One of the things I have appreciated most from my husband is the knowledge that he’s always in my corner. No matter what people say to me or about me, I can always trust that he’s got my back. It’s not that he’s a passive yes-man who tells me what I wanna hear–I can also trust him to be honest. But he’s my personal pep talker. He builds me up and affirms me in all that I do. He helps me to hope and persevere. He speaks truth into my mind and my heart.

As a warrior in a spiritual battle, having a spouse is a major asset. You’re fighting alongside one another, you can protect one another, pick one another up when you fall, and help one another to heal.

Knowing this, I’ve been convicted about the vulnerability of my single friends, who don’t have this same built-in support system. At least, not as frequently. I was reminded of this yesterday as I listened to one of my single friends confess her struggles and pains. She was tempted to believe a whole host of lies about herself, but she lives alone so she is often isolated with these thoughts. Whereas my husband is always right next to me helping me to combat the lies I am tempted to believe, my friend doesn’t have the same resource. As a result, she’s been a lot more vulnerable to attack.

As I listened to her, I was struck by the significance of the marital language used to describe Christ’s relationship with his church. My husband models that relationship for me every day, but not everyone has a supportive husband. In fact, not all married women have supportive husbands. It is in that gap that the church is supposed to step in. Our single friends should not be going it alone. They are still pursued by a Lover, and we serve as His hands and feet. While their relationship status might read “Single,” they’re not really single at all.

The only voice of support that really matters is Christ’s. My husband often serves as a vehicle for that voice, but husbands aren’t the only ones who can. The church can and should as well. As the hands of feet of Christ, we must do the work of the bridegroom in loving his bride. Countless women need to hear truth in the face of lies, insecurities and shame. We should be the bearers of that truth.

So if you have single friends, get involved in their lives! Know what’s going on with them. Don’t hole up in married world and shut them out. They need you as much as you need your husband. Speak truth to them and build them up. That is what it means to be the church to your single friends, so be there for them. Your husband may be your teammate, but we’re all soldiers in the same fight. Make sure you’re not sending your single friends out to battle alone.

Another popular post of mine deals with a very frequent practice among both single men and women. Because it’s so common, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback for helping provide it a name. I should also note that the anonymous friend mentioned at the start of this blog helped me to launch my new blog design!

I am blessed to have a friend in my life who is not inhibited by social graces like tact. If I ever need an opinion, I can depend on him to speak hard truth into my life, generally in the most blunt form possible. Fortunately, he is almost always dead-on in his observations, which is why I go back to him again and again, regardless of the form in which his wisdom is dispensed.

For example, he recently introduced me to a term that I have since found to be both descriptive and extremely accurate. The term is “girlfriend place-holder.”

According to my friend, a lot of guys will have a female friend in their life that functions as a girlfriend in virtually every way–they talk a lot, spend a great deal of one-on-one time together, even go on pseudo-dates and act flirtatious. For all intents and purposes it would seem that the guy is interested, yet he never actually wants to commit. In fact, he never even broaches the topic of dating.

Why? Because, as my friend describes it, this girl is serving as a “girlfriend place-holder.” Though probably doing so unintentionally, some guys will keep a female friend around to hold the place of a girlfriend. In a sense, they are filling their time until they meet the girl they *really* want to date.

As my friend explained it, we all want companionship in some form or another, so even if we haven’t met Mr. or Mrs. Right just yet, many of us will find someone to meet those desires until the “real thing” comes along. And guys aren’t the only ones guilty of doing this. Girls do it just as much. Ladies, I’m sure you can think back to someone in your past, if not someone RIGHT NOW, who is serving as a boyfriend place-holder for you. He’s great because he’ll pay for things when you go out, and he’s always available if you’re bored, but you have absolutely no intention of dating him.

What is interesting about this form of guy-girl relationship is that it is deceptively intimate. Unlike blatant serial flirting in which you can easily spot the players you need to avoid, place-holding seems more real and more deep. After all, it is based upon an actual friendship, so there is more to it than simply having fun.

And that is what often keeps the “place-holders” hanging on so long–because there is depth to the relationship, they hold out hope that sooner or later the guy or girl will snap out of it: “One of these days he’s going to wake up and realize what a good thing he has right in front of him.” That sort of thing. In this way, these relationships can actually result in far greater emotional damage than shallower versions of its kind. Place-holders will more easily open up and make themselves vulnerable since they feel they can trust the other person.

This ultimately leaves the “place-holder” feeling confused and hurt, and sometimes devastated. I have a number of girl friends right now who are in this exact situation. They have a close guy friend that they spend a great deal of time with, but he just won’t commit. In fact, he won’t even bring up any sort of conversation relating to the romantic nature of their relationship. Perhaps the guy is simply afraid of commitment, but in many cases, as my guy friend explains it, these guys have no intention of dating at all. They are unintentionally using these young women as girlfriend place-holders.

Now I think it’s pretty obvious that this kind of relationship is not honoring to the “place-holder” involved, so if you can think of someone in your life who plays that role, then you should seriously consider cutting it off. Even if you are both using each other, and neither person necessarily has the upper hand, you are still not treating them as the brother and sister in Christ that they are. And more importantly, if you think a guy or girl might be treating YOU as a place-holder, then get out of that relationship, and fast! That is NOT how God intended you to be treated–you are to be loved and desired extravagantly, so anyone who makes you feel inadequate or unworthy of love is falling way short of that mark.

In addition to all that, if you have a friend who is treating someone as a place-holder, call them out! Guys, don’t let your friends treat girls that way–if you look the other way when your friends do this, then you are no better than they are since you clearly don’t respect your sister enough to stand up for her. And ladies, the same goes for you. No guy deserves to be strung along, so hold your friends accountable on their behalf.

And finally, don’t forget to reflect on why it is you need a place-holder in the first place. God is always sufficient, so if He hasn’t provided you with a spouse yet, He is still more than enough for you to be content. At the end of the day, that is the key issue here, so be sure not to cover it up with a girlfriend or boyfriend place-holder. Place-holding is little more than the symptom of a dissatisfied heart.

The following is a post I wrote several weeks ago for another blog to which I contribute: Equip. It’s the blog for my church so be sure to check it out!

Several months ago my small group got so big that we had to make a decision: keep accepting new women, or cap it off? We’d been together for years and intimacy is a tough thing to build, so we went with the latter. Cap it.

Shortly thereafter we got an e-mail from one of the group members. She’d decided to break off from the group and start a new one. If we were turning women away, then clearly the church needed more small groups. That’s what she aimed to do.

I eventually had a chance to sit down with her and hear more about her thinking. I was pretty challenged by it. When she started a new group it almost immediately exploded. So much so that they spawned an additional two more groups in the following months. She explained this phenomenon as follows:

“The girls knew from the start that God might call some of them out of the group to start new ones. We were praying for that. But in the mean time we responded to our numbers by asking for a miracle of intimacy. Even though our group was big and no one knew each other, we asked God to provide.”

This idea of praying for a “miracle of intimacy” totally blew my categories. We think of miracles in terms of an inexplicable healing from cancer, or surviving a natural disaster, not small group relationships.

The conversation made me wonder if our pragmatism makes faith unnecessary. As long as we have a system, we don’t have to rely on God to provide. Or when we do seek Him, it’s more of a “Lord, please be present in this” approach. We may exercise faith by acknowledging the need for God’s presence, but are we making room for the miraculous? Are we allowing for God to move in ways that make our systems obsolete?

Planning and organization should not be under-rated. God calls us to be good stewards of what we have. But we go awry when our systems turn into limits on where and how God can move. God can provide a miracle of intimacy in small groups that are busting at the seams. He can multiply the proverbial loaves and fishes of whatever meager resources we have. So rather than work from a theology of scarcity or a ministry driven by pragmatism, we should work from a theology of abundance. We already have more than we will ever need.

I don’t know about you, but as a woman there is one thing that I’ve always felt was lacking in my spiritual life: a mentor. I have wonderful, godly parents and awesome Christian friends, but I’ve always wanted an older woman in my life with whom to have an intentional mentoring relationship, someone who’s a little bit further along in life experience and can challenge me in the face of my spiritual blind spots. I had one in college, but since then I’ve largely been going it solo.

I know I’m not alone in this. A lot of women either yearn for a mentor, or simply desire solid friendships with other women. Maybe you just moved to a new area and you’re having trouble meeting people. Or maybe you’re going through a tough time and you need some women to walk alongside of you and support you. But your church is so big or your schedule is too busy and it’s just not happening.

So we get stuck feeling frustrated. Even hopeless. This is also a time when it’s easy to become bitter towards the church. Why isn’t the church supplying my need? Why aren’t Christians reaching out to me?

In response to these feelings of frustration, a friend of mine recently directed me to a passage of Scripture that was unexpectedly helpful: Luke 1:39-40.

In this passage, Mary has just received some of the scariest news of her life. She is pregnant out of wedlock with the Son of God. Yeah, yikes! On top of all that, she has no idea if Joseph will still marry her, or how she will support herself if he won’t. If there was ever a time when a woman needed another woman’s encouragement, it was then!

So what does Mary do? Does she stay in her house and wait for a woman to come find her? Does she walk by the other women in town with her head hung low, hoping they will notice? No! She seeks a woman out. She leaves town and goes to Elizabeth, a woman “filled with the Holy Spirit” who speaks truth to her and encourages her with the goodness of God’s blessing.

Even in a vulnerable, fragile state, Mary took initiative. She knew that she needed the support of another godly, woman, so she diligently sought it out. She put herself out there. And sometimes that’s what we need to do as well.

Sometimes it can be hard to meet new people, and sometimes we’re so tired and overwhelmed that the last thing we feel like doing is seeking someone out. But Mary’s example reminds us that as much as Christians should be reaching out to people, they don’t have the benefit of God’s omniscience. No Christian woman, no matter how compassionate or discerning, can know all the hurts and needs of those around her unless she is told. This reality puts a burden of responsibility on our own shoulders. We need to initiate.

It can be scary putting yourself out there and sometimes it can take time, but God gave us the church as a resource for life. Take advantage of it! I guarantee there are women at your church or a church near you who would LOVE to be a part of your life–they just haven’t met you yet.

So be like Mary. Be brave. Put yourself out there. If you meet someone new at church, ask her to meet you for coffee. Find out if your church has a small group you can plug into. Be the initiator. And like Mary, you are sure to find women who will spur you on toward Christ and make you feel most “blessed among women.”

Do you feel like you can be honest with your friends about anything? Or are there some things you just can’t share with them? You know it would hurt the friendship or strain the relationship somehow.

I’m not talking about secret sins or vices (though confession is certainly important in friendship). What I’m talking about is honesty at the risk of disagreement. Maybe you’re the only one of your friends who questions the inerrancy of the Bible, or who doesn’t think women should be ordained, or who believes it’s ok if the government allows same-sex unions, or who is a committed Calvinist. If you have any views with which your friends might disagree, can you talk about them?

In my experience, this hasn’t always been the case in my friendships. I have learned, over time, that there are certain taboo topics that cannot be raised. Depending on which circle of friends I am in, I’ve learned to avoid voicing my complete thoughts on subjects that would earn me an accusing look that says, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were on that team.” Immediately, I’m made to feel like less of a pure Christian. By voicing my opinion or question, the entire legitimacy of my salvation suddenly falls into question.

And just to be clear, this experience has transpired with both conservative Christian friends AND liberal Christian friends. And I’m sure I’ve even done it to others as well.

When we respond to theological questions and opinions in a manner that draws relational lines in the sand, we teach one another to be less honest. We also learn to only be friends with people who are as closely aligned with our own views as possible, which stifles growth and can be a deceptive form of intimacy.

Now that is not to say we shouldn’t be friends with people who share the same values. As Christians, the Bible tells us to fellowship with other Christians, not for the sake of feeding off one another’s same-mindedness, but to encourage, affirm and guard one another’s faith. Christ-centered fellowship is crucial for discipleship.

But most of us will never find anyone, including our own spouses, with whom we will ALWAYS agree. So the question is: Are you using your differences to increase the depth of your friendship, or are you avoiding tough conversations, thereby resulting in a superficial intimacy?

I recently heard a theologian commend Catholicism for promoting a unity so strong that Catholics can fight with another without causing division. I kind of like that idea. What if we loved one another so well that we could fight about something (respectfully, of course) without fear of being rejected as a friend? This kind of honesty has got to exist in marriage if there is to be any intimacy or trust in the relationship, by why not friendship too?

Christian friendships of this type require two things of us:

1. The courage to be vulnerable when you’re in the minority. It’s scary to put yourself out there when you think others will disagree with you or judge you. But if you never do this, then your friends don’t really know you either. In the interest of authentic relationships, be the first to set an example of soul-bearing intimacy.

2. Be the kind of friend with whom others can be honest about themselves. Be humble. Listen. Don’t make snap judgments. Even if your friend confesses an opinion you consider to be the most blasphemous thing you’ve ever heard, they’ll never talk to you about it again if you proceed to explain exactly how they’re wrong. We need to love other people so profoundly that they feel the freedom to openly process their thoughts and questions. When we do this in community we make accountability possible, rather than forcing people to mull over their ideas in unmonitored isolation.

Talk about this with your closest friends. What exactly is your relationship based upon? Unwavering agreement on all issues? Or unwavering love for God and one another? In John 13:35 Jesus said that the world will know we’re his disciples by our love for one another. Love has never implied the absence of conflict, but the transcendence of it.

 In my last post I explored the thinking behind women who would rather hang out with men than women. As the logic goes, women are too dramatic, emotional, boring, etc. For this and many other reasons, “low maintenance women” don’t want to put up with their “high maintenance” counter-parts.

As I concluded in the last post, this mindset has some troubling implications. When we paint all women in such a negative light, we’re no different than male chauvinists who do the same. We are female chauvinists. And this has theological implications. Rather than seeing women as having been made in the image of God and honoring Scriptural teachings that encourage women to fellowship with one another (Titus 2), we resort to superficial stereotypes that ultimately demean one another, and consequently dishonor God.

With all of that in mind, there is a second dynamic in play here. While a lot of women legitimately struggle to make female friends (perhaps they grew up with 4 brothers and that’s where they fit best!), we risk more than theological error here. There is a second dynamic, and it’s relational.

For some women, the excuse for avoiding female friendships can be a smokescreen for a relational dysfunction. Some women prefer male friendships because they like the attention. Plain and simple. They like thinking of themselves as “one of the guys,” the one girl that her guy friends can relate to. Unlike “those other girls,” she really gets them. It is a way for women to feel special or set apart. They’re not just like every other girl.

This is a need that exists within every woman. We all want to feel unique, and we seek to fulfill it in different ways. But rejecting female friendships should not be one of them. While male friendships are important, they also have to evolve in a way that female relationships don’t . As your male friends get married, or if you get married, you cannot be friends with them the way you were before. In fact, if your guy friends are even dating someone then you need to back off, and that can be a painful change. It can also be hurtful when your close guy friends choose to date other women, but never look your way.

These are obstacles that female friendships don’t encounter. That’s why emotional intimacy with a male friend puts you at greater risk than emotional intimacy with a woman. But more importantly, we should never tear down other women as a means for hiding our own idolatry. If you’re using male friends to fill a void in your life, don’t shift the blame.

So yes, it is perfectly fine to have male friends with whom you can fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes it’s great to have a guy friend who can give you brotherly advice or a male perspective. But you need a support system of women as well. Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” We typically interpret this verse in the context of dating, but it’s an important filter for friendships too. Be sure you’re entrusting your heart to friends for whom your motives are clear and emotional intimacy will always be appropriate.

With all of this in mind, examine your motives and the nature of your friendships with men. Are you good friends with a man because you’re secretly hoping it will turn into something more? Are you close to a man as a means for filling some need for male attention? Or are you avoiding female friendships because of pride? Do you see yourself as somehow better or more grounded than most women? No matter your relationship status, this is an important issue for all of us.

A couple years ago I came to the conclusion that, on the whole, men are funnier than women. I know a lot of guys that are side-splittingly hilarious, but I don’t know many women who are. In fact, whenever I do meet a woman who I think is genuinely funny, I work as hard as I can to be friends with her and keep her around me.

In sharing this quirk about myself I’m not trying to sound like a jerk. I’m sharing it because this mindset is pretty common among women. While the preference for male friendship may not be as specific as humor, a lot of women prefer male friendships to female. Usually the reasoning is something along the lines of, “I tend to have more guy friends than girl friends. Girls are so catty or dramatic. Guys aren’t like that.” Either you or someone you know has uttered those very words. Am I right?

Having confessed that I myself have shared these sentiments, I believe this logic is a total cop-out and is insulting to women. More specifically, it has two very troubling implications. The first is theological, and the second is relational. In this post I will cover the theological implications of this issue. In my next post I will cover the relational.

Theological

To understand the problematic theology behind this thinking, we have to begin with the mindset behind it. This mindset is based on sweeping stereotypes about women, and we know this for two reasons. First, the numbers don’t compute. I know a LOT of women who use the above excuse for not hanging out with other women. Yet if that many of us truly feel this way, if that many of us are genuinely looking for drama-free relationships, then why haven’t we been able to find each other? It’s not like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. Yes, some women are catty and dramatic, but there are also a lot of women who aren’t. Especially in the church! If you can’t find female friends with a good head on their shoulders, then you’re probably not looking hard enough.

Second, the above excuse is based on the fallacy that only women are dramatic. I know plenty of men who are dramatic. Drama is not an exclusively female attribute. Men can still be moody, condescending, or lash out in fear. Not because they’re less manly, but because they’re sinners. As sinners, we are all subject to fits of craziness. We’ve all done it. And while women are admittedly prone to be more emotional, that emotion can often manifest itself in the form of warmth, kindness, hospitality, empathy, or a listening ear. Neither emotion nor femaleness equals drama.

In other words, women are avoiding other women as a result of unjustifiable stereotypes. We’re making giant claims about one another that can’t hold up. While personality differences prevent us from connecting with everyone, it’s absurd to write off ALL women based on sweeping generalizations. That would be like a single woman refusing to befriend married women because “they all just want to be housewives and churn out babies.” Sure, there are married women like that, but are they all like that? Heck no.

In the face of these stereotypes, we reveal the true spirit of what we’re saying. We’re really no better than chauvinistic men who stereotype women in insulting ways. We are female chauvinists.

Now if you look up the word “chauvinism” in the dictionary, it’s defined as a “prejudiced belief in the superiority of one’s own gender, group, or kind.” Given that definition of chauvinism, it would seem impossible for women to be chauvinists about other women. But this definition actually sheds light on the female chauvinist mentality. Women who don’t like other women often distance themselves from their gender, as if they’re somehow less a part of it. “I fit better with men.” They are attempting to judge from the outside. These women have stereotyped femininity so profoundly that their personal aversion to drama and gossip is interpreted as being less female. To be drama-free is to be less of a woman.

At this point we need to stop and consider what a negative conception of femininity this is! Do we really believe this about God’s design for women? Perhaps not consciously, but that is where that logic takes us.

As the crown of God’s creation, this kind of chauvinism against women hardly seems justifiable, or Biblical. We need to be aware of the statements that our actions are making. To define all women according to some negative attribute is to make a theological statement, because it makes a statement about the Maker. It is to either call God’s creation of women imperfect or unoriginal (since you’re assuming ALL women are dramatic girly-girls), or to make women out to be more fallen than men. According to Scripture, this cannot be so.

Be careful about the statements you make about other women, and make sure they are consistent with God’s words about women. As women we have a vested interest in glorifying God through our femininity. This not only means we honor God with our own lives, but we build up the women around us as well. I don’t mean to underestimate the difficulty that some women genuinely have in finding solid, female friendships, but I promise those women are out there. God created us in all shapes and sizes, so ask Him and He will provide. Just be sure not to slander the glorious creation of God’s precious daughters in the process. We will never be best friends with everyone, but the girly-girl who likes to wear pink and the tom-boy who likes to go four-wheeling can all glorify God equally. We need to celebrate that fact, and celebrate the creative God who blessed this world with so many different reflections of Him.

*For an interesting secular take on this topic, check out Ariel Levy’s “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture”

Cliques.

This is a word that instantly generates feelings of annoyance and disdain. We all knew those girls in high school, that group in college, maybe even some people at your church right now. Few things feel worse than being excluded from those tightly-knit groups who so ably highlight our inadequacies. And that is why we hate them.

I still remember sitting in my Middle School cafeteria the day my best friend moved on to a better group. Even though we’d been inseparable for years, I’d seen the move coming for weeks. She’d been spending more and more time with those “other girls,” and then came the day when she sat down at their table for lunch. I asked her to come sit with me, and she gave me the “please don’t talk to me anymore” look. Brutal.

(Of course I can’t really blame her. She was blossoming into the most gorgeous girl in our school, while I simultaneously spiraled into the depths of what I call me “awkward phase.”)

Because of stories just like mine, we all detest cliques. We’ve all been excluded at one time or another, and many of us still bear the scars from those emotional blows.

But is there more to it than that? Aside from the way cliques make us feel, is there something inherent about their very nature that we should avoid? What does Scripture have to say about this rampant social practice? After all, we may have been hurt by a clique, but we’ve probably been in a clique as well. What might God think about this?

Well to find the answer, we can look at the very first clique in the Bible, and it’s found in Genesis 11. In this chapter, we see the people of Babel growing in number, as well as pride. They have deceived themselves into thinking they can attain equality with God, so they set out to build a tower that will reach to the heavens. God told them to be fruitful and multiply, but they instead hunker down and stick together. They have bigger fish to fry than simply multiplying. They have the rep of the group to protect.

And what is God’s response to this? It goes as follows: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” (v. 6) So He confuses their language and scatters them all over the earth.

What exactly did God mean by that statement? Nothing will be impossible for them? Did He really mean that nothing at all would be impossible? That they could really become like God Himself if they merely stuck together? I don’t think so.

What God meant by those words was that no evil would be impossible for them. Already they were seeking to replace God, and they were only just beginning. Clearly, no act of disobedience was out of bounds, so what would be next??

This is the danger of the in-group mentality. It is a mentality in which the self-preservation of the group is put first and foremost ahead of every other concern. And when this happens, all other people, interests, or causes are subordinated to the well-being of the group. We have seen the in-group at its worst during the Holocaust and the practice of slavery. We even see it in Christian cliques when pastors and prophetic voices are driven out of their churches for reasons having nothing to do with Christ.

In-groups mentalities are therefore extremely destructive because they use peer pressure to get the whole group to act, at which point their collective actions become all the more powerful. If you don’t go along with the group, you risk being shunned, thereby making it very difficult to change them.

So the larger these in-groups get, the more dangerous they become, which is why God scattered them. As the group gets larger it gains momentum, growing faster and faster. And as this growth transpires, it gains increasing man-power to promote its cause.

God knew all of those things, and foresaw the potential destructiveness of this in-group mentality, which is why He responded so definitively. If left unchecked, there was no end to the evil they could accomplish.

That said, beware of cliques–and by that I don’t mean avoid people who are in them. Rather, don’t be in one yourself. When we are in a clique, we fall prey to the in-group peer pressure, and subsequently hurt others. What’s worse is that these cliques often prevent us from even caring if we trample those around us. We find ways to rationalize why we are so exclusive–”I do hang out with other people…sometimes;” “We tried hanging out with her but she’s just so hard to talk to;” “She’s just at a different stage in life than the rest of us, so she should find someone her own age to hang out with.” All of these are justifications for exclusion, exclusion that wounds and destroys.

How do you know if you’re in a clique? Some of the tell-tale signs include the way you spend your time–do you make an effort to hang out with anyone else, or do you only hang out with one specific group of friends who also happen to be exactly like you? Also, what do other people think about the group? Odds are if you’re in a clique, then people have mentioned it to you before. Listen to them. And finally, has anyone been hurt because of the group dynamic? And by that I mean has anyone felt intentionally excluded. Although friendships are never perfect, which means people will inevitably get hurt from time to time, the group’s willingness or unwillingness to make amends and include them in the future reveals a lot.

If you find yourself in a group that fits any of those qualifications, then you need to do one of two things–talk to the group and make an effort to change, or start making new friends. Cliques can be spiritually toxic, so if your friends are resistant to change then you need to switch social circles.

Instead, resolve to be outwardly focused. God called us to be fruitful and multiply, and this command applies to more than mere procreation. We need to multiply spiritually, we need to be adding to our number daily those who are being saved, as well as making our Christian friendships more fruitful. Reach out to the people in your church, dorm or workplace who need a friend, and reach out to those in the community that the socio-economic in-group has marginalized. This practice will generally take us out of our comfort zones, but if the people of Babel teach us nothing else, it is that we can either take ourselves out of the clique, or God will do it for us.

Facebook in Real Life:

(This video comes from a British comedy group called Idiots of Ants)

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I still remember the first time I heard about Facebook. Some college students were explaining it to me, and in their minds it was really just a socially acceptable way of stalking people. I, of course, thought that sounded really weird and vowed never to join Facebook.

Well about 4 years later I am a Facebook junkie. I’m on it all the time, and I definitely stalk people….not in a creepy way, but in a “I need to find better things to do with my time” sort of way. I’m quite certain that if I tallied up the number of hours I spend looking at other people’s photos each week, I could have attained another educational degree by now.

But aside from the enormous time suck that Facebook is on our lives, there is something that concerns me even more–how self-involved it has become. While Facebook is a great means for keeping in touch and it has other valuable purposes as well, Facebook tempts our self-absorption with the opportunity to create a space that’s “all about me.”

What results is a near shrine to the self:

These are pictures of my happy life. These are fun facts and interesting quotes that make me so unique. And here is my relationship status, which I change every time my dating life undergoes the slightest alteration. And don’t forget my Facebook status, which enables people to follow MY EVERY MOVE.

There’s a part of me that wonders if this behavior is a result of living in a paparazzi culture in which the intimate details of celebrity lives are splashed all over the internet. There’s an extent to which we emulate those individuals we idolize. It’s like creating our own personal celebrity.

But on a more basic human sin level, Facebook (and Twitter as well) has largely become an altar for our pride. Again, it’s not that any of these technological innovations are inherently bad–they can all be used in the service of God. But are they most of the time? No. They are used in service to us.

I was talking to a friend the other day who was telling me why she got off Twitter. Apparently she was following a few people, but her phone was vibrating all the time with these updates, updates which were frequently pointless and a waste of her time. And not only that, but the updates started to make her feel bad about her own life, and her singleness in particular. Many of the updates went along the lines of “Out on a date with my beautiful wife” or “I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful woman.”

While I don’t doubt that the Twitterer was trying to honor his wife, I can’t help but wonder if there was also a little pride mixed in as well. When I examine my own motives in using Facebook, I find they are often competitive. I want people to know how good and happy my life is, so I post photos to essentially brag about it. And if I’m going somewhere or doing something that I think will make people envious, it goes straight to my status update.

The reason this competitive spirit can be so subtle is that we describe this behavior as simply “sharing with friends.” It wouldn’t be weird for me to tell my roommates where I’m going over the weekend, especially if I was excited about it. What might be weird is if I called up all my friends simply to tell them that I was vacationing in Florida for a week. They would probably wonder why I was calling just to tell them that. They might even feel a little put off by it. Yet in some cases, that’s essentially what Facebook does.

And in doing so, we can use Facebook in ways that not only alienate others, but tear others down. In case this idea sounds a bit abstract, think about it this way–Consider the Christian woman who spends hours getting ready for church in the morning so that she can look perfect. She not only does this to look nice for church, but feel confident and to feel better about herself. Yet in doing so, she sends a message to all the women around her who did not put that much time into their exterior, and do not look as good. The women who look up to her will suddenly find themselves feeling insecure, like they don’t measure up.

We can pull off this same phenomenon with Facebook. The more time we spend glamorizing our lives and broadcasting the things that make us look good, the more we convey to others where our real security lies.

So while I don’t think we should all swear off Facebook, and there are certainly Christ-centered ways of using it, I personally am not a great example of that. This is an area in which I must constantly check my own motives, especially given that hundreds of people can be impacted by such public choices. If you’ve spent any time “stalking” other people on Facebook then you KNOW other people are stalking you, so when they visit your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter, what are they REALLY learning about your life? What message are you sending? What is truly the center of your life?

The best rule of thumb for this, and really all areas of our lives, is to ask the following question: “In posting this, writing this, or spending countless hours following others who do, am I loving God and am I loving my neighbor?” If you cannot answer a definitive yes, then it’s best not to do it at all. That might sound harsh, but it draws a dividing line between real friendship, real Christian community, and a way of relating to others that is inherently fake.

I’m starting to think the phrase “That is SO high school” is kind of a misnomer. We have somehow gotten this crazy idea that catty, dramatic, over-obsessing about minuscule, superficial matters is somehow a uniquely high school behavior.

Yet the older I get, the more I realize it’s not. Such behavior only begins in high school. For many people, the phase never really ends.

No matter the age, you can always find people who thrive on drama. It’s almost as if some women don’t know how to function without it. Maybe a woman’s best friend is hanging out with a guy she don’t like, or maybe she dislikes another woman because she looked at her the wrong way in the hallway or she didn’t say “hello” or her tone of voice always “seems fake.”

This even goes on in churches….correction: it especially goes on in churches! Several girls may have a crush on the same guitar player, so they pick apart the woman he chooses to date. Small group Bible studies morph into exclusive cliques. A woman’s devotion to Christ is questioned by those around her because of the size of her house, or because her parenting style doesn’t fit the typical Christian mold.

The list goes on and on. If you are a woman, chances are there is chattering of this sort happening in your immediate vicinity. We women feed on it.

Even though we’ve probably all contributed to this nonsense at some time or another, many of us feel more like prisoners of war than willing combatants. The substance of these arguments is often so ludicrous and inconsequential that you just want to bang your head against a wall!

But in response to many of the young ladies who come to my office and complain about the drama going on around them, feeling completely frustrated and helpless to stop it, I usually have one thing to say: You have drama in your life because you choose to.

Proverbs 26:20 tells us, “Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.” In short, drama only survives if you feed it. Bickering, quarreling, back-biting and gossip–drama–is like a fire that will consume whatever it can. It will consume your time, your conversations, your thought life, all your energy, and eventually your community as well. And like a fire, the trick to extinguishing it is to cut off its nourishment. To end drama, you have to starve it.

This strategy has 2 key applications–

Number one: Don’t participate in an argument that isn’t your own. If one of your friends comes to you with a problem about another girl, feel free to listen, but don’t reinforce her self-righteousness. Every story has two sides, so it’s very dangerous, if not counter-productive, to give advice when you’ve only heard one perspective. Instead, encourage your friend to go directly to the person involved. If it is between two people, it should stay that way.

I have a roommate who is particularly good about this. She is perhaps the most discreet person I know, and she has no tolerance for drama. After having lived with her for 2 years, I now know better than to try and gossip about someone in her presence. If I do, she will offer nothing to the conversation, and she’ll eventually change the subject. Her discretion has served as a safeguard against drama in our house, and our surrounding relationships.

Number two: If you are directly involved in the drama, don’t involve anyone else in the situation. Go straight to the person or people who have hurt you, and gently communicate your feelings. If they refuse to listen, then you need to forgive them and move on. Don’t talk to other people about it. Don’t try to get other people on your side. Just leave it behind you in God’s hands, and consider whether there might be a better friend group for you.

I know this last part may seem extreme, but if you have friends that are constantly producing drama, beware of their influence on you! Just as Scripture tells us that a little bit of yeast ruins the whole batch of dough (1 Cor. 5:6) your friends’ behavior WILL pull you down. It is only a matter of time.

So if you have drama in your life, consider whether you are contributing to it. Not all drama is a result of your own actions, but most of us contribute at least a bit. And the greatest tragedy of all is that while we waste hours, days, months and years arguing about cliques, fighting over guys, and gossiping behind one another’s backs, we ignore the dying around us. Instead of bringing hope to the lost, we are focused on ourselves and our own problems. People are going to Hell, but we are so concerned with how short Jennifer’s dress was at church this morning, that we lose sight of the things that truly matter.

That is the real problem with drama–it’s nothing but a distraction from our true calling–to be ministers of the Gospel. So consider how you spend your time. Is drama preventing you from sharing the light of Christ with a dark and dying world? If so, it doesn’t have to stay that way. If drama only survives when it is fed, then you have some choices to make.