This congregation is calling "Every member on the road of discipleship!"

Spiritual Friendships

Our congregation exists to welcome people to a relationship with Jesus by inviting them to relationships with people who know Jesus. It is to be expected that Jesus will lead us to grow spiritually. What we offer each other in spiritual friendship is nurture and mutual accountability.

Spiritual friends encourage each other, pray for each other, share insights into Scripture, and support recognition of the ways God is present and active in their lives. Being and having a spiritual friend is one of the most consistently rewarding aspects of discipleship.

Making and being a spiritual friend is up to you. We have many opportunities to get to know folks and explore possible relationships. Social events, breakfasts, retreats, service projects, choirs, and even committees at Upper Dublin provide opportunity to be the church through sharing and prayer before doing the church. Our members have developed strong Spiritual Friendships in very different ways. Here's one story.

After much thought and prayer on how to begin developing spiritual relationships I decided to form a small group. The sole purpose of the group would be to support each other in our faith journey.

I began by selecting three potential participants that I believed would interact well together. I sent written invitations to the three people. The invitations included a review of the six marks of discipleship and the fact that in a poll of staff and council members the weakest point was "spiritual friendship". I suggested that the group would meet every two to three months and would otherwise stay in touch by phone, email and shared activities at UDLC.

All three invitees accepted. Our first discussion was on prayer and how we individually pray. Though we were all somewhat tentative at the beginning of the evening, as the night ended everyone seemed pleased and it was agreed to meet again in either August or September. We plan to rotate the responsibility of leading future meetings.

Another method was experience by two men who got to know each other at the Men's Breakfast. Here is another story.

I got an invitation to have lunch. We meet and talked about the breakfast, why we enjoyed it, and a little about ourselves. My friend asked permission to ask me some questions about God. I answered honestly. The interchange seemed helpful to both of us. We agreed to have lunch again.

From that point on, we would commit to schedule another lunch, usually in a month, and continue the same pattern. It was clear that we could talk about faith and our spiritual walk. We've been meeting now for eight years. We've been through retirement, some health issues, very difficult challenges in our work, and found that our lunches were great opportunities to reflect on how God was active or God was calling us to rethink our situations. We now meet every two or three weeks.

These are only two examples of spiritual friendships. What makes a friendship spiritual is the willingness to speak openly and honestly about our relationship with God. A willingness to listen and appreciate another's walk and provide truthful positive feedback to them. And, a lively interest in their commitments, asking how they are doing in keeping them, and praying for them.