Building Spiritual Friendship Part 3: Men, You need a Sparring Partner

There is a Saturday Night Live sketch worth watching on YouTube. A woman is fed up with her boyfriend and decides to take him to a ‘manpark’ where he can hang out and ‘play’ with other men. This is the sad condition of men in the modern world. Our loneliness is so obvious that it has become a satirical theme on late night comedy shows. Yet, in truth, the situation is anything but funny. There are multiple reasons why men in the 21st century are overwhelmed by anxiety, depression, anger, and addiction. Among them is an epidemic of loneliness that affects men – not only outside of the church – but also inside of it.

In this series of articles we are looking at different traits of spiritual friendship. The key idea is that, men don’t just need friends, they need spiritual friends. In other words, they need a quality of friendship that, not only fulfills some desire for companionship, but also spurs men along a path to spiritual maturity.

Now in order to get such spiritual encouragement, every Christian man should look for a friend who will be a kind of spiritual sparring partner. The image of a sparring partner is worth pausing to consider. It pulls together several ideas that will help men think about the nature of spiritual friendship.

First, a sparring partner is invested in the same sport. No one would go to a country club in order to find a sparring partner for the boxing ring. If someone is looking to improve as a boxer, there is one place he should go to find a sparring partner, a boxing gym.

The same is true spiritually. One of the key traits of spiritual friendship is that such friends are pursuing a common objective. The difference between mere friendship and spiritual friendship is that spiritual friends are seeking to grow spiritually. The activity they are committed to first and foremost is the pursuit of holiness.

Second, a sparring partner is someone who shares a weight class and, typically, is at a similar level of skill or development. One doesn’t usually stick a professional with an amateur. Sparring partners are matched because they are able to challenge each other at a similar level of proficiency.

There is a spiritual lesson to be learned from this. Although men need a variety of different types of relationships in their lives, there is something valuable about having a spiritual friend who is at a similar stage of spiritual growth. Such friends will be able to encourage one another in a different way than happens through coaching and mentorship. They will more readily identify with each other’s struggles and be able to feel the camaraderie of working through like challenges and temptations.

Third, a sparring partner is someone who is willing to challenge a man while always keeping his best interest in view. Whereas in a competition, a boxer is trying to knock out his opponent, while sparring, the goal is for each fighter to improve in skill and ability.

This touches upon a vital aspect of spiritual friendship. Spiritual friends are not playing a zero-sum game in which, for ‘me’ to win, ‘you’ must lose. On the contrary, the ideal of spiritual friendship is for each friend to achieve as much growth as possible. If a spiritual friend sees transformation occurring in the life of another man, he does not feel frustration or envy. Rather, he rejoices at every indication of growth. The ultimate goal of spiritual friendship is not for ‘me’ to be champion of the world, but for each friend to advance as far as possible to the fullness and stature of Christ – who is, after all, the indisputable champion of the world.

For more thoughts on how to find a friend who will be a sparring partner, listen to the Cross Training podcast episode here:

Building Spiritual Friendship Part 2: Men, You Need a Friend Who Is a Lie-Detective

We’re all professional hypocrites. It’s one of the most important skills that we develop in the social world.

It’s worth recalling that the word hypocrite comes from a very old Greek word that referred to wearing a mask. In ancient Greece, actors always wore masks when they were on stage. This is why they were called ‘hypocrites’. To be an actor was to be a mask-wearer. This was Jesus’ indictment against the Pharisees. They were hypocrites because, for all intents and purposes, they went about Israel pretending to be one thing (righteous, holy, pious, law-keepers), but in actuality being something else (selfish, greedy, proud, lustful).

Now everyone in the modern world is a mask-wearer (and I’m not just talking about the cloth kind!). If we are honest, we have to wear masks. Just imagine what would happen if a typical man showed up at work on a Monday expressing on his face everything that he felt inside his heart. What if he simply allowed his frustration, exhaustion, or shame to be unleased like a flood on everyone he met at the office or on the construction site? At best, his colleagues would avoid him. At worst, he’d lose his job.

But there is an even deeper problem than the necessity of being a mask-wearer in public space. The truth is that most of the people we label friends actually prefer the fake ‘me’ to the real ‘me’. Anyone who doubts this can try a simple experiment. Next time someone at church or in the workplace asks the question, ‘How are you?’ answer honestly. Take a minute and pour out some of the sewage that is flowing through your heart. The shock and discomfort on the face of the other person will say everything you need to know. More than likely, like billboard their face will express a simple message: too much information.

Men, we need to recognize both facets of the problem: (1) we’re far too comfortable in our masks and (2) very few people care enough about us to want to see the naked truth of our lives.

The Importance of Having a Friend Who Is a Lie-Detective

As Christians, we need to realize that the stakes of this problem are much more significant than making friends and influencing people. Mask-wearing is not just a psychological or social illness. It’s a high-risk spiritual liability. The truth is that every man is in a life-or-death battle with Satan, temptation, and sinful passions warring against our souls (1 Pet. 2:11). To wear a mask is to live in a kind of spiritual darkness – the exact conditions where sin and Satan do their dirtiest work. Therefore, we need our masks to come off for one, most significant reason: ‘God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship while we walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth’ (I Jn. 1:5-6). At the end of the day, we can lie to our boss; we can lie to our pastor; we can even lie to ourselves. But we cannot lie to God. He sees the truth of our lives regardless of how good at acting we are before the eyes of men. And as John says so clearly, we cannot have fellowship with God if we are living in the darkness.

So, what can we do to overcome our habit of mask-wearing? One of the most important steps we can take is to find a friend who is a lie-detective. There are three primary traits that identify such a friend.

First, this is friend who cares enough about me to want to see beneath my mask. He wants to spend time with me, not just because I’m funny on the golf course, but because he cares about my soul.

Second, this is a friend who can detect when I am putting on my mask. He can spot the discrepancy between the superficial and the real, and he is unwilling to ignore the tension.

Third, this is a friend who has sufficient courage and interest to ask questions that force me to take off my mask and communicate the real self who is trying to hide in darkness. Just as God used questions to summon Adam out of his hiding place, this friend pulls me out of the darkness by asking good questions and sifting the answers.

Such a spiritual friend is a lie-detective. Every Christian man needs to make sure that he has at least one of these in his band of brothers.

For more insight on how to find a friend who is a lie-detective, listen to episode 2 of season 1 of the Cross Training podcast.

Building Spiritual Friendship Part 1: Men, You Need a Complacency Cop in Your Life

Here is a dilemma: most men know that they need better friendships; however, they aren’t quite sure what kind of friendship to look for. On the one hand, they feel the shallowness of their relationships with other guys. On the other, they’ve never experienced anything more than a friendship based on watching football or working together on a construction site.

In truth, this is more than a dilemma; it’s a problem. If men don’t have a clear blueprint of spiritual friendship, inevitably, they are going to struggle to build one. There is a reason that IKEA furniture is so popular. If you purchase a bookshelf from the store, it comes with clear instructions on how to assemble it. Men need something similar for friendship. They need someone to do two things for them: (1) outline a concrete picture of what a spiritual friend is and (2) give them practical instruction on how to build a friendship based on more than mutual regard for Tom Brady. 

Over the next few months Cross Training Ministries is going to fill this gap. Through podcasts and blog posts, we are going to set up ordinary Christian guys so that they have a better understanding of what spiritual friendship is and clear next steps regarding how to shift from merely hitting golf balls together to sharing life together as a spiritual band of brothers.

Spiritual Apathy Is Too Dangerous to Ignore

Apathy is a major problem among Christian men. We are all afflicted with three related conditions. The first is spiritual atrophy. Left to ourselves, motivation naturally wanes over time. We get excited about doing Bible study or learning to be a better father/husband. Yet, it doesn’t take long for our excitement to go flat. After a few months – even a few weeks – we settle back into old ruts.

The second is spiritual inertia. Inertia is the physical law that says that stationary objects tend to stay stationary unless some external force is applied to them. The realm of the spiritual is a lot like the physical. Unless guys find some outside impetus to prod them out of complacency, their lethargy will settle into a stable disposition.

This leads to a third trait of apathy, spiritual indifference. The scary thing about apathy is that often, when apathetic, guys are fully aware of the condition, but unconcerned about it. They are more interested in watching the next big game or purchasing a new bbq grill than finding a way to fire up the engines of their hearts.

To Combat Apathy, Men Need a Complacency Cop

In order to overcome apathy, men need to find a friend who is willing to be a complacency cop in their lives. It may seem strange to imagine a friend playing the role of a ‘policeman.’ However, there are a few traits of a policeman that are useful for pushing a friendship beyond the normal boundaries of my-joy-is-to-affirm-you.

One is that a policeman never needs an invitation to confront a dangerous situation. If a policeman sees someone starting an uncontrolled fire in the front yard, he will stop and ask questions. We need a friend he has the same courage and instincts. If we are honest, spiritual apathy is a lot more dangerous than fire. Fire only destroys physical structures. Apathy has potential to destroy the soul. Therefore, men need friends who are unafraid to step in and ask questions if there the smoke of complacency is evident.

In fact, we can go a step beyond this. If we are serious about desiring an earnest life of discipleship, we need friends in our lives who – not only accidentally stumble upon signs of spiritual slothfulness – but who actively patrol for evidence of an apathetic heart. If we don’t show up to church for several weeks, we need a friend who will investigate. If we are being harsh and bitter toward our wives and children, we want a loving sheriff who will step in and ask what’s going wrong.

How to Find a Friend Who Is Willing to Be a Complacency Cop

Two simple pieces of instruction here. The first is to make friendship itself a talking point with Christian friends. Friendship is seldom an object of conversation among men. Like the sun in the sky, or the ground beneath our feet, we take friendship for granted. It’s just something there, not something we exert any energy discussing together. If guys want deeper friendships, this needs to change. A good first step toward finding a complacency cop is talking with Christian friends about (1) the danger of apathy and (2) how to build structures of accountability whereby we can protect each other from the inertia/indifference of an apathetic heart.

A second piece of advice is to periodically use a set of accountability questions to check-in on one another. In most cases, if we want to getter better answers, we need to ask better questions. A good set of accountability questions will help illumine dark corners of the heart so that otherwise hidden evidence of apathy is exposed and analyzed.

For more on the topic of finding a complacency cop, listen to the Cross Training podcast