Summer Talkback Series - Ben Sciacca & Janet King on Meaningful Friendships in a Disconnected Age
Download MP3Hello. Hello. Good evening everyone. There's no way to not make that awkward and I feel it every time. Welcome to our second talk back of the summer.
Krystal Brummitt:We're so glad that you're here. If I have not had the pleasure to meet you, my name is Crystal and I serve on staff here at Redeemer as the director of women's discipleship. And we have a really exciting informational encouraging, I hope, time for us tonight for this talk back. Meaningful friendships in a disconnected age is what we have titled this time. I'm gonna sit down now, but I just wanted to stand to get your attention.
Krystal Brummitt:Tonight, we have the privilege of hearing from Ben Shaka and Janet King on this this idea of community and friendship. And as our staff, over the last year or so, began talking about opportunities for talk backs or or really just having conversations about what the people who are part of our church are talking about, what you're longing for, what you're expressing our needs, where you are in your life, We began having this conversation around community and friendship. In my role at Redeemer, I have a lot of conversations, specifically with women, about longing for friendships and a place to belong and people to hang out with on the weekends, and someone to go to dinner with you. And I have those conversations, and I feel that personally as well. And and I know that this is not something that is particular to women in the conversations that I've had with other people who work on staff at Redeemer and other, friends who are males.
Krystal Brummitt:I know that you feel this as well. And so that was the springboard for our praying and, asking the Lord about how do we shepherd and care for the people of our church in this way. And then as the Lord would have it, people who are part of our church and our staff cross paths with Janet King, who she's gonna tell us a little bit more about herself in a minute. But Janet has been doing work in the community and studying and researching the science behind connection, and how do we connect with one another, why is this hard? We're gonna talk about the the barriers and the hindrances, and a lot of it with our particular cultural moment that we're in.
Krystal Brummitt:And then if you don't know Ben Shaka, you're going to be really glad that you're here by the end of this. Ben works on staff with us at Redeemer as the local missions coordinator, and I've said numerous times I would listen to Ben talk about anything, and this is also something that he has thought and read a lot about as well. And so tonight, Ben is going to, open us as we get started in just a minute with how God has created us. We are wired for relationships. We are created in his image to be relational people, and, and that desire in us is God given.
Krystal Brummitt:And if you're longing for friendship or if you feel lonely, that means that something's not right. And Ben's gonna talk about that, and then Janet is gonna bring this expert scientific perspective for us in the conversation she's had and the work that she's doing and the research and study that she's done. And so I think we're in store for a really good time tonight. And the way that the format is gonna go is this first half, I'm gonna just ask them some questions to help them as they share their content, some preplanned questions, and then as our talk backs always go, we'll have an opportunity for you to ask questions. And so I think we have a slide, with a link to a website called Slido.
Krystal Brummitt:Many of you are probably familiar with it. If you're not, you can go to slido.com/community, and this will give you the opportunity to ask questions. So as you're listening tonight, if there's something you wanna know more about or you have a very particular circumstantial question that you would love to toss to one of these friends up here, you can ask that, and we'll try to answer as many as many as we can on the back end. But feel free to send those as we go. They're always helpful for us to just know even as we move on from tonight of how we can shepherd and serve the people who are a part of our church.
Krystal Brummitt:So that's, I think, all of the things that I needed to tell you. I'm gonna pray and open us, and then, we'll get to know Ben and Janet a little bit and jump into our content for tonight. So if you wouldn't mind praying with me. God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather in this room. God is a part of this family that you have given us, and I don't know where each person entering into this particular topic at this talkback is, but God, I trust and believe that you do.
Krystal Brummitt:And God, where we are feeling loneliness or disconnection, God, desiring to to have our place and to be known in community and with with friends. God, we we know when we're gonna see tonight that you have made us that way. And we also recognize that there are a lot of barriers and a lot of hindrance a lot of hindrances to pursuing that. God, there can be a lot of fear wrapped up in it. I do pray that you would use this time tonight to encourage us, but I also pray that you would use it to give us courage, God, to step out and trust you with these longings and with these desires and these ways that you have made us.
Krystal Brummitt:God, we thank you for Ben and for Janet and the work that they do and the ways that they're gonna share with us tonight. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Alright.
Krystal Brummitt:Let's start first with some introductions so that people know just a little bit about who you are and the work that you do. We'll start with you, Ben, and then we'll go to you, Janet.
Ben Sciacca:Alright. Well, good evening, and first of all just thanks for coming out tonight. I know life is busy and it's hot and all of those things, it's just great to see everybody. For me, the way I became interested in this is personally, experientially of someone who's battled with acute loneliness. And I'm not gonna for the quick fast forward is that in 02/2014, some deep seated friendships that we had built, my wife and I and our family for fifteen years or so just imploded due to some poor decision making on some particular people, and our entire network of friends that was deeply rooted was uprooted and just decimated.
Ben Sciacca:And it left us really really adrift, and the very people that you would need to help you in that particular season were the very ones that were scattered, were the very ones that were gone. And so for my wife and I, that just became characterized by clinical depression for about four years and just a really really tough season of life, and you don't really appreciate community and friendship until you lose it, until it gets beat up. That's one part of it. The second thing is that my full time job is that I work for a ministry called Desire Street, and we coach and provide community for urban ministry leaders throughout the Southeast. And these men and women are literally living on an island in some of the toughest neighborhoods in the Southeast doing amazing kingdom work.
Ben Sciacca:As we've gotten to know these people, they're extremely lonely. The work that they do is very isolating. They are experiencing tremendous trauma and difficulty, and they oftentimes just feel like they're utterly alone doing that. And my job, part of my job is to try to breathe life into these people and to keep them encouraged. So I'm a voracious reader, I'm someone who loves to study, so I just began to kind of deep dive on my own into this topic and became very very pressing for me to learn more about and what's happening to us as our in our own communities that we're around each other all the time, but many of us feel like we're alone and feel like we don't have friends.
Ben Sciacca:So so it's personal to me. And I'm here to say that I have been able to develop new and and burgeoning and growing friendships, but it's taken a lot of work and time. Hi,
Janet King:y'all. I am Janet King. I am founder of The Gathering Lab, and my journey to this is both personal and professional. I I always joke I'm a Scorpio, so I've loved heart to hearts, good heart to hearts for a long time. But I my interest turned professional when I was working for a consulting firm out of New York.
Janet King:It's a national nonprofit firm called TNTP, and we worked with school districts across the country and essentially helping them meet their mission for delivering great public education for all students. And my lane became community engagement and inclusion. And so I would travel the country, I would go to rural Sanger, Texas to Detroit, Michigan to Florida, and essentially help district leaders, superintendents, principals, vice superintendents build trusting relationships with families and community leaders. And what I I noticed a few things. One, the power of what happens when people who are different from each other start to trust each other.
Janet King:What a difference that can make for students. Two, my job started getting harder and harder. And I would arrive you know show up in districts and kind of get the lay of the land and best case scenario often our district leaders had no relationships with families and community leaders, And worst case scenario, things were incredibly hostile. And we were trying to take on these big challenges for the school district but it just felt like we were stacking bricks on a shaky foundation. There was so little trust between people and I was heartbroken frankly by it and worked really hard at this for several years and then ultimately decided to walk away because I felt it was time for me to pursue something different and I needed a break.
Janet King:So and then on the personal side, I was working remotely for this company and I was here in Birmingham, I would travel, and I became a mom about five years ago for the first time and had gone through some transitions like you with your friend friend group and really realized I wanted to build roots here in Birmingham and that I wanted to find friends for this stage of life that I was in that could kind of I was just craving some more authenticity, some more depth to my friendships. And I went on the circuit like the Birmingham circuit and had like lots of coffee chats and went to lots of networking events and I was really energized and excited in the beginning. And then, you know, after like six months to a year of this was like, wow. Is this this is feeling very surface level and like I can't really break through. And I'm pretty extroverted person and I like meeting people and I was still having trouble.
Janet King:And good news is I eventually did find those people who are I'm really close to now, but I kind of these two things converged for me. This question started burning for me of like, what is happening to our relationships? Kind of at the micro or macro and at the micro. This is feeling really really difficult and like something is changing that's making this harder. So that sent me on this quest for The Gathering Lab which I've been on for the past two to three years, really diving deep into what's been happening with our social lives, what does it take for us to build trusting relationships.
Janet King:I had known kind of the art of it through my work but really backed it up with the science and then started building something to start answering this question of can we build more genuine connections more easily in today's world.
Krystal Brummitt:Thanks y'all. Okay. Ben, we're gonna kick off this first question for you. First official question, guess. Can you help us understand and see why as believers that friendships and relationships are important?
Krystal Brummitt:And why do we all have this intrinsic longings to live our lives alongside other people and not in isolation?
Ben Sciacca:Yeah. So I mean from the biblical framework, we have to remember that we were designed and created for community. Community even precedes creation. The father, son, and the holy spirit within the trinity are in relationship with one another, and so there's never really a time where God was alone. I'm gonna try to fast forward this really quickly through some of the Genesis narrative.
Ben Sciacca:So I think it's from here that we begin to see God's purpose and his design and then kinda how it went sideways. Right? We know that God created in six days, seventh day he rested. And as he's making these things, as he's separating the light from the darkness, the the ground from the water, he continues to provide this qualitative statement of it was good. He saw what he had made and it was good.
Ben Sciacca:And in Genesis chapter two, Adam has a kind of this unique privilege of naming the animals. K? So he's with God and God is going, hey, let's introduce you to porcupines and these different creatures, and he's naming them. I have no idea what that looks like. That seems like that would take forever.
Ben Sciacca:But at some point, God notices, there's a there's a statement where he says, he noticed that it was not good that Adam was alone. Okay. Now Adam Young is a therapist and he this you may want to wrangle with this theologically, but he believes that God in that moment was like, even I'm not enough. This this person needs community. He was with God every day walking with him in the cool of the day and yet he was alone.
Ben Sciacca:And he's like this isn't good. So we know the story he makes Eve his partner, and Adam makes this extraordinary statement of this is at last bone of my bone and flesh in my flesh. He's seeing in in this other image bearer of God himself. He's seeing something that mirrors him, and it says that they were naked and they were unashamed. Now if you go back to your Sunday school lessons, that's just, oh, they were naked, physically naked, but there's greater depth to that.
Ben Sciacca:They were literally in front of each other as they were a 100% who they were, a 100% authentic, and there was no fear of being abused. There was no fear of being manipulated, of being harmed, of being ashamed, and they could be a thousand percent themselves. At peace with God, and now at peace with one another as another image bearer, another friend the micro community at the very beginning. So then Adam and Eve, we know the story. Were told not to eat from a particular tree.
Ben Sciacca:They do. They sin, and sin comes into the cosmos, into the created order. And Adam and Eve do what? They hide from God, and they immediately create fig leaves to cover themselves. And again, this is a symbol of more than just covering, oh, I'm naked, they no longer felt like they could be around each other or around God without some kind of a mask or or an intermediary.
Ben Sciacca:Something now coming between them to cover things that made them feel shameful, made them feel vulnerable, made them feel like they could be exploited, and so they hid. And God says to them, who told you that you were naked? In other words, who told you that you're vulnerable? Who told you you can't trust me? You can't trust people, you now have to hide behind this particular barrier at this point.
Ben Sciacca:And I think that's a real strong metaphor for relationship at this point is that many of us have a fear of being authentic. We have a fear of being vulnerable. Kurt Thompson is a neuroscience, a psychiatrist. He says the three things that every human needs to flourish is to be seen, to be secure, and to be soothed. Okay?
Ben Sciacca:And that being seen means there has to be other people, embodied people that can see you as you are with all of your limitations, failures, and brokenness and still say I love you and I want you. The security part is that they'll protect you, they'll have your back, when things become insecure you have good footing. And then the soothing part is that when life is dysregulated, which is gonna happen all the time and we emotionally vacillate that they can help bring us back into kind of a box of a window of tolerance, we can regulate our own emotions and feel like the world is gonna be okay despite the topsy turviness of that. All of that got disrupted by the fall, and today those three things are missing for most of us, but they're still part of our design. The last thing I'll say is that part of the design is that God designed us for community.
Ben Sciacca:In the same way that someone designed this Sharpie pen, this thing flourishes when it's used according to its design. Whoever originally made this, you click it, it writes really beautifully. I'm left handed, it's awkward, but it works its purpose. Anytime something is operating outside of its design, it harms other people or it breaks itself. I could use this as a weapon, we can harm someone, I could try to change your tire with this after this thing and it would break.
Ben Sciacca:But when we work against our design, we only inflict harm on ourselves and around and the people around us. And so this sense of loneliness and brokenness is is in part of it is that somehow as Janet was saying, we're trying to analyze the times that we're living in but some of it is working directly against the way God designed us and therefore we feel full of despair and shame and and a sense of just absolute loneliness.
Krystal Brummitt:Thanks Ben. Janet, how have you seen evidence of this working against us?
Janet King:Well funny you should ask. Yeah. I'm gonna pull up some slides I think.
Krystal Brummitt:I'm just looking at the tech. Okay.
Janet King:Okay. Before I get into that, I wanna have a pop quiz because that's what you guys all want on a Wednesday afternoon after work. But this one's easy. First, having three of these can add over eight years to your life. Any any brave guessers?
Janet King:Wow. Good guess. People who the longest study ever done on happiness out of Harvard found that the people who live the happiest, healthiest, and longest all have this in common. Great. Quality relationships, friendships.
Janet King:And then this common feeling is as dangerous as smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day. Loneliness. So to kind of back up what some of Ben has been saying in terms of
Ben Sciacca:our
Janet King:design, our picture of modern health has evolved, and we now understand more than ever that social fitness is a critical part of our health and longevity. And us feeling connection, especially around quality relationships, is one of the most important factors in our health. One other study that I love, they looked at factors you can control in terms of how long you live, and they controlled for whether you smoke or not, your exercise, what you ate, all these all sorts all sorts of things. Which one tended to add the most to your life? Who lived longest?
Janet King:And the second thing they found was marriages and close relationships, but the first thing they found was social integration, which is actually something different than friendships. It's how many times, how many different people you're interacting with on a daily basis. And it backs up this idea that we are actually meant to feel like we're part of a community, that we belong to something. And so I think just wanna first call out why this matters is because we have evolved. We are wired to crave connection.
Janet King:And if you think about it, it makes sense. Right? Like us being able to survive as a species has been because we join together. We share resources. We take care of one another.
Janet King:And so we have to be able to collaborate and get along in order to survive and thrive. But something is happening around the state of our connection, and, you know, at a time where we are starting to understand more than ever that this is a critical part of our health, we're also at a time where this finding quality connection feels more and more impossible. And this is raising alarms from a scientific perspective, from a civic perspective. Pretty much every day, there's a new headline coming out about the state of loneliness, how isolated we are feeling. And so clearly there is something shifting in the water around how we relate to one another, how we interact, and how our lives are set up that is changing or getting in the way of us finding this quality connection in our lives.
Krystal Brummitt:What are they? What are the what are the things that are getting in the way the hindrances that we're experiencing?
Janet King:Well first Ben anything you'd want to add to that?
Ben Sciacca:That was really good.
Janet King:Okay. Keep going. So some have even goes gone so far as to call this time the friendship collapse, and there are a number of stats that you might look at that would say, yes, we are lonelier than ever, but one that you cannot argue with that is most objective is that we Americans are spending more time alone than ever before. A record number of hours we are spending alone. And so I think that is something just to put in perspective of, like, we are in unprecedented times in terms of how we socialize.
Janet King:We have never spent this much time alone. And naturally, you know, our friendships would start collapsing from that. But to me, I think you could say, well, we're all just busy. Right? We don't have a lot of time in the modern world anymore, but that to me is just a proxy for it not being a priority.
Janet King:So why isn't it a priority anymore? What's going on? First, I wanna break down what we need for a meaningful connection or a close friendship. I call this the friendship formula. There's four building blocks we think a lot about at the Gathering Lab.
Janet King:First is this feeling of affinity. It's humans, we really have a love of sameness. There's a behavioral science principle called homophily, this idea that birds with feather flock together. And so when our when we enter spaces, when we are building community, our brains are scanning for, are you like me? That makes us feel safe.
Janet King:That means you're part of my tribe. And so the more common ground we find with someone, the more we feel safe, the more our nervous system relaxes. That's all good stuff. We tend to also find that affinity on the surface level characteristics, how we look. Vulnerability.
Janet King:We need quality vulnerable interactions. This includes self disclosure and being reliant on one another and being present with one another. And one thing I wanna call out, we there is the most simple basic building block of trust and it's called a vulnerability loop, and we do this all day long with each other, hopefully opening and closing them, but I'll get to that. And a vulnerability loop well, I think it's a common misperception that vulnerability comes after trust, and actually, precedes trust. It's how we get to trust.
Janet King:So an example of a vulnerability loop, if I come in and I said, Ben, sorry. I'm late. I our baby didn't sleep last night. I'm so tired. I'm, you know, feeling kinda stressed out.
Janet King:I have just opened a vulnerability signal. He could ignore it. He could say, let's get the meeting started. He wouldn't. He would never.
Janet King:Or he could make fun of it, which would be even worse. Or he could say, wow. I remember those days. Those nights were so hard. Do you wanna talk about it?
Janet King:And yet we can all feel what just would have happened in that moment. Right? We would have built trust. And the more we open and close those loops with each other, the more trust is being built. And so we are sending out these signals all the time, and sometimes they are not picked up and that breaks trust, or that tells me I can't trust you.
Janet King:I can't be weak around you. From an evolutionary perspective, it's a shortcut to determining, can I be weak around you, and will we survive together? Can we collaborate? Proximity, we need in person face to face interaction. One college study found or one study found that, we are 50% more likely to become friends with the person who sits next to us in class than the person who sits, like, five seats down the road or down the road just because they're next to us.
Janet King:And then consistency, we need repeated interactions that allows a connection to grow. So this is kind of the the secret sauce or the magic formula if you will, but I wanna lay this context so that we can understand why this is feeling harder to crack in today's time. Anything, Ben, you'd add?
Ben Sciacca:I think you're doing great. No. I mean, I'll I'll if you want me to jump in. No.
Janet King:I I like just having you here as a I'm just an encourager. You need to come with me to more presentations. Yeah. Okay. So there Ben and I have talked about numerous like, there are so many reasons we can go into why today it's feeling like harder to find this quality connection.
Janet King:And I will not bore you with all of them, but lately I've been thinking a lot about the kind of more insidious hidden reasons, particularly as it relates to how our world is set up now that are getting in the way. So the first one is a tough pill that I have been swallowing, but I think is necessary to say out loud, is we don't need each other anymore. We used to be in villages, in groups, in neighborhoods because we had to rely on one another to get a meal together, to take care of our children, to build things. And technology has made it so that you can outsource pretty much everything in your life. You really don't need anybody for anything.
Janet King:You just need a friend to take you to the airport. You don't even need that anymore. So we aren't reliant on one another, which is critical to vulnerability. But on top of that, could the last standing reason why we needed each other was for entertainment because we were bored. So we'd play card games.
Janet King:We'd have parties. We have rituals, celebrations. But that all started to change in the nineteen sixties when television was introduced, and it started to privatize leisure time. And now when we had alone time or downtime, you could go to your living room and watch TV alone. And now we're looking at a time where you have endless entertainment options at your fingertips.
Janet King:You could stay in and watch Netflix for the next forty years and probably still not get through it all. And so there is less we don't need each other for much anymore. There's less incentive to build, friendships, because you can get by, frankly, without having close community or friends these days. And in a world where we have we really value productivity and accomplishments and overworking, friendships just fall to the back burner. And unlike other relationships like marriage or a work mentor, there's not a clear, like, flex or, like, milestone that comes with it.
Janet King:Right? And so they they are deprioritized. Number two, cell phones. Duh. But let me break down a little bit more about why.
Janet King:So cell phones have if TVs privatized our leisure time, cell phones privatized our attention. And, if vulnerability requires presence, we are now walking around with devices that take us out of the present moment constantly. Anytime we want to, anytime we feel uncomfortable, anytime we feel bored, we can escape to our own private world. And that cuts off connection in a couple different ways, ranging from being at the coffee shop and being bored in line, the conversations that used to start up, oh, hey, you come here often, oh, yeah, actually we live in this neighborhood too, you should meet my wife, she just had a kid. All that all that connective tissue that used to happen because we'd be bored in places together doesn't happen anymore.
Janet King:It's actually weird if you don't have your AirPods in and aren't looking at your cell phone, and you try to start small talk. Believe me, I try it. People it's weird. But it also this also happens in our friend groups, in our marriages, where you're out to dinner with your friends and someone pulls out their phone, and we that cuts off a vulnerability loop. We've all felt that.
Janet King:Someone pulls out your phone and you're talking to them, and even having a phone present face down on the table has been shown to reduce empathy, reduce trust, and reduce social conscientiousness, which is basically your ability to focus and prioritize one person at a time. As soon as someone picks up their phone, you're saying there are a million other people out there that I'm gonna be thinking about that are more important than you, or there's something else out there that's more important than you. And plus cell phones in our hand, we have actually, I think, lost this muscle of how to start and maintain a conversation because we aren't used to being bored anymore. And so really kinda getting to those deeper prompts, those questions to get to know one another, it just doesn't happen because cell phones often cut those short. Fewer shared, rituals and rhythms.
Janet King:So, you know, I we used to live in a time where there was the pretty standard work nine to five, lunch hour, church on Sundays, weekly night news at 6PM. We are now living highly individualized lives where I might work from home Monday, Tuesday, and then I fly to Cincinnati, and then I, you know, have this dance class I do, and then his life looks totally different. And there's it's just almost impossible to sync up our schedules to see each other to get that proximate, consistent interaction. And on top of that, there are fewer reasons to leave the house. So if we really need in person interaction, all of a sudden I'm getting everything.
Janet King:I can get my grocery shipped to my house. I can do therapy at my house. I can do my workout in my house, And all of sudden, I'm not going to the local pharmacy and bumping into Ben or Crystal and saying, how was your weekend? You know, all that, like I said, connective tissue is gone. So I didn't wanna scare y'all with that graph.
Janet King:Not yet. So I say I call this out to say we are living at a time where we used to we used to be able to just, like, kinda count on these threads being in the way our lives were set up so that natural friendships would naturally form or quality connection would naturally form more easily. And now it is no longer a guarantee that we get the kind of interaction that we crave and are designed for on a daily basis. And so what I've been thinking a lot about lately is that it means building friendship and building community is becoming even more of a choice. You if you want it, you have to be intentional about it.
Janet King:You cannot believe that it will just happen for you. So that's that for now.
Krystal Brummitt:I don't know about y'all. I like listening to them like, I feel that because I have experienced it and I have done it. The one where I'm like picking up my phone or don't want to bother someone to borrow something and I'm like, can get this at from Amazon at my house tomorrow Yes. As opposed to borrowing something from a friend. And I was like, it's far more cumulative than I have even thought about all the ways that we're being pushed toward isolation away from one another.
Janet King:And we're getting used to convenience, and I often say that, like, human relationships are the last frontier of inconvenience. They're horribly inconvenient. They take a lot of time. They're uncomfortable, unpredictable. And so we are losing, I think, our tolerance for that.
Janet King:And one related I the bonus reason I've also been thinking a lot about here, and this comes from my working work working with different stakeholders and people who are really different from each is our brains are scared of difference. I talked about homophily and how much we love sameness, and we are living at a time where we are more diverse than ever, and our differences are highlighted more than they've ever been. There are more categories of ways you can identify across all number of topics where there's more perspectives to have, things are hyperpolarized. And I firmly believe our country, our cities, our workplaces are stronger when we have more diversity, but for our brain it causes friction. We are so wired to belong that we are scared to get kicked out of the tribe if we say the wrong thing, if we hurt someone's feelings, if we discover some way that we're different from each other and don't agree on something.
Janet King:And so I think that's part of the reason why we stick to this I like to say the same three questions. What do you do for a living? How's the weather? And what trips did you go on lately? Because those are the final safe topics.
Janet King:Right? And we're scared to go out beyond that because of this idea of homophily and being afraid of difference. Thanks, Janet. Ben, would you add? Alright.
Janet King:Additionally.
Ben Sciacca:Yeah. I think that so I think one of things we need to investigate is which Janet just talked about so well, is one, environmentally things are changing. We're part of a new ecosystem that I think requires a certain level of self awareness to how far down these rabbit holes do I wanna go, whether it's social media technology or all these kind of mediated relationships at this point. And another part of it is the introspective side of it is that there is a part of us that knows we need community, but there's also a part of us that just has an insatiable appetite to do what makes me happy. And the technology, some of it is actually really a fast track.
Ben Sciacca:It's a fast onboard to that. Jonathan Haidt's book, which I think some of you guys are reading, The Anxious Generation talks about the real world versus the virtual world. And he says that the real world one requires you to be embodied. We are embodied souls like sitting next to these two women, we're we're embodied, we're having a conversation right now. The second thing is that it's synchronous, meaning that that is happening where I I say something and then I'm listening and then there's a queue where I can enter back into it again.
Ben Sciacca:The third thing is it's either one to one or it's one to like a greater crowd kind of like we're doing right now where we're still talking back and forth, and then Janet kind of touched on is that also there's a high there's a high bar to enter and a high cost to leave. Friendships require that, true friendships do. The the virtual world is the exact opposite of that. It is not embodied, it's mediated through a device. It is asynchronous so I can text Crystal and she might reply, she might not.
Ben Sciacca:I can see the little bubbles going on my iPhone just waiting for her to reply to a question I have, but that is not friendship. And then it's just one to many. A lot of our young people in particular don't want friends anymore because they can can send they can snap each other or text 20 different friends from their bedroom and never have to leave. Right? And another thing is it's also very very easy to enter those communities and super easy to leave.
Ben Sciacca:So if I don't like you, I'll just kick you off my Facebook page or I can just erase you from my my feed. And so we're all being drawn into that. And the only thing I'd say about technology, found a great quote from Neil Postman who I think is a must read. He died a long time ago, but he has a quote in there that says, technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we no longer experience it. Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we no longer actually experience it.
Ben Sciacca:That is anti humanity. And I love technology, I use it all the time, but if that's my new way of relating to you, you you can substitute the world, the word world and put in community. Technology so arranges community that we no longer experience it. And so I think we've outsourced. We may talk more about this as a further question, but, yeah, those are the things I would tease out.
Krystal Brummitt:I
Ben Sciacca:Hello.
Krystal Brummitt:Hello. Okay. I mentioned in opening our time together that I I have this conversation a lot with women in particular, but also that I know this is not only something that women experience. Would you agree? Mhmm.
Krystal Brummitt:And what are the conversations that you're having or the things you're hearing from men and women?
Ben Sciacca:Well, I'll just give an example. So I was in Colorado last week for my full time job. We took all the people we serve to Buena Vista, Colorado to get them as far away from their communities and the stuff they're dealing with every day and just get them out to one of the most beautiful states that we have in the country. And one night, there was a group of about eight or nine of us men sitting in a circle, a couple of us were having cigars and talking, and the conversation several of the men in the circle had met for the first time on this retreat, but we've been together for like three or four nights, and one of them just started opening up about a lot of the struggles that he's having in his own personal life with some addictive behavior and different things. And twenty thirty minutes in, he was like, I just wanna stop for a minute.
Ben Sciacca:He's like, this is like the realest conversation I've had in ages. And I just wanna thank you for inviting me into this space where I can just be myself and not have to impress you guys, not to have this optical Christianity, like I can be real about what I'm struggling with. And about thirty minutes later, I kinda waited for that to that moment to die down. I said, you know, I wanna thank you for making that comment. I said, how many of you men if you'll be vulnerable with me have this kind of circle in your own community?
Ben Sciacca:And of those nine guys, only one said they had it. All the other guys said, I don't want anything close to this where I live. Nothing close to this. Data is showing right now, we're talking about screen time that for every out the average man for every hour that he spends with a human being in a meaningful interaction, he's spending seven hours on screen. Okay.
Ben Sciacca:So, yeah, men men may not want to talk about it, but even me just sharing my story at the beginning, yes, it's I think if we're going to be honest and in some respects, I would say men may be even lonelier when we're seeing some of the mental health issues and even things like suicide and things that have been spiking with men. They're increasingly finding themselves on an island. The only other thing I'd say is I think there is a there's an aspect of us, at least for me, that to admit that feels like failure. It doesn't feel strong to say there's this rugged individualism that some some of us carry around that for me to admit that that I don't have friends feels like failure. And that's a big admission on its own.
Ben Sciacca:It takes humility and courage to step into that space and yeah, I feel there's seasons in my life where I've been completely alone and it's hard to say that, but all of those men in that circle were vulnerable that night. But the beautiful thing was they were experiencing community that night and everything we just talked about about being seen and hard struggle. These men are gobbling men, they're loving their wives, but they're also neck deep in struggle, and they found a circle where they could just let that out there and receive grace and nobody kicked them out of the circle. And it was so life giving that you could feel it. It was like, it was the most it was just oxygen just flowing into that circle that night.
Ben Sciacca:And I think we all hunger for more spaces like that whether it's a circle or just having one brother or sister that's like, that's my person. Like and I can I can be my authentic self? So yes, men, we struggle. And if you don't think so, I'm exhibit a.
Janet King:May add to well, I wanna back up. So you said you, like, could feel the oxygen flowing in that room. So there's a hormone or endorphin called oxytocin, and the scientists call this the elixir of youth because it's so good for our health, our immunity, our sleep. Basically, it's just like a kind of this cure all thing, and we release it when we have positive social interaction face to face. And so you guys were probably actually feeling the effects of that.
Janet King:It's really good for our health. But also to back up some of those stats, I think in 1995, fifty five percent of men reported having a close circle of friends, six friends, and as of now, that was down to twenty seven percent. And then I think fewer than twenty percent reported having in the last week a conversation about their emotions with with another friend. And I think women are more likely to seek out this social socializing in their lives frankly. And I think there the ways women socialize lend themselves to self disclosure, to more vulnerable deep conversations.
Janet King:That's just how we have tended to do it. I think men tend to bond over through activities, which still can be a vulnerable interaction. I mean, cooking a meal together is vulnerability loops being open and closed. Playing games together, you still need that self disclosure, that vulnerable conversation, but I think they form bonds differently and I think that needs to be acknowledged. But I do I think alarms are raised in that in a world where you're not naturally gonna get connection necessary anymore, women I think will be more likely to seek it out.
Janet King:I think men won't and not to generalize. I think I think that's why we're seeing some of the numbers that we're seeing.
Krystal Brummitt:Real quick speaking to women. Even being so Ben shared for men it can be a like, feeling like failure to be vulnerable or to not have it. And women being more prone to seeking it out and putting ourselves in those spaces, there are still obviously hindrances or obstacles to then going below the surface. What are those with the ways that women are showing up that are making it hard to establish long term friendships?
Janet King:Yeah. I mean, I think it's a good question. I feel like I think comparison is a big one especially on social media. We've seen that with teenage girls and how how much social media impacts them versus teenage boys, and we're especially around that comparison. And I think women are less likely to think that people like them.
Janet King:So there's more kind of people pleasing and and likability issues I think at play for women who are socializing together that get in the way of being authentic and being willing to be seen for your for your who you really are versus learning to tend to everyone else's needs in the group and make sure you're liked.
Krystal Brummitt:Thank you. Yeah. I feel that that is true. Okay. I just glanced at the slide.
Krystal Brummitt:It looks like we have a lot of good questions coming in as well, but before we transition to their questions, I do wanna hear so Janet, you have taken all of your experiences and this information that you have gathered and you've studied and created The Gathering Lab. And so I would love to for you to share with us what that has looked like, what you're implementing, and then also, we have shared as we have shared about this talk back that there are opportunities that are coming that we'll share with you at the end, to springboard from this night. We don't wanna just sit here and be like, we're all lonely and we all want friends and good luck when you leave. We really we it's one of the reasons why it's been so exciting for us to partner with Janet is because she's gonna take her expertise and we're gonna get to partner together at Redeemer. So that's coming.
Krystal Brummitt:So can you tell us a little bit about The Gathering Lab and then what that's gonna look for us at Redeemer with you?
Janet King:Yeah. I I really hate ending on these notes because I think there's two things I wanna make sure y'all feel affirmed in tonight, which is one, if you are feeling lonely or kind of existentially like, why is it hard for me to find this kind of quality connection I'm craving? You're not alone. I'm hearing this from so many different people from so many different walks of life. And I wanna normalize that it is totally natural for our friendships to go through transitions.
Janet King:We actually replace half of our inner circle every seven years, And that's because we grow, we evolve, we change, we go through different life stages. And so I also wanna normalize this feeling like if you're going through a friendship transition, that is part of life. And I think there's this myth that like, oh, if I didn't find my people in high school or college or that those should be my people for the rest of my life and if I if that's not the case for me, then I'm doing something wrong. And I think it really should be exciting that you might meet, you know, your next best friends. You might have more best friends over the next ten, fifteen, twenty years that haven't even come into your life yet, and that is all a beautiful thing.
Janet King:So I I just wanna affirm if you guys are feeling that way. I think what The Gathering Lab started as it started as a dinner, but I found myself quickly saying this is not a dinner. It's a method. And it is a way to we think a lot about, okay, if these are the building blocks for what it takes to build meaningful connection, how do we create the conditions for this to happen more organically in today's time? And so what we do is we first we match groups.
Janet King:Well, we have now our model is kind of called circles, and we do circles in the community. We do circles with organizations and workplaces. And the model is first creating that sense of affinity that we talked about was so important, that feeling of sameness. But we do that around values based matching. So we essentially help you guys cut through the surface level to find deeper commonality with the group of people that your brain and nervous system feel safe around because you know you feel you have similar values, something that means a lot to you together.
Janet King:So we create small intentional groups. We even the social playing field, if you will. Right now if it feels like the wild wild west of like how do we socialize? Is it cool to bring out my phone? Do I need to ask a follow-up question?
Janet King:Will I be weird if I make this like more vulnerable? We really wanna create the space where there's clear norms about how we're gonna interact and be present with one another and provide a structure so that it's easy for extroverts and introverts alike to feel seen and be included. And then we talk a lot about magical questions. So each group gets magical questions that are customized to their interests and values. My little quip here is, like, I think we're all right now obsessed with, like, the best AI prompts.
Janet King:And I think about magical questions as, like, the prompts for unlocking, like, the greatness of each human. And so we should really be thinking a lot more about the questions we ask each other rather than what we can ask AI. So that's what magical questions are about for us. And then everything is intentionally sequenced based on the self disclosure theory, which is this idea that friendships that form typically follow a pattern of what topics are discussed about when and how we self disclose. And so we have everything all of our series and our sessions are sequenced based on that pattern.
Janet King:And we've been I I mean it's been a wild ride. I I won't lie in terms of learning and all of that, but it has you know, at this point we've probably brought our method to over 1,500 people in a lot of different contexts. And from like curmudgeoning lawyers to strangers in the community and watching that magic happen in a group each time and watching people leave with that feeling that we are so wired for that we crave. Esther Perel has a great quote, modern loneliness is having a thousand friends on Facebook and no one to feed your cat. And so really getting people that dose of being seen and listened to and kind of forming a meaningful connection with others, I think frankly is also the antidote for the hopelessness and lack of trust we're also feeling.
Krystal Brummitt:So what's that gonna little teaser for us?
Janet King:Yeah. That's a teaser. So we're excited to launch circles at Redeemer this summer where we will be you'll be filling out a profile with us. We will match really intentional small groups based on deep commonalities, and we'll provide a dinner series for y'all, a kickoff and two dinners, where you guys will go on your our little journey, of forming meaningful connections.
Krystal Brummitt:I'm excited. I'm I'm really excited for this. We're gonna we'll have specific details for those as we wrap up our time tonight of next steps and what that can look like, if you would want to participate. Before we take a very short, just so we can put our heads together, break in just a second. Want Ben, is there anything else that you would like to add to this conversation?
Ben Sciacca:I just like what Jan just said that if you feel lonely, you're not alone. And that in of itself is like a community of people that just haven't found each other yet, and that's a hopeful thing. So I think that's the one of the hopeful threads to all of this.
Krystal Brummitt:Yeah. Thank you. Ben and I were chatting earlier when we got here and we could talk about this for a really long time. And an hour and a half feels really insufficient, and I'm also really thankful for the time that we have. We're gonna jump in, and as best as they can, we're gonna try to get through we won't get through all of these questions.
Krystal Brummitt:Do you wanna come join us? Yeah. Special guest. We will try to answer as many as we are able to, but thank y'all. You can keep adding them in as well.
Krystal Brummitt:And just real quick, in Slido, if you see a question and you're like, that's a good question, you can give it a thumbs up and it it shoots it to the top. So I know that that's one that a lot of you would love for them to talk about. Alright. Let's start with this first question that says, how do you cope with friends growing distant as they build families while constantly having to start over and form deep connections?
Ben Sciacca:I mean, I'll just start off. I think you kind of already touched on it that friendship's a good chunk of them. I think you said cycle through every seven years, think is what you said. So there that's just a reality that I think is a good healthy thing to know, that there's going to be seasons where maybe a a good friend gets married, starts having kids, and all of a sudden things change. That's not always an unhealthy thing.
Ben Sciacca:I think it's something to lament because it can happen. But I think there are still probably creative ways to still pursue each other, but knowing that particularly when you move into a family phase, that time gets halved or quartiled based on how many kids and things you have going on, and that's just a particular reality. My wife and I were married at 21. We were parents at 24, so we started leaving some of our friends in the dust like real early on and that did limit some of our capacity. But as some of those same friends that had those deeper roots started to get on that train as well, we were able to kind of reconnect in a different season.
Ben Sciacca:So I think sometimes there's kind of like an accordion, things kinda get stretched out, and then some of those friendships that have deep roots get pulled back in, but there's gonna be that awkward intermission where there is a season of kind of lamentation that we just don't see as much of each other as we may be used to.
Janet King:Yeah. A couple quick thoughts because this comes up a lot in community circles where we match women to find meaningful connections. And this question of, like, do they need to be life stage aligned or not is a big one. And I think I think something I think it's just becoming more and more true that not everyone is available for friendship or will prioritize it, whether you have a family or not. And I think we're also all going through seasons where we feel overextended.
Janet King:And so I think first of all, just letting it really be okay if your friend is in a place where they cannot make. That's not a priority right now. And they can be lovely people. You all can have a great connection, and it's probably not personal. I think the other piece is I think it requires more communication about each other's needs, priorities, and ways to celebrate and show up for each other because having kids does change your life and your setup.
Janet King:And I think there's some assumptions about each side of that that need to be kinda worked out if you guys are close. And then I think, like, lower the bar. I mean, there one my friends and I talk a lot. There's this one study that showed just seven a seven minute phone call with a friend can change your mood if you're having a bad day. And so instead of thinking like, oh, we were friends who used to hang out three times a week and do all of this, it might just the way y'all connect might just look different.
Janet King:It doesn't mean just because it it might just be a seven minute phone call a week, and that might be enough for right now. It can really change your mood and give you guys enough to keep building something. And so find just because it's a little doesn't mean it's nothing is what I would say.
Krystal Brummitt:Thank you. Okay. This question is particular to our context, but I I would brought in this question to Birmingham. I'm not from here, and to me it was a hard place to come into be I didn't go to college in Alabama. I'm I didn't go to high school in Birmingham.
Krystal Brummitt:I didn't move away and come back. And so it feels like there's just these deep, like, long standing friendships and connections where you went to Auburn or you went to Alabama or you went to Sanford or you've been here at Redeemer from the beginning. And so how do we initiate authentic friendships when it seems like everyone, and this question asked specifically at Redeemer already has their people?
Ben Sciacca:So we came to Redeemer about seven years ago, and like one of the thing it it it did feel initially we love the worship, the preaching, and the overall environment, but it did feel a little clicked up already. Like it kind of like, okay people have their people, there's real strong Sanford energy in this place, know, like we don't have that going on. But I think that Redeemer is trying to create some on ramps of different things that are kind of these smaller communities. So we we moved to Alabama from Colorado which was absolute culture shock. We moved here my sophomore year of high school and we cried as a family for a year, like just could not make friends and didn't understand half of the language that was going on.
Ben Sciacca:But I joined the basketball team like, and all of a sudden I found my dudes like there was just It was a common interest, it was an affinity, and all of a sudden we started to kinda build these high school friendships. It was the same thing for me in college, like I played intramural sports. I had a harder time making friends my freshman year, kind of trying to find my group. And then intramural sports, like I found my guys. And that's not for everybody, it doesn't have to be sports.
Ben Sciacca:But I think Redeemer is trying, not albeit not perfectly. The home group piece is very important. They took us a little while to crack into our home group. They're some of the dearest people to us now. We've had the same a lot of the same people for years.
Ben Sciacca:We've done book groups. I think some of the local or global mission trips, I've seen a lot of people find leave on these trips as strangers and come back as friends. Part of that is that one of the beauties of a church that is operating as it should be, and I think Redeemer is, is that it has a telos, it has an end, it has a missional side, and that's part of following Jesus is as we enter into his mission, we link arms with strangers and we become brothers and sisters. That doesn't mean that it's always easy, and I love what Jan just said about lowering the bar. I think sometimes people like me, I wanna get in the deep end with people within like four conversations and that some people like, woah, pump the brakes.
Ben Sciacca:Like I'm not here for all that, but it takes time. And so sometimes it's about the longer game of loving neighbor. And this is the thing I'm trying to challenge myself with, and this might sound really petty, but I I need to be the friend that I need. Mhmm. I wanna be the friend that I need.
Ben Sciacca:And so sometimes that means I need to continue to pursue. There's a there's times in my current friend groups and there's people in here that know this, I'm usually the one texting people to get together. I'm very rarely pursued by people unless they need something from me, like some advice or something, but I do bring people together sometimes and I love doing it because people respond like, hey thanks for that text, let's do it, let's get together, and we end up having an awesome time. So sometimes it's about initiating and creating inertia to begin to create those groups as well. And that's not a cop out.
Ben Sciacca:Otherwise we're like on the dance floor and we're all on different sides of the wall just waiting for someone to get out there and invite us to dance. It's like someone's just gotta go out there and dance and look goofy, and like, hey, he's doing it, and I'll go dance with him, you know, when we'll figure this thing out. And I think that sometimes requires to that that courage to step out and pursue things too.
Krystal Brummitt:Dina, would you add to that?
Janet King:Well, first I would say join circles. I think part of our value, obviously, is at least this is what has happened in community circles is that we it is a way to curate the folks who are available and ready to invest in building meaningful connections. So I think I do think that will be a great avenue. But I think to Ben's point, I think what we're seeing is that a lot of times it's maybe a skill issue more than a will issue and that it feels like people are kind of clicked up and maybe withdrawn or closed off. But I think all of us are maybe just feeling a little bit out of practice of knowing what it's like to, like, take initiative, put yourself out there, set up a friend date.
Janet King:And so you might have to do that more often than you'd like. And then I think the other thing is I think being establishing a good friendship requires open communication and kind of letting people be who they are and where they are at any given point. And so I remember when I you know, I'm thinking about one friendship close friend I have now. I I was always the one initiating with her. And I was like, listen.
Janet King:I don't want I'm not trying to make you be my friend. Like, what's going on here? Like, I'm happy to be the one who's always initiating if that's what works for us, but I just wanna make sure, like, this is something you're interested in doing too. And she's like, oh, I have ADHD. If you're not in front of me, I'm not thinking about you.
Janet King:And I was like, oh, well, I don't know if I love that. But she's like, you know, she's like, I love you. I wanna build this friendship. And so we were able now I just get in our friendship, I'm the one who has initiate because we just talked about it and we accepted kinda who we were and what our strengths were. And so I think, you know, like I said, those are all vulnerability signals and if you feel like you you might have to be the one who opens that vulnerable signal first to allow other people to feel safe to do so too.
Krystal Brummitt:I think this question kind of goes along with that. It says, I struggle with the tension between wanting close friends and fearing rejection or awkwardness. How do we push past that?
Janet King:Easy. It's called the liking gap, which is this phenomenon that we tend to underestimate how much people like us. We tend to walk away from social interactions assuming they liked us less than they actually did. So that's one thing I could just say, like if you are feeling a vibe with somebody, if you are feeling like you're getting along with someone, assume that they are feeling it too. And, like, try to keep that stat in your mind that the liking gap is real, and we tend to be harder on ourselves than what's actually happening.
Janet King:I don't mean to minimize that that fear, but I think that the that yeah. That's part of it. What would you add?
Ben Sciacca:Yeah. I mean, some of the folks I've talked to that are combating this have just said that they are tired of being hurt. You know, there is an element. And but I think all true intimacy requires vulnerability. Love requires vulnerability whether it's in a marriage or any relationship.
Ben Sciacca:But at some point, you're gonna have to kind of even talking about kind of step out from behind those fig leaves and just risk being seen, you know. And if And to to the degree that we continue to hide behind that is to the degree that we will never really, you know, think there's the old cliche like our greatest need and our greatest fear are the same thing and that's to be known. You know, but we have to press into that's a need. We're designed to be vulnerable. We're designed to be known.
Ben Sciacca:So that does require to like, hey, I'm popping out here and do you you're gonna like me, but I think I love what you just said about that gap that people actually probably do like you more than you like yourself sometimes and that's that's important.
Krystal Brummitt:I know I'm not the one answering questions up here, but I've thought about this personally too, and I just think it takes courage. Like that's kind of the word that has stuck with me in my own desire to build friendships, and it it is like there is this an actual fear of what if they say no, or what if it's not mutual. But I was like I'm not getting any further by not asking and so just asking the Lord to help me to be courageous to ask and then be okay with if they're busier if they say no or if it doesn't work out. That's my take on it. Yeah.
Krystal Brummitt:A
Janet King:at circles is like, you aren't for everybody and everybody isn't for you and that's okay. Like, do you like everybody in the world? No. So like it's okay that other people don't you know, like we like who we like and it's okay. It's not personal.
Janet King:And so I think trying to depersonalize some of that is important.
Krystal Brummitt:Well, and everyone won't be able to be our best friend. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Are there habits or rhythms that we can build into our lives that create space for intentional connection and especially in a culture culture that glorifies busyness.
Ben Sciacca:One of the things that I've started doing and my brother-in-law is here tonight, like we've I've started with certain guys I really wanna connect with like we have just a standing eye calendar event. And so you have to go over that speed bump to to to get you know, to to to not do it. And so every Monday at I think it's 02:30 and three right now, have a standing invitation for him and some other buddies of mine and we we're trying to make that work. I have that with other guys. It's like, it's a new rhythm of like, oh, as I'm looking at my calendar, there probably are some guys that are, oh crap, that's Ben Chaka, I don't know I don't wanna do that.
Ben Sciacca:But for most people I think it's like, oh yeah, we're gonna that's that's one of my buddies, we wanna get together and do that. But that requires building that infrastructure in a life of in an age of distraction and business that we find some core people like it's it's on there and we don't always make it work. But I think it's important to have that. That's that's one rhythm. The other thing I've done, this is not I'm not against it, so in the sense of in a legalistic way, but I've taken all social media off my phone.
Ben Sciacca:It was really really hard for me for about two months. My mental health has improved and now I'm noticing I'm spending more time with real people and not checking in on strangers and random friends that I haven't seen to see what hamburgers they're eating. Like I'm actually going and having hamburgers with people. I haven't missed it at all. So that's a that's just a that was a deliberate choice to say, don't wanna keep going down this rabbit hole.
Ben Sciacca:I'm gonna come out and look for sunshine on the other side of it. Because I knew what friendship was like before that stuff all was in our faces, and of my richest friendships preceded that era of social media. So that's for me. But that's another big step that I took.
Janet King:Yeah. I have two thoughts. I think one, I think about I I built have built in cues into my life. So one for one example, I go to I work out Pilates three to four times a week, and one of my cues is every time I go to Pilates class, I call my mom. And I think calling a friend is the same thing.
Janet King:Like it like I said, it only takes seven minutes to feel better after you talk from talk to a friend. And so I think what are your natural rhythms of your life where you're alone and you can do a phone call instead of a podcast? I think I love podcasts, I think they've also taken away that that empty time that we might used to fill with a phone call. It's like, oh, it's just easier to load up this podcast. And so think about your kind of, I don't know, commutes, transitions, and then just change the cues.
Janet King:Like, this is the time where I call a friend. And then oh goodness. Oh, I would say take a look at the places that you already naturally go. It's gonna be really hard to add in something to your life without taking something away. So where do you already spend a lot of time?
Janet King:One story that I I know Rebecca heard this week. And and I say like, where do you spend a lot of time and how can you interact with people more there without an agenda? Because you never know where it can lead. One my place is Lady Bird Taco. Lane has seen me there a lot.
Janet King:And it's because they open at 06:30AM, and that's when I get out the door to get work done before my kids get up. So anyway, I'm there a lot, and there was an older man there, and we were in one we'd seen each other lot, and he started talking to me, and what are you working on? And we just had a good no agenda, just getting to know each other. He's, you know, retired lawyer now teaching at Auburn. Couple months later, he sees me.
Janet King:I was pregnant at the time, and so he sees me, and I'm not pregnant now. And he's like, how's the baby? And we were just chatting and talking about work, and he's like, actually, you know, there's someone here that I think you should meet. And he introduced me to someone there. She has a local podcast.
Janet King:We talked about a fun, like, way to partner up and do this podcast together, which will be great for work, and that's exciting. But I had no plan to become best friends with this guy at Lady Bertacco and we had no agenda to our conversations, but we were able to weave together threads that have had an impact in my life. And so think about where you're already spending a lot of time and I'd say just interact more, be friendly there, open up conversations because you never know where those things are gonna lead. And it helps cue your brain that you're part of something that you belong.
Krystal Brummitt:That's good. Thank you. Okay. This is a question that is very specific to Redeemer as well but and Ben mentioned home groups in one of his responses a minute ago. But one of our biggest structures in forming life together and community at Redeemer is our home group structure, but they are not organized around common interest, age, gender.
Krystal Brummitt:Very intentionally, there's a there's a good aspect to that. But we're gonna I'm gonna kick this one to you, Janet. It says, how do we develop deep relationships within that structure when we might not have one of the the big four that you mentioned earlier at the outset? How could we? Yeah.
Janet King:Okay. I like it. It's a little trick tricky one. I love our formula and I stand by it. At the same time, what I think I've been most moved by and convinced of is that we have this capacity to know each other.
Janet King:And I think one of the best examples of this is I'm sure you all saw it a couple years ago, the 36 questions to fall in love out of the New York Times. It's basically this like series of questions developed by this team of psychologists that they were trying to see if like how intimacy is impacted by essentially certain common traits. And they found that if groups no matter two people, if no matter how different they were, they went through these 36 questions by the end of them they felt more as intimate of friends as their current close friends. And I think that speaks to something about how we are wired. When we are present with each other and in the right conditions and vulnerable there is something that kicks in that lets us know and see each other on a deeper level.
Janet King:And so I think to me my brain goes to like what are the conditions of those small groups? How are we building foundation of trust? Because to that the questions is very much how we think about magical questions. They're sequenced intentionally. And so I do think there is like not only the chemistry of a group to think about, but the order of operations of how a group gets to know each other that can lead to the vulnerability even across a group that's very different from each other.
Krystal Brummitt:Thank you. We have a lot of our leaders in the room so I know that that's helpful just to think through as we're fostering spaces for connection and friendship as well. Okay. So Ben, you shared which we encourage and affirm that you have taken all social media off your phone forever. It seems.
Krystal Brummitt:We won't hold you to it. But would you say, either one of you, is it possible to use technology or social media in a helpful or wise way to facilitate community and relationships or not?
Ben Sciacca:Well, the redemptive side of it for me, I think all things So I think that social media is a neutral technology. What are we what are we using it for? Again, a postman question is you know, in our haste to understand what technology can do for us, we're never asking what it's doing to us. So but the redemptive side to Facebook was that I have been able to reconnect with a few friends from Colorado, and one of them was my best friend from k four through ninth grade, and he and I now do a monthly phone call. He lives in Connecticut.
Ben Sciacca:So like, and catching up on life has been so easy, like he's shared so much with me, he's like the reason I'm sharing some of these things with you is because I've known you for so long, I trust you. And that goes back to the beginning. So I would not have been able to I don't know where he was, I I lost track of him. And so that has been cool, but again it's kind of brought us into a space where we can now connect via an actual phone call. I hope to see him face to face soon.
Ben Sciacca:I think the I think the challenge I will say about this about and I love to hear what Janet thinks, but like with social media is just this. Okay? If I if you get your like iPhone report card every week and it shows how long you're on your phone. Okay? I average about two and a half hours a day.
Ben Sciacca:Okay? Maybe hopefully you guys are doing a lot better than that. I wanna give you I wanna do the math for this. If two and half hours a day is the same as me sitting here and looking at this phone and never breaking eye contact with it until August 10. Okay?
Ben Sciacca:That's that's basic I'm talking about twenty four hour cycles of just this. Okay? How many people could I actually be hanging out with during that time or making that seven minute phone call? I will say this, I do think it's taking a lot more from us than it's giving. Okay?
Ben Sciacca:I think it's putting us at a deficit. I don't I don't see any gains where it's actually I'm hard pressed for anyone to convince me that it's giving us more than it's taking from us. So that doesn't mean just erase it from your phone like I did. Maybe pray about it, think about it. But I would definitely limit your time and spend more time like this with real people.
Janet King:Yeah. I mean, the golden standard for connection will always be proximate in person vulnerable interaction. The way I think about social media, agree, technology is neither good or bad. It's how we use it. But my, like, thing I say often is it's established that social connection is a need just like hunger is a need.
Janet King:It's physiological for us. And when I'm hungry, could go to McDonald's and get a Big Mac or I can go to Whole Foods and cook an organic meal. And to me, social media is the junk food of connection. You'll technically get a hit. You'll technically feel connected.
Janet King:You'll have seen your friends doing their thing and you might have some likes and some DMs. But how often are you eating that organic home cooked meal when it comes to connection? And if that's the only thing you're doing to connect and it's not driving towards that healthier way of sustaining yourself and your connections, then I think you need to look at that balance.
Krystal Brummitt:Cosine on both of that. Okay. So Janet, you mentioned earlier you're an extrovert. I'm an extrovert. We extroverts may have maybe more of a capacity for hanging out initiating friendships than our introverted friends.
Krystal Brummitt:So how can introverts and extroverts approach friendship building in ways that are healthy and honoring of how others are wired?
Janet King:Come to the gathering lab. I mean, so I think one thing that like a couple of assumptions I wanna I don't know, myths I wanna bust, I guess. I think what one of the reason why I love what we're doing is because I think there's this idea that extroverts have it easy. Right? And I think what actually happens in our social interactions is extroverts do all of the asking of the questions, introverts answer, and then but introverts are like two for one by extrovert energy, and extroverts leave, feel like no one asked them any questions, and we're none of us feel really like seen or like we got what we needed from that.
Janet King:And so I would just say being an introvert there was also a study done that said that asked introverts to act more extroverted for a week, and they ended up being happier and having better relationships. And so that's not to say to change who you are, but it might say edge out of your comfort zone. Right? And in safe ways. And I think one of one thing I've learned and appreciate about introverts coming through for our experiences is that they really really value one to one deeper conversation.
Janet King:And so think about ways that you can set that up in your day to day. And one of the things I talk about is a memorable intro where it's a vulnerable lead plus a magical question. And I actually have some of our introverts like script this out. What is a social thing you are going to in the next week and how are we gonna script out your introduction? So a a memorable introduction might be, hey, I am new to this gym and I've never done this workout before and I'm feeling kinda nervous.
Janet King:How long have you been coming here and why did you start coming here? And so you signal some vulnerability by saying I'm new here. You have a question that's not what do you do for a living. You have something to kinda get below the surface. And I think introverts appreciate like that's gonna lead to the conversation that you like because you've signaled that vulnerability.
Janet King:You're going a little bit deeper. I think it gives you something walking into a room. And I I you know, I think but I think the frank reality is that the world is designed for extroverts. And so partly knowing your own limits and kind of I don't know. That's not a great note to end on, but knowing your limits and finding the spaces where you feel safe and then trying to get out of your comfort zone with some vulnerability with some good questions that will lead to the kind of conversations that you like.
Janet King:Would
Krystal Brummitt:you say are there any ways that extroverts can be I don't know if gentle is the right word or help those who are maybe having who are coming in feeling more nervous about interactions?
Janet King:So I I am a believer in even if it's light, lightly structured experiences. I think asking people to show up to a like a wide open happy hour and expect introverts to like walk away feeling good about that is like a lot. I don't think that's gonna happen. So if you are an extrovert, you happen to be planning gatherings, think about like quick little moments that you can add in, little structure that you can add in. I think the other thing too is like anytime you notice there's a big group of people, like, I'd say more than four people to standing around having a conversation, that's gonna be when the extrovert shines and it's like, oh, great.
Janet King:Everyone's you know, whatever. But that's when the introverts gonna start to be, like, overwhelmed. So I think creating smaller groups within those social interactions would be a good step.
Krystal Brummitt:Thanks. Ben, do you have anything to add?
Ben Sciacca:Well, I think extroverts and introverts can also present with social anxiety. I think part of extroversion is that we get our energy from being with people. Introverts don't necessarily need to be with masses of people to to feel energized. So I'm married to a very very strong introvert, and she in social settings actually looks very extroverted but just drains her. Like it just completely drains her where I can come to like, oh, I'm all amped up and stuff, know.
Ben Sciacca:So some of it's just the the energy the way God designed us with and so I think there's the sensitivity to that. And but I think extroverts and introverts can enter into a setting like this and feel anxiety or static even though they're they might be wired differently. So just being sensitive to that and then being attuned to that whether it's in your home group or the way you arrange a party or things is is important.
Krystal Brummitt:Yeah. I think mindfulness of knowing ourselves and being aware of those around us is really really helpful for us to remember. These are great questions. Y'all definitely showed up and did your part, and we really appreciate it. And, it's it's also helpful for us to have these even as we just think about going forward as a church, the questions that you're asking and the things that you're experiencing.
Krystal Brummitt:So thank you for participating. As we wrap up our time together tonight, I did wanna have the time just to take a minute to share with you about next steps. So wherever you are, if you want are wanting more friends or you want to meet different people that you know, your life patterns are pretty much the same every day. You go to work, go to the same gym, and you you just want to spice it up with some new friends. Or you're in a place where you're like, I I'm really feeling like I'm lacking here, and I'm longing for friendship and connection, then these next steps are gonna be for all of you.
Krystal Brummitt:And the way that this is gonna work is there's gonna be a QR code that's gonna pop up that you should be able to scan with your phone. And this is gonna take you to a landing page that is gonna explain more good job, everyone. Phones are acceptable only right now, and we'll leave this up. But this is gonna take you to a landing page on a website that Janet and we together have worked on explaining about summer circles, what it is, what the hope behind it is, what we're seeking to accomplish. And there are links on that that will then take you to a registration to sign up for summer circles.
Krystal Brummitt:And Janet gave us a little bit of a teaser about that a moment ago. On Sunday evening, August third, that will be the summer circles kickoff. And so you will need to sign up, register online. You can do that via the QR code, the links. There is a small fee to participate.
Krystal Brummitt:If if that is something that's a hindrance, let me know, and we will absolutely waive that for you. We do not want that to be a barrier. And then you will sign up, and then you will receive a confirmation email, and it's a little clunky, but buried in that confirmation email is the questionnaire that Janet mentioned. And we'll make sure that you get it, and because everyone has to fill it out in order to participate. It's just gonna ask you your interest, your hobbies, a little bit more about yourself as we are working together to create groups of did we say four to five?
Krystal Brummitt:Yeah. Okay. Five to six. Five to six. Yeah.
Krystal Brummitt:People. And so we'll come for the kickoff on August 3. We'll meet together in those groups that night, and then that will be the launching pad to two more dinners together. And then we're gonna be equipped with Janet's resources and materials for the questions and the topics and the flow of conversation that she mentioned. And so we're we're really excited for this.
Krystal Brummitt:We're excited to get to cross paths with people in our church where we have shared interests and values and like that are very particular. I think we're all in this room because we love God and we love being a part of this church body. And, you know, I'm looking for someone who wants to go on long hard hikes because that's something that I really enjoy doing, and that's not everyone's cup of tea. So, we wanna be able to to meet those people, talk about those things together. I think am I missing anything that oh, I I am missing something important.
Krystal Brummitt:This this space is limited. It's big, but if it fill there is the possibility that the capacity could fill up for what we're prepared to do. So you all being here tonight have the first opportunity to register. So that QR code will do it. So if you haven't scanned it, grab it or have a friend text it to you.
Krystal Brummitt:And then on Friday, when our church wide email goes out, this opportunity will be made available to those who maybe weren't able to be here tonight. So you get first dibs by being in the room. So if you know you wanna participate, go ahead and sign up, and then the opportunity will be available as long as space is available. If you have any questions about that tonight, I'll be around, Janet will be around, we'd be glad to answer any questions if there's anything that we can help help you make that decision to hopefully opt in with us for summer circles. I'm gonna turn it over to Ben with I called it Ben's parting words, and then he's gonna pray for us, and we'll be around.
Krystal Brummitt:Yeah. If y'all wanna chat or have more questions. But thank you from me for being here tonight.
Ben Sciacca:Yeah. As we close, I wanna wanna thank Crystal for moderating. Great job. And Janet, thank you for all you're doing to provide on ramps for community in a time where it's so fragmented. So I I just as I was kind of preparing for tonight, just a last thought I wanted to leave on a kind of an ending of hope.
Ben Sciacca:I said it when I first kind of started talking, said God, there's no time when God was ever alone, but that's not totally true, and I'll give an example in a moment. But I think the greatest gesture of of towards community and love that we will ever see is actually the incarnation. When Christ became embodied to live with us, to reach us, to touch us, to hear us, to sit with us, to feed us, to cry with us, to raise us. But I wanna I wanna think about a real quick story and we'll be done. In the Garden Of Gethsemane when Jesus was about to endure the cross, He is with his father.
Ben Sciacca:He's crying, he's sweating tears of blood, he's actually asking his father as part of the trinity, would you please let this cup of wrath pass from me? But who does he turn to two or three times for help in that moment of agony? He goes to his friends and he just says, would you would you just stay awake with me? Would you just be with me tonight? In his greatest moment of agony, Christ models for us a couple of things, his own need and his humanity for friends.
Ben Sciacca:And he also knows in that moment what it's like to be alone. He knows how we feel when we're in that dark space and yet he persevered and ends in an even more lonely naked broken place on the cross for us. But that's the savior that we love and serve and he's familiar with that. And I just wanna leave with that as a message of hope that Christ presses into those spaces with each of us and and he wants you and me to have friends. So let me pray for us.
Ben Sciacca:Father, thank you for this night. Thank you for this space. Thank you for everyone who came tonight. Lord, I don't know everyone's stories. There are some here who I'm sure are feeling just terribly alone right now.
Ben Sciacca:And the hard part about loneliness is that we're oftentimes feeling lonely and we're around people. We're with people, we're at work, we're playing pickleball, we're having coffee and yet we feel like nobody knows us or gets us. And I'm thankful for The Gathering Lab, I'm thankful for Janet and just her heart to create context where people can find each other, to find friendship, to find community. And I pray that this this evening could be an answer to prayer for some people that they would find friendship and companionship and and groups. And I pray that Lord all of us would stretch ourselves also to be the friends that we need.
Ben Sciacca:Perhaps we need to have a seven minute phone call with someone on our way home tonight calling a family member or a friend that we've been estranged from and just to hear their voice and to connect. But I pray that we would not lose hope if anyone is feeling hopeless or in a dark place, that you would just provide light and grace to them and that they would know that they're seen by you and that your desire and your design is that they would be seen and loved and cherished by others. We pray that you are glorified tonight. Give everybody safety as they return home. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name.
Ben Sciacca:Amen. I
