Fifteen years ago, as I moved three hours away from my closest friends, I remembered what one of them had told me. He and his wife had moved across the country to spend two years completing graduate school. As they drove to this new place, they cried because of the deep friendships they were leaving behind. As they wept, they prayerfully resolved that in two years – when they would have to leave the new place they were now arriving at – they would have given themselves so fully to friendships in the church, that they would weep once again as they left.

This is exactly what happened. Across those two years I saw them open their lives, their hearts, and their home to church members of various ages, and they eventually moved away with tears that bore testimony to the rich friendships they forged.

Now I was leaving, doing the very American thing of picking up sticks and setting out for a new place. As I journeyed into my own unknown relational future, I resolved to do the same as they had: to give myself to these new people completely. It started out lonely, but I knew I was joining a church where God would provide.

We live in perhaps the most connected, disconnected moment in history. Many studies show what we already know from experience – our pervasive friendlessness – now known as a loneliness epidemic – has led to increasing rates of depression and anxiety. Often Christians and churches are marked by this very same loneliness and isolation. But Jesus came as the great friend of sinners, and he did so not just to restore us to a saving relationship with himself, but to cultivate communities of true friendship with one another. Friendship is an essential element of a healthy, joy-filled church. A church without deep friendships fails to fulfill Jesus’ central command for it, misses a central means of building itself up, and hinders its urgent witness. It turns into a weekly event or a series of well-run programs while missing the joy and strengthening power of shared life.

What is friendship – true friendship, distinct from mere acquaintanceship or smothering and unhealthy codependent relationships? True friendship is a close relationship marked by love and loyalty. It is an ever-deepening bond forged between people as they journey through life with truth and trust.

Notice what striking and strong language the Bible uses to describe this kind of relationship. In Deuteronomy 13:6 Moses warns against being led astray by those who are closest to us: “your brother, the son of your mother, your son or daughter, the wife of your bosom,” and ends with what Moses seems to regard as the closest relationship of all, “your friend who is as your own soul.” This suggests a deep oneness at the heart of the closest of friendships.

This kind of friend “loves at all times” (Prov. 17:17) – not only when convenient, but also when costly. Not merely in times of laughter, but also of lament. This is a friendship of loyalty, for Proverbs commands us, “do not forsake your friend” (27:10). It is a shared journey through the sunlit hills and the darkest valleys of life. Friends stay close to one another through job loss, cancer diagnoses, and seasons of depression or anxiety.

Friendship is one of life’s greatest gifts, available to everyone. However, its deepest expression is only possible between Christians who are also united together to the Friend of sinners. A church filled with these kinds of friendships will be the most relationally thick community in the world.

This is, in fact, the kind of community Jesus taught his people to cultivate. Jesus makes true friendship an essential part of the Christian life. On his final evening with his disciples before his death, he gave them a “new command” – to love one another as he has loved them (John 15:12). Many Christians overlook the distinct, particular way that Jesus defined this love. When he clarified what he meant, he did so in terms of friendship: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (15:13). He does not leave this love command ambiguous – he calls us Christians to one another in terms of sacrificial friendship. And this is what he modeled for us, for after he gives this love command and defines it in terms of laying down one’s life for friends, he says to his disciples, “you are my friends” (15:14). He did this for us, now he calls us to reflect this sacrificial friendship of love to one another.

He is giving a vision for life in the local church. We are to receive his friendship and love and then reflect it to one another. Every local church is to cultivate a gospel culture of true friendship.

What does this look like when it’s lived out in a church? Acts 2 provides a snapshot of what the first local church looked like. We do not find a mere weekly event attended by acquaintances. We find a community of deep relationships. They “devoted themselves” to fellowship (Acts 2:42). We learn that “all who believed were together and had all things in common” (2:44; 4:32). It was a proverb, a stock phrase: “amicorum esse communia omnia”; (among friends, all things are in common). Luke, the author of Acts, shows us a community in which this proverbial wisdom, this stock phrase, is being lived out. He does this again when he describes church members as being “of one heart and soul” (4:32). This is the vision of Jesus being worked out in the early church.

Jesus did not come to just forgive our sins, but to bring us into deep friendship with himself and other believers. He came to create new communities that reflect his befriending love.

Here’s what it does not look like: it does not look like isolated individuals attending a weekly event together. Nor does it look like isolated cliques of a few friends who keep a tight boundary around their group so no one else can enter. Instead, this gets worked out in a church that is filled with clusters of overlapping relationships. Not individual links on a chain, with everyone connected to just one or two other people. More like a piece of cloth, with every thread weaving through many others. Every thread does not connect with every other thread the same amount, but each thread connects with many others, and together they form a beautiful fabric. No thread is isolated, no section of threads is cut off from the rest – but all are deeply connected to several, such that they are bound together.

What does this look like in our lives? On fifty or so occasions in the New Testament, either Jesus or one of his apostles tells the church to do something with, for, or to “one another.” It’s a single word in Greek: allélón. We are to “be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50); “be of the same mind with one another” (Rom. 12:16); “accept one another” (Rom. 15:7); “be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving to one another” (Eph. 4:32), and more. What this looks like is these “one another” commands getting worked out in the ordinary rhythms of everyday life. It looks like my friend who said he noticed I seemed a bit down and wondered how I was doing – then, listening carefully to my response, expressed understanding rather than offering a quick fix. It looks like the summer when a handful of church members took turns mowing the lawn of a man whose cancer had progressed. It looks like a young couple who, after the birth of their daughter, received meals for the next three months – and not just mac and cheese, but steak and salmon. It looks like four men getting together for an evening bonfire, and inviting another member whom they know does not yet have many friends. It looks like two women inviting a third out to dinner because they know she has been having a hard time at work. It looks like two men who, in addition to other enjoyable times getting together, also meet every other week for coffee to share the state of their souls, confess sin to one another, and pray for one another. It looks like seven women renting a home for a weekend to get away, laugh, and talk together about the important matters of life. It looks like a group of eight men and women reading a Scripture-saturated book and meeting to share insights and encouragement. It looks like two women taking a walk together, with one sharing a current difficulty in marriage, and the other listening and offering biblical wisdom to help.

The “one anothers” in the New Testament cannot be meaningfully fulfilled in a church without close friendship. You cannot bear the burdens of forty, or one hundred, or three hundred other people. But you can do this with a few. You cannot meaningfully fulfill the command to “exhort one another every day” (Heb. 3:13) with several dozen other church members. But you can do this with a few. A church that has a network of overlapping relationships can live out the “one anothers” in deeply meaningful ways.

This call also applies to church leaders. Pastoral leadership does not, and should not, be lonely. Church leaders are not just to teach the “one anothers” to the church but also to model them. It hinders a pastor’s ministry if he teaches on community but lives in isolation. Besides failing to provide an example of his teaching, he also misses out on one of the most important means to cultivate a joyful, sustainable ministry. Jesus himself was a man of friendship – he had his closest three (Peter, James, and John), his twelve, and then many friendships beyond them – like his friend Lazarus (John 11:11). The apostle Paul enjoyed deep friendships and often traveled with a ministry team. He mentions over eighty people by name across his letters, often including side notes that indicate how close some of these relationships were. For example, he calls certain people beloved (Rom. 16:5, 9); he says one couple risked their necks for his life (16:3); and he refers to a woman who was like a mother to him (16:13). Elders, pastors, and church leaders have inherited this great ministry model from Jesus and Paul. In my own life, many of the men and women I serve with are very close friends. Our shared life makes ministry a joy.

A church flourishes when it’s filled with friendships. When Christians live in such close, meaningful connection with one another, they build one another up in the faith. They model the life of discipleship for one another. So much of Christian growth happens through example. When we are close enough to see a brother walk through trials, we learn to prepare for our own. When we see a Christian friend give generously and sacrificially, we are inspired to be more generous in our own lives. When a family invites us into their home for a meal – in a busy season of life, with the home imperfectly kept up – we get a realistic vision for how we can become more hospitable as well.

This kind of church will also have a beautiful and compelling witness in the world. This is especially true in a culture where isolation and loneliness are prevalent. This was one of Jesus’ purposes in commanding his people to live with this kind of friendship. When he gave the greatest of the “one another” commands, the new commandment to love one another as he loved us – and, as we saw, to do so in terms of sacrificial friendship – he said this is what will convince the world that we are his disciples (John 13:35). Jesus prayed for his people, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.” Why? “So that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). This oneness, this unity, is another way of referring to the friendship-love that he called his people to enjoy earlier. It is through our unity of friendship that the world will be convinced that the gospel we proclaim is true. Jesus came to create communities where the shared lives are so beautiful that it leads people to conclude Jesus really is the friend of sinners. In other words, a church’s culture of friendship is itself an apologetic for the gospel.

These friendships will look different for each person, and they will change shape in various seasons of life. But in every case, they require time and intentionality. I may have responsibilities with work, school, or a family – but I must also create space for friendship. I can learn to come early to a church gathering, and then linger longer – inviting people into conversation, asking good questions about their lives. I can schedule a regular coffee or meal with close friends. As members of Christ’s church, we can look for ways to to “show hospitality to one another” (Rom. 12:13), “encourage one another” (Heb. 10:25), and “outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:10).

Fifteen years ago I entered a new town and new church where I didn’t have any deep friendships. Now, I look back over these years and see how richly God provided. I think of the brothers with whom I regularly enjoy time around a fire; the members of my small group, who have encouraged and prayed with me for years; my eighty-five-year-old friend who has been one of the greatest encouragers in my life. My fellow pastors and elders don’t just serve with me, but know me and love me deeply.

The great Friend of sinners has befriended us and given us the local church – a community of true friendship. He invites us – commands us, even – to fully engage in this rich life of deep community in the midst of a culture of loneliness.