natural friendship

I have been posting on making friends with potential Christians in order to be an influence for their trusting in Jesus. A logical question is, “Isn’t this kind of an ulterior motive for friendship?” Actually, the process is quite normal. Think about it this way.

You are going to be friends with people you connect with. You connect because of common interests, common activities, and so on. You will enjoy each other’s company. That’s what friends do. They talk, hang out together, and share in activities together. What do you talk about with friends? Things that interest you. It will be natural to talk about faith matters in an ongoing friendship. It is important to you and it will be intriguing to your friend. Friends will also naturally invite friends to something that is important and meaningful to them. Your friend might invite you to the auto show, a museum, a movie, or a sport’s event, and you are not bizarre to simply invite them to worship or small group or some other activity with other Christians that may be of interest to them. At worst they can say, “No, thank you.”

So, what do we make of all this? First, it’s not like you are going to meet someone and say, “I want to be friends and, by the way, let me tell you about Jesus.” Friendships grow. They take time. So does being an influence for the Lord.

Second, if we invite our friends to attend a Christian gathering and they say, “No,” it’s not like we turn around and say, “O.K. that’s it, I don’t want to be your friend any more.” Reaching out can take a lot of time. It requires tremendous patience on our part and lots of grace from both us and our friends.