At the beginning of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” story, Sam is Frodo’s gardener. When Frodo is reluctantly entrusted to go on a difficult journey, Sam is recruited to go with him. At the start of the story, Sam calls his employer “Mr. Frodo”, but by halfway through their mission, Frodo calls Sam “Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit – indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends”. How did Sam go from being Frodo’s gardener to his “friend of friends”? This closeness developed through a mutual commitment to a common goal.
All of us need deep friendships in life: the type of relationship where their name appears on a form as your “emergency contact”, you can call this person at 2am in a crisis, and their door is always open for you. These friendships are crucial (we need them for our wellbeing), candid (you tell each other the truth), and close (you go beyond superficial matters).
But the reality is that these kinds of friendships are difficult to build. They take time to develop, and Hong Kong is a transient place, people come and go. Deep friendships make you more vulnerable to being hurt if that person lets you down, therefore, we protect ourselves by avoiding depth and intimacy. And we’re wonderful consumers. Often, we’ll keep friendships as long as we’re getting some benefit from them, but as soon as they become too costly or inconvenient, we won’t invest in them anymore.
Deep friendships help us to grow in maturity in Christ
We want St Andrew’s to be a place where deep spiritual friendships are built. We need one another for support, care, encouragement, accountability, and to be reminded to fix our eyes on Jesus in every season of life. Deep friendships help us to grow in maturity in Christ. However, building these friendships takes time and intentionality. They take a mindset where instead of saying, “Who will love and serve me?”, we say, “Who can I love and serve?”.
One way we try to create space to build these friendships is through events. We provide events for teaching, connection, and community building. Most of these events are for the whole church community, but some of them are aimed either at women or men.
Sometimes people ask, “Why do we have events just for men or women? Why is there this separation?”. It’s partly so that we can provide teaching that’s more relevant and specific to the respective genders and their situation in life. But it’s mostly so that we can provide opportunities for connection with people of the same gender, because deeper spiritual friendships are more appropriate with people of the same gender.
Let me encourage you to be a person who intentionally builds spiritual friendships. Invest the time, hospitality, and emotional availability. Discover the joy and blessing of walking with others as we follow Jesus together.
