, so I am actually
defining that emotionally. Now, having said that, I then need
to also develop some 2 a.m. friends in Oxford. Now,
I've lived in Oxford for 13 years and I could
(17:53):
say that there's about about three guys that I'm developing
that with. Are we yet at the 2 a.m. stage?
I'm one of them, I think I am. Um, so
it's really important to have both. But yes, if you've
got some distant friends, what we say in the Friendship
Lab course, which we've, we've put 4 or 5 years
of development into, is start with those, start with those
(18:16):
people you've got the history with. Because you can never
recreate history. You can't just go, right, I'll just have
a little dash of history in our friendship tomorrow. Uh,
that that's all that wonderful time you've invested into those relationships.
Go back to those and then and kind of build
on that. If there's still some sort of wonderful foundation
there for you to, for you to have. Uh, but
(18:36):
you certainly can, because you can have that emotional connection.
You can share. You can pray together. Um, you know,
I was having a chat with one of my Australian
2 a.m. friends just this last Sunday, and he shared
something ever so personal with me because of all these
years that we've had together and because we can share
at that level, I can't call him to come round
if there's a crisis, but I can certainly call him
(18:58):
the next day to talk that crisis through.
S1 (19:01):
Yes. So the the 2 a.m. friend, that's the deepest level. But,
you know, I don't want to jump right to there.
We got to get to the, the, the the other
level that that is in here and how to do that.
And that's part of why the Friendship Lab is there.
I remember a couple of years ago you sent me a,
(19:23):
a survey, you know, for, for people to take. I
think it was in 23. This was part of the lab, right.
S2 (19:31):
Mhm. That was such an interesting piece of research. So yes,
we've got 100 respondents from a variety of different countries.
Many Americans were involved with that, as well as, uh,
British folks, Australians, Singaporeans, Canadians. I mean, there's so many
countries that were involved in that. And what was very
interesting was, well, a few things. 40% of us want
(19:53):
to get closer to our friends, but we don't know how.
Around about half of us, 50, 51% of us find
it very difficult to make new friends. We just don't
know again what to do, where to start. Uh, here's
another one that you'll find really interesting, Chris. Um, the
amount of young men who wanted to have deeper conversations,
you know, again, there's a stereotype happens for America as
(20:14):
well as it happens for, for for Britain and Australia,
the three countries that I know better. Uh, there's this idea. Well,
you know, we don't go too deep. We don't go
too deep. Um, particularly the Australian and the British male.
You know, if we start getting too affectionate or or,
you know, talk too deeply about, you know, deep and
meaningful matters, then one of us is going to joke
to kind of ease the so-called tension. You know what
(20:38):
I mean? Um, we found that guys are really wanting
to have those conversations. What happens is they start maybe
broaching a conversation with their male friend, and then the
joke happens, and maybe there's a bit of ribbing. Um,
doesn't last very long. The other person feels a little
bit uncomfortable. And that's Freud's fault, by the way. We
can come back and talk about that if you want. Um, uh,
(20:59):
and so what do they do? They then go and
turn to their female friend because they perceive that their
female friend is going to be a better listener, is
not going to come in with any joking or any awkwardness.
And that's exactly what happens. So we've got a little
bit more work to do there. Um, we found that
one of the biggest barriers for female friendships is, uh,
number one is motherhood. Because then suddenly, of course, you've
(21:22):
got this new, uh, maybe one, maybe two, uh, little
lives that are just really focused on you. Secondly is sickness, um,
the amount of, um, women who said that was just
such a big barrier, uh, to do it. And, you know,
even at this conference, um, I was talking to somebody
just this afternoon and they said, Will you be doing
anything for people who have got long term illnesses? Because
(21:45):
in her case, it was migraines. And so she said,
you know, we we set up, uh, having people over
for dinner. And then of course, I get a migraine
and we've got to cancel. And it happens time and
time and time again. How do I keep a friendship
going when I don't? They don't know whether I'm going
to be able to make it. I don't know whether
I'm going to be able to make it. Oh, there's so,
so many barriers to us. And just buy that one
(22:07):
for anybody who's listening. By the end of our 15
minute conversation, we'd come up with a little solution that
we that she could create, what she could call her.
Seize the moment, friends. Because while she may not know
when she was next going to get a migraine, she
did know when she was well. And so, you know,
we suggested maybe she could start up a little WhatsApp
(22:29):
group have 3 to 4 women in there, and then
she can give them absolute freedom to say no, that's very,
very key with this. But then she could put a
message and saying, you know what, I'm feeling good this afternoon.
Are any of you available for a coffee. And so
you could have these seize the moment, friends. And there's
even something kind of fun in having that title. They've
got this new identity for their friend. So there's a
(22:51):
lot of us, lot, lot for us to think about,
about how to explore, you know, get over these barriers
that get in the way of our friendships.
S1 (22:58):
So there's a way that you can use technology to
spur on friendships. The technology leads to the face to face.
Or it could. I got so many questions because part
of the struggle is that a lot of times there
is a different need level. You know, you say it
has to be mutual. One person is a little more
needy for a friend than the other, and then the
(23:21):
other backs away because I can't. I know that I
can't meet all the needs of the other friend. And
so it just kind of unravels Travels there. What do
you say about that situation?
S2 (23:31):
Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. So that kind of
disparity in friendship is is quite common. It happens at
a number of different levels at the very basic one. Uh,
there's the age old problem of I'm the only one
who ever reaches out to them, and they never reach
out to me. Um, and that can be a problem
that may well show that their friend is not as
(23:53):
invested in the relationship as you, or it may actually
show that you're just a much better organizer. And so
I suggest that you judge your friendship, uh, by how
they turn up when they're in front of you. Uh,
they may be terrible at arranging and meeting up with you,
but when they do get in the room, you sit down,
you have that coffee, or you you get together for
a walk in the park. Are they present for you?
(24:15):
Are they asking about you? Are they inquiring about you
as much as you're inquiring about them? So that's the
kind of mutuality we're talking about. Oh, now, when it
comes to the neediness thing, that can be a real barrier.
and I think all of us need to need to
recognize that we play a role in being a friend
to our friend. We will all have seasons where we
(24:37):
go through greater need than, than than the other friend.
That's just life. And isn't it wonderful when we have
that friend that can walk through that difficult season with us? For,
for for maybe a few months, maybe even longer than that.
But we want to we want to write the ledger.
We want to kind of get the balance there. If
(24:58):
it's always all about us, that's going to be turning
into more of a charitable relationship, maybe an agape relationship.
You know, that wonderful sacrificial word agape. We want philia.
We want mutual. So just make sure you ask about
how they're doing and inquire about their life as well.
S1 (25:15):
That's good. And there's some great stuff. There's some great
resources at the website. If you go to chris.org, you'll
see more about Shared in Boise and the Friendship Lab there.
They have a list of 36 questions and a friendship audit.
If you sign up for the newsletter, you get access
to that. Just go to Chris. We'll take your calls
(25:36):
straight ahead. (877) 548-3675.
S5 (26:05):
You've got a friend. Ain't it good to know you've
got a friend. Ain't it good to know you've got
a friend. You've got.
S4 (26:23):
Yes we do.
S1 (26:24):
International Friendship Day. You didn't even know it was international friendship.
We had the founder of Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boissy, with us.
If you go to Chris Fabriclive. Org, we've got a
link right there to the course that they're offering at
Friendship Lab, and there's a couple of free resources. If
you sign up for their newsletter, you can get this
list of 36 questions and a friendship audit that you
(26:48):
can do, which is really, really helpful. And so I
hope you'll do that. Just go to npr.org, click on
over to the Friendship Lab and find out more. We haven't.
Before we go to calls (877) 548-3675, we haven't defined what
is a friend because when you say friend, I think
(27:09):
of one person. You know, somebody comes into my mind,
somebody else is thinking of a totally different idea of
what friendship is. So define it for us.
S2 (27:18):
Yeah. Okay. This is really important because this is where
we so often go wrong with friendship. We friendship. We
don't know what we're looking for. So we at Friendship
Lab define a friend as someone I can talk to,
depend on, grow with, and enjoy. And all of those
elements are important. So somebody to talk to about the
little things like football scores and holiday plans, but also
the big things, you know, what are my what are
(27:40):
my deepest hopes? What are my dreams? What are my
broken dreams? What are my fears? Uh, someone we can
depend on with the two people that we can call
when everything has gone wrong. Uh, there's someone we can
grow with. Aristotle said that friendship is the school of virtue.
That's at its best. Of course, C.S. Lewis actually said
it could be a school of vice, too. So, at
(28:02):
its best, uh, our friends help us to become the
people we are supposed to become. They they we give
them permission to actually point out where we're straying, where
we're stepping away from what God wants for us, away
from our God given calling. And they also encourage us
to do the right thing and, and and to live
well amongst both ourselves and also the people around us,
(28:24):
and also to enjoy. Um, there is no friendship without enjoyment,
even if that's just because we really enjoy our conversation
when we get together. Or maybe it's a, you know,
a mean game of tennis or golf, or maybe it's
because you, like me. Chris, enjoy moody European films with subtitles.
S1 (28:43):
Yes I do. Let's go, let's go now. Well, and
I am thinking of this with Lewis. You know, somebody
to talk to, depend on, grow with, enjoy the inklings.
You know, the people that he was close with, the writers,
the professors that he was close with. Especially somebody like Tolkien.
But this was not somebody that always agreed with him.
A friend is not somebody who always agrees. You can
(29:06):
disagree as friends and that iron can sharpen iron, right?
S2 (29:10):
Yeah. They so, so, so true. And what a great
example actually of a friendship because, you know, Tolkien when
Lewis died he said there would be no Lord of
the rings without Lewis. He encouraged me. He was my
first reader when nobody else had any time for it.
He was the one who encouraged me. Ask me every
inklings meeting. Do you have more about that? You know
that Hobbit story? Um. And and Lewis wouldn't have had
(29:33):
his science fiction trilogy published without Tolkien. I mean, they
helped each other, but they also disagreed. They disagreed about
the nature of the of the writing that they were pursuing.
You know, Lewis could find Tolkien's work a little bit dense,
and I'm absolutely with him there. Um, Tolkien could find Lewis.
S1 (29:51):
I'm going to write that down about you now. And
the other thing you Tolkien never finished.
S2 (29:54):
I never finished Lord of the rings. I couldn't get
through it. I couldn't finish it. I'm just not.
S1 (29:58):
You've got to read the, uh, Andy Serkis, his, uh,
his version of the audiobook. It's just you get into it,
you can't stop listening. But Tolkien was pushed back against
The Screwtape Letters because there was something about that that
he thought, I don't know if you should do that.
And Lewis went ahead with it, but he listened to
the critique of his friend.
S2 (30:19):
Right? Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing they did.
They had the freedom to be able to critique each
other's work like that. Now, here's the other interesting thing.
Many people will know that there was kind of there
wasn't a falling out that's far too strong. Um, some
people have said that some books even claim that, um,
I've just been amongst spent a whole week amongst absolutely
the world's best CS Lewis scholars, and that's absolutely untrue.
(30:41):
They did. Tolkien and Lewis did not have a falling
out or a rift, but they did have a drift. Uh,
Tolkien said that they were they were absolutely best friends
between 1927 and 1940. And then there were a couple
of incidents that happened which kind of let them then
kind of drift away. And then Lewis went off to Cambridge,
and then there were geographically kind of distant from each other.
But here's the thing. What I think they were probably
(31:03):
weak on, which I think the evidence points to, is
that they didn't have difficult conversations. They didn't have conversations
about their own friendship. I think their friendship could have
been a lot tighter if they'd been able to say, okay,
I know you don't agree with Joy Davidman and my
marriage to her. Can we talk about that? Okay. Charles
Williams and his role in the inklings. I know you're
(31:24):
feeling uncomfortable. Can we have a conversation about that? They
could talk very, very critically about each other's work. They
were struggling to talk about each other's friendship in the
same way. That's a big lesson for us.
S1 (31:36):
Well, it's a lesson too, on. You know, when I
make a friend. Do I have to agree with this
person on everything? It's easier to agree if we agree
on religion and politics and relationships and all that. It's
much easier. It's harder to get past some of those things.
I want to talk about that, but I want to
take a few calls too. Bob is on the line. Bob,
(31:57):
why did you call today?
S6 (31:59):
Well, uh, I have a ministry that the Lord led
me into back in the 1980s. Thanksgiving of 1981, which
involves friendships. Okay. Uh, but, uh, the one that, uh,
your your, uh, guest today. I happen to be related
to C.S. Lewis, and in the 19, late 1950s, uh,
(32:23):
he mentored me. I was a teenager, and he was
a don by this time. And, uh, during that period
of time, it was, uh, when, uh, Joy was, uh, uh,
his wife was, uh, dying from, uh, had had a
remission from cancer and then was dying again, but, uh, okay. So.
S2 (32:45):
Oh, we'd love to. Oh my goodness, I know we
could take the conversation off in a different direction.
S1 (32:49):
We could do a whole hour just on you, Bob.
S6 (32:52):
And but what I wanted to get to, what I
wanted to get to is I do have a ministry there. So. Okay,
that's what God called me to do. So. And it's
a much, much larger thing than that. But in any event,
I have a I have one granddaughter and she has
no siblings, and she depends a great deal upon her friends. Okay. Uh, I, I, I,
(33:15):
I have sent her a a plaque that says good
friends are like stars. You don't always see them, but
you know they're always there. Now this is a black
background with white. White. Uh, copy. Okay. Emulating the stars and.
(33:35):
And on the other side of this, I have a
copy of the famous hymn. What a friend we have
in Jesus. Okay.
S1 (33:47):
I'm so glad that you are involved.
S6 (33:49):
No matter what her problems are. At 2:00 in the morning,
she can always rely on her friend. Jesus.
S1 (33:58):
You know, that gets me to the point, Bob. It's
a great point that you bring up intergenerational friendships. You know,
I when I'm going to school, I have people who
are in my grade level, you know, about my age,
maybe a year old or younger, that I know, but
pretty much in that framework. A lot of these friendships
are one person is a lot older than the other one.
(34:20):
Is that right, Sheridan?
S2 (34:22):
Yeah. So there is something in which we let me
give you another acrostic that we've used out of the
Friendship Lab course. So when you when you're looking for friends,
think of spark s a R. The S stands for similarity.
And generally that starts with a similarity of life stage.
(34:45):
But there is a movement within that. So I've got
friends who are 1015 years older than me and around
about that younger than me as well. And we are equals.
So there is something very beautiful about that. Um, when
you go too far older than that, you probably just
stretch a generation, probably just stretch maybe 20, 25 years.
Beyond that, then the similarities start to be harder because
(35:07):
of course, you've been you've grown up in a different era.
You've you're drawing from different cultural backgrounds or different music
that you really appreciated, it just becomes a little bit harder,
not impossible. P is for pastimes. A is for availability.
R is for responsiveness and the C is for compatible values,
which is where faith comes in. Um, so that can
(35:27):
be a bit of a helpful thing too. But you
definitely can make friends across age age differences. Uh, it
just sometimes can be easier if we're around about ten
years or so. Difference.
S1 (35:39):
It sounds like the the older person then like Bob
is with his granddaughter, is is mentoring in a way
is pouring into the life so that there is, you know,
a different a different stages of life will do that.
Whereas if you are kind of about the same age,
there's a similarity. I remember having a friend in when
we lived in Colorado and he was about ten years
(36:00):
older than me, 10 or 15, but he had so
many tools and so much wisdom about about those tools,
you know, that he could kind of pour in. And
I would try not to be needy, but I'd go
over and say, Jim, you know, what do I do
about this? Oh, I've got this over here. And so
the friendship started with that, you know, with the need,
(36:21):
with the struggle that I was having, you know, around
the house or fixing something or whatever, that he could help.
And then you started to go deeper with the relational
aspect of it. Does that make sense?
S2 (36:32):
Yeah, yeah. There's always something that brings you together. Again,
to quote CS Lewis. There is something in which friendship
is about something. It's best when it starts off with
about something. So it might be exactly the kind of
scenario you've talked about. Or it's a love of theater
or it's a love of tennis. Uh, if you stay there,
then the friendship will only go so far. It'll be fun.
(36:54):
It'll be good. Um, but we can go deeper than
that when we have some deeper conversation. The interesting thing
would be for me to ask you is, is whether
then Jim ever felt that he had a confidant in you,
then did the did the reciprocal? Did the approach? Yeah.
Did it go your way? If not, then he was
a mentor. And what a God given gift a mentor is. Uh,
(37:15):
but it's not friendship. Exactly.
S1 (37:17):
Yeah, I think it did. I think it morphed in
into that. I mean, there were certain things that I
was interested in that. That he didn't know much about,
that he was always, you know, with the writing and
all that kind of stuff. He loved to read, but
he couldn't write. And so we had conversations about that, uh,
at my own back fence. Sheridan Boise is with us. Oh,
(37:38):
I hope you go to the website, chris.org. You'll see
a link right there to the Friendship Lab. Sign up
for the newsletter. There are a couple of free, uh,
things that they can send you, and you can also
find out about the course. And there's more straight ahead
here on Moody Radio.
S4 (38:07):
If the Lord's the Lord of them, and a friend
will not say never. Though it's hard to let you
go in the father's hands, we know that a lifetime's
not too long to live.
S1 (38:31):
Founder of Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boise is joining us to
the back fence today. And if you want to take
the course, there's a cost of the course, but it
is well worth it. And I have some questions about that.
Before we get to that, though, I want Patty to
sign in here in Michigan. Patty, tell me why you called.
S7 (38:51):
Well, a few years ago, I was leading a women's
Bible study, and the women were quite a bit older
than me. I don't know what we were discussing, but
I said, how many of you have that middle of
the night friend that you can call if you need someone.
And there was a lot of tears in the women said,
I don't have that friend. And it took me back
(39:14):
because I have about three very dear friends that we've
been close with that I've been close with for a
number of years. And so it was hard for me
to comprehend that and to understand that they didn't have that.
And then just recently, I worked a women's retreat weekend,
(39:35):
and I was asked to give a talk, and I
called my one dear friend and said, I don't have
a clue what to talk about, but I feel that
God called me here. I said, would you pray with
me and for me to see if you are hearing anything?
Because I'm not? She called me back about 10s later
and she said, I remember what you shared about leading
(39:57):
that Bible study and it has stuck with me forever.
And so that's what you need to talk about. And
I'm like, wow.
S8 (40:06):
And that's it. That's the that's the friend you needed,
wasn't it?
S7 (40:10):
It was. She came through. I mean, God came through
to her. And there again, this was much younger women,
but women of all ages. And it was surprising how
many didn't have that. And I said, it's work. You
have to work at those friendships.
S8 (40:27):
Yes. Well, I wonder if, Patti, I wonder if part.
S1 (40:31):
Of this is and we talked about the other day
of the independence, you know, how much we foster, especially
in the West, this independent. I can do this myself.
I don't need anybody else. I'm going to pull myself
up by my own bootstraps. ET cetera. ET cetera. And we.
That leaks into our faith life, too. It's like God,
you can't take care of the big things. I'll try
to take care of the little things over here. And
(40:51):
it's like, no, he's. He wants to be a part
of everything in the warp and woof of life. And
a friend will help you do that. In that sense, Sheridan,
it means you're dependent on others. When you don't want
to be dependent on others, you want to not be
quote unquote needy. But we really at the at the core,
(41:12):
we really are, aren't we?
S2 (41:13):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So there's a difference between being
in need and being needy. Um, we all we all are,
have moments where we have needs every every week. I've
got needs. Um, and sharing that with a friend actually
is an act of vulnerability. And vulnerability is one of
the things that really draws our friendships together. Um, I
need to have opportunities to serve my friend Angus, to
(41:35):
serve my friend DJ, to serve Jason, and, uh, vice
vice versa. Neediness, the needy friend is the person that
when when the when the call comes, we know what
it's going to be about. And that's different because we
know that there's going to be a request or there's they,
you know, they need to offload to us again or something.
(41:55):
And that's actually a sign of it really probably not
being an equal or a mutual friendship. That's different. But no,
sharing our needs is just so important. And you know what?
When we're talking about the faith elements here too, it's
just so important that we recognize this. This, you know,
God and me alone. We can kind of do it
type thing that has slipped into our Christian experience of
the last, you know, whatever, 100 years. Um, it isn't biblical.
(42:19):
I mean, right from the word go, Genesis one and two,
when when God makes humankind, what's the first thing he does?
He looks at Adam. He's just made Adam. And he
says it's not good for the man to be alone. Now,
this is a man who's got no sin in his
life at that stage. He's got uninterrupted relationship with God.
He's got God all to himself, basically. And God says, actually,
(42:43):
even I in a sense, even I am not enough.
He needs another person just like himself. And then he
makes Eve. I think that is profound. God has made
us to have a need for each other, so we
need to be connected to other people. And he is
the one who then comes between us and binds us together.
And then in through our relationship, we get closer to him.
(43:04):
It's an equilateral triangle. The closer we get to him together,
the closer we come together, the closer we get together.
When prayer is a part of it, the closer we
come to God. So it's a beautiful arrangement. Um, but
we must get away from this whole idea that, uh, I'm.
I'm okay if it's just me and God. Right.
S1 (43:20):
So if I sign up for the course, do you
guarantee me three, 2 a.m., friends, by the time I
finish it.
S2 (43:26):
Or your money back? Oh, that's a great question. You know,
we can laugh about it, but it's a great question.
Here's what's going to happen. The Friendship Lab course. It's
six sessions. We ask you to do it no quicker
than one session a week because, uh, we want you
to put everything into practice. So what you will be
given is five years worth of researched, evidence based tactics
(43:52):
to understand what a friend is and then how to
make a friendship grow from acquaintance all the way up
to 2 a.m. friends. Now the key here, which is
part of your your question is how long does it take?
Now here's a really interesting thing. You know, I mentioned
the five stages of friendship earlier on. There's been research
out of the University of Kansas that found that moving
just from acquaintance to casual friend alone, on average, takes
(44:16):
about 50. That's five zero hours of meaningful contact. That's
just from acquaintance to casual friend alone. To move from
casual friend to friend is another 90 hours. And then
to move from friend to close friend is another 200
hours of meaningful contact. So we're not going to be
able to guarantee you 5:02 a.m. friends, by the time
(44:38):
you've done a six week course. What we are going
to be able to guarantee you, I do believe, is
that you have everything you need to make that happen. Now,
I'd also give a little caveat. I think that that
survey wasn't done for anybody who did friendship labs. So
I think we're going to bring those numbers right down.
It's going to be a lot faster. Um, but we
you'll have everything that you need to to do it,
(44:59):
and then to work out where the friendship is going wrong. See,
even the definition someone I can talk to depend on,
grow with, and enjoy. If you've got a friendship like
I'm just thinking of one that I have right now,
we've kind of stalled a bit and I can go
back and I go wait out of out of that.
Why are we still talking? Um, yeah, we're kind of
depending on each other. You know what? We're not having
(45:21):
enough fun. We need to do more enjoyment. So it's
a great little test, and you'll get a whole six
sessions on how to do that with your friendships.
S1 (45:29):
So it's intentional. And there's a time element here. And
that scares some people off as well. But I think
what what I'm seeing from the friendship audit that you're offering,
as well as the list of the questions that you have, uh,
that kind of maps all this out. It's absolutely free.
You can sign up for the newsletter and get that.
What I'm seeing is internally, externally, you may not see
(45:51):
an immediate change, but internally you start to see this
is something that's really important to me, and I really
need to follow this and be intentional about it. So
I'm glad that I can call you my international friend today, Sharon.
And and I'm glad you came alongside us. God bless you, friend.
S2 (46:09):
Oh you too Chris.
S8 (46:11):
Go to Chris.
S1 (46:12):
Org. You will see a link right there to Friendship Lab.
And you can sign up for the newsletter. You can
find out more about the course. You can watch a
video that they have. That kind of is an overview
of it. I thought this would be good to bring
to you today. In the middle of all that we're
talking about this week. Uh, this need for a friend.
(46:32):
If you're feeling that, here's a resource for you. Just
go to Chris. Org. And tomorrow I want you to
get on the bus with me. Actually, you get to
drive the Bible bus tomorrow. You'll find out what that's
all about right here on Chris Perry live production of
Moody Radio Ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
It's International Friendship Day. Did you know that? And you
don't have to have a friend who lives in another
country to celebrate. But guess what I do. And you're
going to hear from my friend Sheridan today at the
Radio Backyard fence. Sheridan has been studying adult friendships and
has some startling statistics to share. The bad news is
(00:26):
about 1 in 5 US adults, and about 30% of
pastors report they have no close friends. Is that you?
Are you friendless at the back fence today? No wonder
we have a loneliness epidemic with those numbers, right? What
is social media doing to help or hurt that problem?
I want to talk about that and about what Sheridan
(00:48):
calls the friendship recession. But I also want you to
hear some good news, because Sheridan has been researching and
creating what he calls Friendship Lab over the last few years,
and I really think this is going to encourage you.
That's straight ahead on Chris Fabry live online Chris Fabry live.
And I want you to think about this question. Do
you have a 2 a.m. friend? If you do, how
(01:12):
did you find that person? Let me thank our friends
behind the scenes. Ryan McConaughey's doing all things technical. Trisha's
on vacation. Lisa is in the chair today. Anthony will
be answering your calls. And let me thank our friends
who support this program. We cannot do what we do
each day without you. Uh, and that was on display.
I got an email this morning from Carol. There are
(01:33):
people who hear this program who benefit, but who aren't
able to give. So thank you for those of you
who do give. And it helps everybody. You provide that support.
Carol said she heard about the resource we were giving
in June and really wanted a copy of it, but
she was only able to donate a dollar and she said,
I promise I will give more when I'm paid again,
(01:55):
which is, uh, this week. And she writes, You sent
it anyway, and I just got it. And it means
so much to me. Thank you. So she's planning on
sending another gift later this week. And I said, Carol,
when you give, don't just send the check. I want
to send you this month's resource, which is Drive Through
the Bible by Colin Smith. We're going to do a
(02:15):
whole program on this tomorrow and you get to drive
the bus. But I told Carol, this little book gives
a great overview of how all the scriptures fit together.
And I say that to you. There's only two days
left in this offer of Colin Smith's book, Drive Through
the Bible. If you call that number 866953 or go
(02:35):
to Chris Fabry live and give a gift of any size,
you will help us meet the goal for July. You
will get this great resource and then you know that
you're providing this for yourself and others. What could be
better than that? Help us to get over our goal
in July. Two days left today and tomorrow. Eight. 29532279
(02:59):
or go to Chris farrell.org. Now here he is, my
international friend. Live from Belfast today. Prolific author speaker, broadcaster Sheridan. Voysey.
Since last we spoke, he has founded the Friendship Lab,
the first organization dedicated to helping adults build meaningful friendships
through evidence based tools. That's our featured resource at Chris. Sheridan,
(03:25):
welcome back to the program. How you doing today?
S2 (03:27):
Oh, so good to talk to you, Chris. Yeah, and
great to join you from Belfast. I'm sure that there's
a whole bunch of C.S. Lewis fans listening today, and
I'm at a C.S. Lewis conference, which I've been speaking
at on this very topic of friendship. So this is
just a great way to end the day, because it's
a few hours ahead here in the UK, and I'm
just ending my day with a with a chat with
(03:48):
my old friend Chris. I can't think of a better
way to end the day.
S3 (03:51):
I love it. Okay, so what did what did Lewis, how.
S1 (03:54):
Did he inform your idea of friendship? What did he
say about it?
S2 (03:59):
Oh my goodness. So anybody who's read his wonderful book
The Four Loves will know that he dedicates a whole
chapter on friendship to, uh, to friendship in that when
he looks at the Greek word philia. And it's amazing, Chris,
because I read, you know, I've read so many of the,
the main, uh, literature about friendship and the main books
(04:20):
about friendship and the secular ones, the Christian ones, they
always quote C.S. Lewis. Some of them disagree with him,
some of them, most of them agree with him, but
they always come back to him. He wrote that book
in 1960, and the things that he says in there
still hold true today, number one being one of the
reasons why friendship, uh, seems to be kind of vanishing
(04:42):
is the fact that very few of us actually experience it.
He wrote that all those years ago, and sadly, that's
one bit of the book that certainly is very, very
true today, too.
S1 (04:51):
Yeah. Well, why did this bubble up in your heart, then,
because you've written about a lot of talks we've talked
about here, about facing unplanned events in your life, turning
your broken dreams into new beginnings. You've written about infertility
when God says, no being resilient. Why friendship?
S2 (05:11):
Yeah. You know, there's two answers to that question. The
first goes back to a retreat that I took in 2019,
just a one day prayer retreat just by myself. Um,
took myself off to this lovely little manor house here in,
in the, in England and just was really seeking God
about what the next season of my life should look like.
Should I keep on kind of talking about, you know,
(05:32):
broken dreams, starting again, those things that had been the
subject of my last few books, or was there something
else for me to do? I had a hunch that
there was something. There was something big to launch. I
had a hunch, but I didn't know. And you know,
I really was okay keeping on going with what I'd
been doing, but I was just wanting to be present
before God. And by the end of that retreat, by
(05:54):
that afternoon, I really had this sense that Friendlessness should
be something I looked at. And, you know, I went
away from that retreat thinking, okay, well, I'll just go
and do what I normally do. I go and research it,
and then I go and write a book on it,
and then I'll, you know, do some speaking on it and,
you know, have conversations like this on the radio and
do other broadcasts around it. About a year later, there
(06:15):
had been a number of things that had confirmed that
I was on the right path. Um, and, but I
felt like there was a handbrake on the project, and
it was strange because I'd done a year's worth of research.
I had an outline for a book, had a publisher interested,
but it just felt like I shouldn't go forward. So
I went back on retreat. Same place, same day of prayer.
(06:37):
And by the kind of mid-afternoon I really felt the
Lord say internally to me, Sheridan, you're thinking too small.
You've been thinking about writing a book, and, you know,
like all of us authors, how do we then get
that book out into into the audience? What if, instead,
you focused on the 20 to 25% of adults in
the UK, the United States, in Australia and elsewhere who
(07:01):
have no close friends, and bringing that percentage down? What
would that take? And you know, Chris, I just thought,
oh my goodness. As much as I would like to
think a book could somehow move the dial on that,
in reality it takes a lot more than just a
book to do that. And I thought, well, what would
that take? It would take media collaborations and arts collaborations
(07:22):
and educationalists collaborating. We'd have to get schools involved, universities involved.
We'd have to have evidence based courses, plus documentaries and
podcasts and everything else in between. And and it's funny,
you know, Chris, I left that retreat shaking in my boots,
but feeling like, okay, I think that might have been
(07:42):
the voice of God. And so that's kind of where
the idea of Friendship Lab as an organization came in.
And can you believe this? I still find it hard
to say. We are the first organization focused on adult friendship.
Can you think about how many resources we have on dating, marriage, parenting, family?
And I thank God for every single one of them.
But up until now, we have had no dedicated charity,
(08:04):
nonprofit organization, ministry focused on adult friendship. And that's, I think,
the space that we're called to to fill.
S1 (08:12):
And that friendship lab is up and running. We have
it linked at Chris. Org. There are some free resources
that you can get through that. We're going to talk
about those. But I think at the bedrock it's it's
a it's a question of vision. Meaning if we you
can just keep going on in your life the way
(08:33):
things are. And yeah, I don't have close friends. It's
not that big of a deal until you see somebody else,
until you hear what has happened to someone else who
has had a deep friendship and you say, well, wait
a minute, I'd kind of like, I'd kind of like
to have that is is that part of what you're
trying to do?
S2 (08:53):
Oh, very much so. You know, if I can just
share a personal story, there's a second answer to your
question as to how this friendship lab thing came about.
It's just it happened so many years ago. I never
knew what it was going to lead to. But, you know, 2008, Marin,
my wife and I were eight years into a ten
year journey trying to start a family, which you and
I have talked about on this show before. It's been
(09:14):
the subject of a couple of other books. And, you know,
so by this stage in the journey, we are looking
at fostering and adoption and, uh, where in this seminar,
discovering just what's involved. And we have one of these
straight talking Australian seminar leaders who leaves us in no
doubt as to what's involved. She says, yes, I know
that you're here. You want to have your dream fulfilled
(09:36):
of starting a family, and there's going to be some
wonderful blessings in having a little boy or girl coming
into your life through adoption or through fostering. But it
could also be very difficult indeed, and she gave us
some examples. She said, you're going to need a support
group around you. And then she asked this question that
just burrowed under my skin and has never left me since.
(09:56):
She said, who can you call at 2 a.m. when
everything has gone wrong? And Chris, I sat there, my
pen hovering over the workbook because I couldn't think of
who's name to write down. And, you know, I don't
think I was alone in that. Far from alone, I
had friends. It's just that we had recently moved to Sydney, Australia.
(10:17):
At that stage. We'd been there about two years by
that stage. I had friends in Brisbane. I had friends
in Perth in Western Australia. But was I keeping in
touch with them? Was I being intentional about keeping in
touch with them? No, I wasn't, was I being intentional
about trying to make new local friends in Sydney? No
I wasn't. And this is the thing is that while
we can talk about all the barriers to adult friendship
(10:38):
today and we can explore that if you like, the
biggest barrier, I think is plain old neglect. We have
sidelined friendship as a culture. Even as a church, we
have focused so much on marriage, so much on romance.
Our our secular culture has focused so much on eros,
the Greek word for everything to do with romance, sexuality
(10:59):
and everything else that we have sidelined friendship. And yet,
what is the basis of all those great relationships in
our lives? It really is philia. The Greek word for friendship.
S1 (11:08):
That's shared and voicey. And I'm this is energizing. Maybe
this program is just for me. Maybe. And I'm going
to explain my story in our next segment. But maybe
you're listening today and you say, I have that 2 a.m.
friend and I want to tell you about this person.
And here's how I made that friendship and here's how
long we've been friends. I'm going to open the phone
(11:31):
lines for you at 87754836758775483675. We have a link to
Friendship Lab. It's at Chris Fabry lives. And if you
don't have a 2 a.m. friend, I want you to
stay with us as we talk about friendship today. If
(11:51):
you are lonely and you say, this is exactly what
I need. Then you stay with us. This is Chris
Fabry live online. Chris Fabriclive.
S4 (12:10):
Thank you for being a friend. Traveled down a road
and back again. Your heart is true. You're a pal
and a confidant.
S1 (12:23):
I remember listening to this song on the bus as
we were going to school and when I was a kid.
Thank you for being Andrew Gold coming in at number
142 here on the hit, uh, countdown of the hits.
Founder of the Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boise is with us
today at the back fence, and we're talking about Out
that topic of friendships. I told Sheridan before we started. See,
(12:47):
I grew up on a farm. I was the third child,
the youngest child, and there were several years between me
and my older brothers. So I basically grew up kind
of as an only child wandering the hills, and that
did a lot for my fiction writing. I think I was,
I had my I rattle on and had a lot
of imagination, but I didn't have very close friends, and
(13:10):
I saw the kids that would go to school and
they would have these lifelong friends. It's like, I didn't
I didn't have that. And so I went, I've gone
through my life having a lot of acquaintances. I can
I can pick up the phone and call a lot
of different people on my Rolodex. I can even call
Sheridan voice and talk with Sheridan voice. But it sounds
(13:30):
like the kind of friendship that you are talking about.
There's different levels. The kind of friendship that you're talking
about with a 2 a.m. friend is is something deeper than. Oh, yeah, I,
you know, good, good friend of mine. It's something different.
Is that true?
S2 (13:47):
Mhm. Yeah it really is. With Friendship Lab we work
on a five stage model. So yes you've got the
acquaintances at stage one then. Casual friends. Friends. Close friends.
And then what we would call a two way in friend.
And you know the 2 a.m. friend. It takes a
long time to develop that. So I really want to
kind of just help everybody ease back a little bit.
(14:09):
If you don't have a two way in, friend, it's okay. Uh,
you can have one. It takes time. But the fact
is that this is this takes a lot of a
lot of investment and a lot of intentionality. But we
can move relationships kind of through those stages. As much
as both parties are wanting to be party to that.
(14:29):
You know, one of the big things of friendship is
the fact that it's got to be equal, mutual and
freely chosen, and the other person has to freely respond
to our overtures of, you know, wanting to get closer
and wanted to take the friendship deeper. But I think
many of us are like that. And also, I think, Chris,
many of us men now need to be careful here.
(14:50):
It's not really statistically, it's not really that men have
a greater problem than women. Here we do a little
bit more. Most of the stats come out at maybe 55, 45,
in terms of the breakdown to men who've got fewer friends, etc..
So it's not really a case of, well, it's 80%
men have got the problem and only 20% women. Um,
(15:11):
but what happens? What seems to happen is that women
are faster at responding to the problem. All of us
are going to be a part of that. 20, 25%
of people who have no close friends. Uh, it might
be a season. It might be the fact that we
move cities. It might be the fact that we moved villages. Move,
move homes, move suburbs. Uh, start a new job somewhere.
(15:31):
So we will all be part of that. So I
want to kind of normalize that and then say, right, well,
what do we do about that? But here's the thing, Chris.
Anybody who's listened to you, anybody who knows anything about
you and yes, indeed, you know, you and I speak,
you know, once every few years. I love our conversations.
And I reckon if we lived in the same country,
in fact, the sociologists talk about a 25 minute radius.
(15:53):
If we can live within a 25 minute radius and
have more time together, I think there's a lot about
you I would love to get to know more. I
think you've got a huge amount of value to offer
to a friend, so you probably you've probably got closer
friends than you think. But I really appreciate your vulnerability
and your honesty there, because you're giving voice to what
so many other people will also be feeling, because we've
(16:13):
never been taught what to do next. You think about
it in our schools, we're not really taught about friendships,
how to make them, how to really form them. We're
kind of it's just kind of assumed that we should
absorb that information and are just somehow generically developed, that
it's one of the biggest myths, I think, that it
should be organic. Um, we're not taught it in, uh,
(16:36):
any seminaries we go to or any universities we go to.
In fact, the great kind of golden years of friendship
is university or college year because, you know, you may
well live on the same campus. You may well even
live in the same dorm rooms. You may have very
similar timetables, so you can bump into each other a
lot after we leave university or college, that's when it
(16:59):
gets difficult. We move towns. Maybe for our first job
we might move again for another job. Uh, we might
get married. We've got less time for friends, we may
have kids, we got even less time for friends. And
combine all of that in this part of the reason
why we've got so much of a challenge with friendship today. Yes.
S1 (17:17):
Okay. So there's a lot of hurdles to get over.
Is the is the 2 a.m. friend? Is this this
have to be a person that you are face to
face with? Or a 2 a.m. friend that somebody I
can call who's in another time zone?
S2 (17:31):
Great question. So two of my closest to Am Friends
still live in Australia, even though I've lived in the
UK for the last 14 years, so I am actually
defining that emotionally. Now, having said that, I then need
to also develop some 2 a.m. friends in Oxford. Now,
I've lived in Oxford for 13 years and I could
(17:53):
say that there's about about three guys that I'm developing
that with. Are we yet at the 2 a.m. stage?
I'm one of them, I think I am. Um, so
it's really important to have both. But yes, if you've
got some distant friends, what we say in the Friendship
Lab course, which we've, we've put 4 or 5 years
of development into, is start with those, start with those
(18:16):
people you've got the history with. Because you can never
recreate history. You can't just go, right, I'll just have
a little dash of history in our friendship tomorrow. Uh,
that that's all that wonderful time you've invested into those relationships.
Go back to those and then and kind of build
on that. If there's still some sort of wonderful foundation
there for you to, for you to have. Uh, but
(18:36):
you certainly can, because you can have that emotional connection.
You can share. You can pray together. Um, you know,
I was having a chat with one of my Australian
2 a.m. friends just this last Sunday, and he shared
something ever so personal with me because of all these
years that we've had together and because we can share
at that level, I can't call him to come round
if there's a crisis, but I can certainly call him
(18:58):
the next day to talk that crisis through.
S1 (19:01):
Yes. So the the 2 a.m. friend, that's the deepest level. But,
you know, I don't want to jump right to there.
We got to get to the, the, the the other
level that that is in here and how to do that.
And that's part of why the Friendship Lab is there.
I remember a couple of years ago you sent me a,
(19:23):
a survey, you know, for, for people to take. I
think it was in 23. This was part of the lab, right.
S2 (19:31):
Mhm. That was such an interesting piece of research. So yes,
we've got 100 respondents from a variety of different countries.
Many Americans were involved with that, as well as, uh,
British folks, Australians, Singaporeans, Canadians. I mean, there's so many
countries that were involved in that. And what was very
interesting was, well, a few things. 40% of us want
(19:53):
to get closer to our friends, but we don't know how.
Around about half of us, 50, 51% of us find
it very difficult to make new friends. We just don't
know again what to do, where to start. Uh, here's
another one that you'll find really interesting, Chris. Um, the
amount of young men who wanted to have deeper conversations,
you know, again, there's a stereotype happens for America as
(20:14):
well as it happens for, for for Britain and Australia,
the three countries that I know better. Uh, there's this idea. Well,
you know, we don't go too deep. We don't go
too deep. Um, particularly the Australian and the British male.
You know, if we start getting too affectionate or or,
you know, talk too deeply about, you know, deep and
meaningful matters, then one of us is going to joke
to kind of ease the so-called tension. You know what
(20:38):
I mean? Um, we found that guys are really wanting
to have those conversations. What happens is they start maybe
broaching a conversation with their male friend, and then the
joke happens, and maybe there's a bit of ribbing. Um,
doesn't last very long. The other person feels a little
bit uncomfortable. And that's Freud's fault, by the way. We
can come back and talk about that if you want. Um, uh,
(20:59):
and so what do they do? They then go and
turn to their female friend because they perceive that their
female friend is going to be a better listener, is
not going to come in with any joking or any awkwardness.
And that's exactly what happens. So we've got a little
bit more work to do there. Um, we found that
one of the biggest barriers for female friendships is, uh,
number one is motherhood. Because then suddenly, of course, you've
(21:22):
got this new, uh, maybe one, maybe two, uh, little
lives that are just really focused on you. Secondly is sickness, um,
the amount of, um, women who said that was just
such a big barrier, uh, to do it. And, you know,
even at this conference, um, I was talking to somebody
just this afternoon and they said, Will you be doing
anything for people who have got long term illnesses? Because
(21:45):
in her case, it was migraines. And so she said,
you know, we we set up, uh, having people over
for dinner. And then of course, I get a migraine
and we've got to cancel. And it happens time and
time and time again. How do I keep a friendship
going when I don't? They don't know whether I'm going
to be able to make it. I don't know whether
I'm going to be able to make it. Oh, there's so,
so many barriers to us. And just buy that one
(22:07):
for anybody who's listening. By the end of our 15
minute conversation, we'd come up with a little solution that
we that she could create, what she could call her.
Seize the moment, friends. Because while she may not know
when she was next going to get a migraine, she
did know when she was well. And so, you know,
we suggested maybe she could start up a little WhatsApp
(22:29):
group have 3 to 4 women in there, and then
she can give them absolute freedom to say no, that's very,
very key with this. But then she could put a
message and saying, you know what, I'm feeling good this afternoon.
Are any of you available for a coffee. And so
you could have these seize the moment, friends. And there's
even something kind of fun in having that title. They've
got this new identity for their friend. So there's a
(22:51):
lot of us, lot, lot for us to think about,
about how to explore, you know, get over these barriers
that get in the way of our friendships.
S1 (22:58):
So there's a way that you can use technology to
spur on friendships. The technology leads to the face to face.
Or it could. I got so many questions because part
of the struggle is that a lot of times there
is a different need level. You know, you say it
has to be mutual. One person is a little more
needy for a friend than the other, and then the
(23:21):
other backs away because I can't. I know that I
can't meet all the needs of the other friend. And
so it just kind of unravels Travels there. What do
you say about that situation?
S2 (23:31):
Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. So that kind of
disparity in friendship is is quite common. It happens at
a number of different levels at the very basic one. Uh,
there's the age old problem of I'm the only one
who ever reaches out to them, and they never reach
out to me. Um, and that can be a problem
that may well show that their friend is not as
(23:53):
invested in the relationship as you, or it may actually
show that you're just a much better organizer. And so
I suggest that you judge your friendship, uh, by how
they turn up when they're in front of you. Uh,
they may be terrible at arranging and meeting up with you,
but when they do get in the room, you sit down,
you have that coffee, or you you get together for
a walk in the park. Are they present for you?
(24:15):
Are they asking about you? Are they inquiring about you
as much as you're inquiring about them? So that's the
kind of mutuality we're talking about. Oh, now, when it
comes to the neediness thing, that can be a real barrier.
and I think all of us need to need to
recognize that we play a role in being a friend
to our friend. We will all have seasons where we
(24:37):
go through greater need than, than than the other friend.
That's just life. And isn't it wonderful when we have
that friend that can walk through that difficult season with us? For,
for for maybe a few months, maybe even longer than that.
But we want to we want to write the ledger.
We want to kind of get the balance there. If
(24:58):
it's always all about us, that's going to be turning
into more of a charitable relationship, maybe an agape relationship.
You know, that wonderful sacrificial word agape. We want philia.
We want mutual. So just make sure you ask about
how they're doing and inquire about their life as well.
S1 (25:15):
That's good. And there's some great stuff. There's some great
resources at the website. If you go to chris.org, you'll
see more about Shared in Boise and the Friendship Lab there.
They have a list of 36 questions and a friendship audit.
If you sign up for the newsletter, you get access
to that. Just go to Chris. We'll take your calls
(25:36):
straight ahead. (877) 548-3675.
S5 (26:05):
You've got a friend. Ain't it good to know you've
got a friend. Ain't it good to know you've got
a friend. You've got.
S4 (26:23):
Yes we do.
S1 (26:24):
International Friendship Day. You didn't even know it was international friendship.
We had the founder of Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boissy, with us.
If you go to Chris Fabriclive. Org, we've got a
link right there to the course that they're offering at
Friendship Lab, and there's a couple of free resources. If
you sign up for their newsletter, you can get this
list of 36 questions and a friendship audit that you
(26:48):
can do, which is really, really helpful. And so I
hope you'll do that. Just go to npr.org, click on
over to the Friendship Lab and find out more. We haven't.
Before we go to calls (877) 548-3675, we haven't defined what
is a friend because when you say friend, I think
(27:09):
of one person. You know, somebody comes into my mind,
somebody else is thinking of a totally different idea of
what friendship is. So define it for us.
S2 (27:18):
Yeah. Okay. This is really important because this is where
we so often go wrong with friendship. We friendship. We
don't know what we're looking for. So we at Friendship
Lab define a friend as someone I can talk to,
depend on, grow with, and enjoy. And all of those
elements are important. So somebody to talk to about the
little things like football scores and holiday plans, but also
the big things, you know, what are my what are
(27:40):
my deepest hopes? What are my dreams? What are my
broken dreams? What are my fears? Uh, someone we can
depend on with the two people that we can call
when everything has gone wrong. Uh, there's someone we can
grow with. Aristotle said that friendship is the school of virtue.
That's at its best. Of course, C.S. Lewis actually said
it could be a school of vice, too. So, at
(28:02):
its best, uh, our friends help us to become the
people we are supposed to become. They they we give
them permission to actually point out where we're straying, where
we're stepping away from what God wants for us, away
from our God given calling. And they also encourage us
to do the right thing and, and and to live
well amongst both ourselves and also the people around us,
(28:24):
and also to enjoy. Um, there is no friendship without enjoyment,
even if that's just because we really enjoy our conversation
when we get together. Or maybe it's a, you know,
a mean game of tennis or golf, or maybe it's
because you, like me. Chris, enjoy moody European films with subtitles.
S1 (28:43):
Yes I do. Let's go, let's go now. Well, and
I am thinking of this with Lewis. You know, somebody
to talk to, depend on, grow with, enjoy the inklings.
You know, the people that he was close with, the writers,
the professors that he was close with. Especially somebody like Tolkien.
But this was not somebody that always agreed with him.
A friend is not somebody who always agrees. You can
(29:06):
disagree as friends and that iron can sharpen iron, right?
S2 (29:10):
Yeah. They so, so, so true. And what a great
example actually of a friendship because, you know, Tolkien when
Lewis died he said there would be no Lord of
the rings without Lewis. He encouraged me. He was my
first reader when nobody else had any time for it.
He was the one who encouraged me. Ask me every
inklings meeting. Do you have more about that? You know
that Hobbit story? Um. And and Lewis wouldn't have had
(29:33):
his science fiction trilogy published without Tolkien. I mean, they
helped each other, but they also disagreed. They disagreed about
the nature of the of the writing that they were pursuing.
You know, Lewis could find Tolkien's work a little bit dense,
and I'm absolutely with him there. Um, Tolkien could find Lewis.
S1 (29:51):
I'm going to write that down about you now. And
the other thing you Tolkien never finished.
S2 (29:54):
I never finished Lord of the rings. I couldn't get
through it. I couldn't finish it. I'm just not.
S1 (29:58):
You've got to read the, uh, Andy Serkis, his, uh,
his version of the audiobook. It's just you get into it,
you can't stop listening. But Tolkien was pushed back against
The Screwtape Letters because there was something about that that
he thought, I don't know if you should do that.
And Lewis went ahead with it, but he listened to
the critique of his friend.
S2 (30:19):
Right? Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing they did.
They had the freedom to be able to critique each
other's work like that. Now, here's the other interesting thing.
Many people will know that there was kind of there
wasn't a falling out that's far too strong. Um, some
people have said that some books even claim that, um,
I've just been amongst spent a whole week amongst absolutely
the world's best CS Lewis scholars, and that's absolutely untrue.
(30:41):
They did. Tolkien and Lewis did not have a falling
out or a rift, but they did have a drift. Uh,
Tolkien said that they were they were absolutely best friends
between 1927 and 1940. And then there were a couple
of incidents that happened which kind of let them then
kind of drift away. And then Lewis went off to Cambridge,
and then there were geographically kind of distant from each other.
But here's the thing. What I think they were probably
(31:03):
weak on, which I think the evidence points to, is
that they didn't have difficult conversations. They didn't have conversations
about their own friendship. I think their friendship could have
been a lot tighter if they'd been able to say, okay,
I know you don't agree with Joy Davidman and my
marriage to her. Can we talk about that? Okay. Charles
Williams and his role in the inklings. I know you're
(31:24):
feeling uncomfortable. Can we have a conversation about that? They
could talk very, very critically about each other's work. They
were struggling to talk about each other's friendship in the
same way. That's a big lesson for us.
S1 (31:36):
Well, it's a lesson too, on. You know, when I
make a friend. Do I have to agree with this
person on everything? It's easier to agree if we agree
on religion and politics and relationships and all that. It's
much easier. It's harder to get past some of those things.
I want to talk about that, but I want to
take a few calls too. Bob is on the line. Bob,
(31:57):
why did you call today?
S6 (31:59):
Well, uh, I have a ministry that the Lord led
me into back in the 1980s. Thanksgiving of 1981, which
involves friendships. Okay. Uh, but, uh, the one that, uh,
your your, uh, guest today. I happen to be related
to C.S. Lewis, and in the 19, late 1950s, uh,
(32:23):
he mentored me. I was a teenager, and he was
a don by this time. And, uh, during that period
of time, it was, uh, when, uh, Joy was, uh, uh,
his wife was, uh, dying from, uh, had had a
remission from cancer and then was dying again, but, uh, okay. So.
S2 (32:45):
Oh, we'd love to. Oh my goodness, I know we
could take the conversation off in a different direction.
S1 (32:49):
We could do a whole hour just on you, Bob.
S6 (32:52):
And but what I wanted to get to, what I
wanted to get to is I do have a ministry there. So. Okay,
that's what God called me to do. So. And it's
a much, much larger thing than that. But in any event,
I have a I have one granddaughter and she has
no siblings, and she depends a great deal upon her friends. Okay. Uh, I, I, I,
(33:15):
I have sent her a a plaque that says good
friends are like stars. You don't always see them, but
you know they're always there. Now this is a black
background with white. White. Uh, copy. Okay. Emulating the stars and.
(33:35):
And on the other side of this, I have a
copy of the famous hymn. What a friend we have
in Jesus. Okay.
S1 (33:47):
I'm so glad that you are involved.
S6 (33:49):
No matter what her problems are. At 2:00 in the morning,
she can always rely on her friend. Jesus.
S1 (33:58):
You know, that gets me to the point, Bob. It's
a great point that you bring up intergenerational friendships. You know,
I when I'm going to school, I have people who
are in my grade level, you know, about my age,
maybe a year old or younger, that I know, but
pretty much in that framework. A lot of these friendships
are one person is a lot older than the other one.
(34:20):
Is that right, Sheridan?
S2 (34:22):
Yeah. So there is something in which we let me
give you another acrostic that we've used out of the
Friendship Lab course. So when you when you're looking for friends,
think of spark s a R. The S stands for similarity.
And generally that starts with a similarity of life stage.
(34:45):
But there is a movement within that. So I've got
friends who are 1015 years older than me and around
about that younger than me as well. And we are equals.
So there is something very beautiful about that. Um, when
you go too far older than that, you probably just
stretch a generation, probably just stretch maybe 20, 25 years.
Beyond that, then the similarities start to be harder because
(35:07):
of course, you've been you've grown up in a different era.
You've you're drawing from different cultural backgrounds or different music
that you really appreciated, it just becomes a little bit harder,
not impossible. P is for pastimes. A is for availability.
R is for responsiveness and the C is for compatible values,
which is where faith comes in. Um, so that can
(35:27):
be a bit of a helpful thing too. But you
definitely can make friends across age age differences. Uh, it
just sometimes can be easier if we're around about ten
years or so. Difference.
S1 (35:39):
It sounds like the the older person then like Bob
is with his granddaughter, is is mentoring in a way
is pouring into the life so that there is, you know,
a different a different stages of life will do that.
Whereas if you are kind of about the same age,
there's a similarity. I remember having a friend in when
we lived in Colorado and he was about ten years
(36:00):
older than me, 10 or 15, but he had so
many tools and so much wisdom about about those tools,
you know, that he could kind of pour in. And
I would try not to be needy, but I'd go
over and say, Jim, you know, what do I do
about this? Oh, I've got this over here. And so
the friendship started with that, you know, with the need,
(36:21):
with the struggle that I was having, you know, around
the house or fixing something or whatever, that he could help.
And then you started to go deeper with the relational
aspect of it. Does that make sense?
S2 (36:32):
Yeah, yeah. There's always something that brings you together. Again,
to quote CS Lewis. There is something in which friendship
is about something. It's best when it starts off with
about something. So it might be exactly the kind of
scenario you've talked about. Or it's a love of theater
or it's a love of tennis. Uh, if you stay there,
then the friendship will only go so far. It'll be fun.
(36:54):
It'll be good. Um, but we can go deeper than
that when we have some deeper conversation. The interesting thing
would be for me to ask you is, is whether
then Jim ever felt that he had a confidant in you,
then did the did the reciprocal? Did the approach? Yeah.
Did it go your way? If not, then he was
a mentor. And what a God given gift a mentor is. Uh,
(37:15):
but it's not friendship. Exactly.
S1 (37:17):
Yeah, I think it did. I think it morphed in
into that. I mean, there were certain things that I
was interested in that. That he didn't know much about,
that he was always, you know, with the writing and
all that kind of stuff. He loved to read, but
he couldn't write. And so we had conversations about that, uh,
at my own back fence. Sheridan Boise is with us. Oh,
(37:38):
I hope you go to the website, chris.org. You'll see
a link right there to the Friendship Lab. Sign up
for the newsletter. There are a couple of free, uh,
things that they can send you, and you can also
find out about the course. And there's more straight ahead
here on Moody Radio.
S4 (38:07):
If the Lord's the Lord of them, and a friend
will not say never. Though it's hard to let you
go in the father's hands, we know that a lifetime's
not too long to live.
S1 (38:31):
Founder of Friendship Lab, Sheridan Boise is joining us to
the back fence today. And if you want to take
the course, there's a cost of the course, but it
is well worth it. And I have some questions about that.
Before we get to that, though, I want Patty to
sign in here in Michigan. Patty, tell me why you called.
S7 (38:51):
Well, a few years ago, I was leading a women's
Bible study, and the women were quite a bit older
than me. I don't know what we were discussing, but
I said, how many of you have that middle of
the night friend that you can call if you need someone.
And there was a lot of tears in the women said,
I don't have that friend. And it took me back
(39:14):
because I have about three very dear friends that we've
been close with that I've been close with for a
number of years. And so it was hard for me
to comprehend that and to understand that they didn't have that.
And then just recently, I worked a women's retreat weekend,
(39:35):
and I was asked to give a talk, and I
called my one dear friend and said, I don't have
a clue what to talk about, but I feel that
God called me here. I said, would you pray with
me and for me to see if you are hearing anything?
Because I'm not? She called me back about 10s later
and she said, I remember what you shared about leading
(39:57):
that Bible study and it has stuck with me forever.
And so that's what you need to talk about. And
I'm like, wow.
S8 (40:06):
And that's it. That's the that's the friend you needed,
wasn't it?
S7 (40:10):
It was. She came through. I mean, God came through
to her. And there again, this was much younger women,
but women of all ages. And it was surprising how
many didn't have that. And I said, it's work. You
have to work at those friendships.
S8 (40:27):
Yes. Well, I wonder if, Patti, I wonder if part.
S1 (40:31):
Of this is and we talked about the other day
of the independence, you know, how much we foster, especially
in the West, this independent. I can do this myself.
I don't need anybody else. I'm going to pull myself
up by my own bootstraps. ET cetera. ET cetera. And we.
That leaks into our faith life, too. It's like God,
you can't take care of the big things. I'll try
to take care of the little things over here. And
(40:51):
it's like, no, he's. He wants to be a part
of everything in the warp and woof of life. And
a friend will help you do that. In that sense, Sheridan,
it means you're dependent on others. When you don't want
to be dependent on others, you want to not be
quote unquote needy. But we really at the at the core,
(41:12):
we really are, aren't we?
S2 (41:13):
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So there's a difference between being
in need and being needy. Um, we all we all are,
have moments where we have needs every every week. I've
got needs. Um, and sharing that with a friend actually
is an act of vulnerability. And vulnerability is one of
the things that really draws our friendships together. Um, I
need to have opportunities to serve my friend Angus, to
(41:35):
serve my friend DJ, to serve Jason, and, uh, vice
vice versa. Neediness, the needy friend is the person that
when when the when the call comes, we know what
it's going to be about. And that's different because we
know that there's going to be a request or there's they,
you know, they need to offload to us again or something.
(41:55):
And that's actually a sign of it really probably not
being an equal or a mutual friendship. That's different. But no,
sharing our needs is just so important. And you know what?
When we're talking about the faith elements here too, it's
just so important that we recognize this. This, you know,
God and me alone. We can kind of do it
type thing that has slipped into our Christian experience of
the last, you know, whatever, 100 years. Um, it isn't biblical.
(42:19):
I mean, right from the word go, Genesis one and two,
when when God makes humankind, what's the first thing he does?
He looks at Adam. He's just made Adam. And he
says it's not good for the man to be alone. Now,
this is a man who's got no sin in his
life at that stage. He's got uninterrupted relationship with God.
He's got God all to himself, basically. And God says, actually,
(42:43):
even I in a sense, even I am not enough.
He needs another person just like himself. And then he
makes Eve. I think that is profound. God has made
us to have a need for each other, so we
need to be connected to other people. And he is
the one who then comes between us and binds us together.
And then in through our relationship, we get closer to him.
(43:04):
It's an equilateral triangle. The closer we get to him together,
the closer we come together, the closer we get together.
When prayer is a part of it, the closer we
come to God. So it's a beautiful arrangement. Um, but
we must get away from this whole idea that, uh, I'm.
I'm okay if it's just me and God. Right.
S1 (43:20):
So if I sign up for the course, do you
guarantee me three, 2 a.m., friends, by the time I
finish it.
S2 (43:26):
Or your money back? Oh, that's a great question. You know,
we can laugh about it, but it's a great question.
Here's what's going to happen. The Friendship Lab course. It's
six sessions. We ask you to do it no quicker
than one session a week because, uh, we want you
to put everything into practice. So what you will be
given is five years worth of researched, evidence based tactics
(43:52):
to understand what a friend is and then how to
make a friendship grow from acquaintance all the way up
to 2 a.m. friends. Now the key here, which is
part of your your question is how long does it take?
Now here's a really interesting thing. You know, I mentioned
the five stages of friendship earlier on. There's been research
out of the University of Kansas that found that moving
just from acquaintance to casual friend alone, on average, takes
(44:16):
about 50. That's five zero hours of meaningful contact. That's
just from acquaintance to casual friend alone. To move from
casual friend to friend is another 90 hours. And then
to move from friend to close friend is another 200
hours of meaningful contact. So we're not going to be
able to guarantee you 5:02 a.m. friends, by the time
(44:38):
you've done a six week course. What we are going
to be able to guarantee you, I do believe, is
that you have everything you need to make that happen. Now,
I'd also give a little caveat. I think that that
survey wasn't done for anybody who did friendship labs. So
I think we're going to bring those numbers right down.
It's going to be a lot faster. Um, but we
you'll have everything that you need to to do it,
(44:59):
and then to work out where the friendship is going wrong. See,
even the definition someone I can talk to depend on,
grow with, and enjoy. If you've got a friendship like
I'm just thinking of one that I have right now,
we've kind of stalled a bit and I can go
back and I go wait out of out of that.
Why are we still talking? Um, yeah, we're kind of
depending on each other. You know what? We're not having
(45:21):
enough fun. We need to do more enjoyment. So it's
a great little test, and you'll get a whole six
sessions on how to do that with your friendships.
S1 (45:29):
So it's intentional. And there's a time element here. And
that scares some people off as well. But I think
what what I'm seeing from the friendship audit that you're offering,
as well as the list of the questions that you have, uh,
that kind of maps all this out. It's absolutely free.
You can sign up for the newsletter and get that.
What I'm seeing is internally, externally, you may not see
(45:51):
an immediate change, but internally you start to see this
is something that's really important to me, and I really
need to follow this and be intentional about it. So
I'm glad that I can call you my international friend today, Sharon.
And and I'm glad you came alongside us. God bless you, friend.
S2 (46:09):
Oh you too Chris.
S8 (46:11):
Go to Chris.
S1 (46:12):
Org. You will see a link right there to Friendship Lab.
And you can sign up for the newsletter. You can
find out more about the course. You can watch a
video that they have. That kind of is an overview
of it. I thought this would be good to bring
to you today. In the middle of all that we're
talking about this week. Uh, this need for a friend.
(46:32):
If you're feeling that, here's a resource for you. Just
go to Chris. Org. And tomorrow I want you to
get on the bus with me. Actually, you get to
drive the Bible bus tomorrow. You'll find out what that's
all about right here on Chris Perry live production of
Moody Radio Ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
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