Most churches have got the small group and the Sunday service figured out. But there's a whole layer of community that's gone missing, and it might be why people keep saying "I don't feel like I belong here."

Joel, Stu and Tim dig into Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology of friendship as an ecclesial category, and why his concentric circles of relationship, drawn straight from Jesus' own relational model, give churches a practical framework for building community that's expansive instead of cliquey.

They also pull in Robin Dunbar's research on the cognitive limits of human relationship, and land somewhere surprising: biology and theology are telling the same story.

Plus: e-bikes, convicts, the Industrial Revolution, and why teenagers might actually be ahead of the church on this one.

Timestamps
05:11 Friendship as an ecclesial category
13:14 The 3, the 12, the 72, the 120
19:24 Jesus saves us into community
24:03 Cultural differences and individualism influencing friendship
34:09 The Dunbar number and what friendship brings
43:17 Tim's takeaway - How would your relationships at church change if you saw them as friends?

Discussed on this episode
The Lesser of Two Weevils - Master and Commander
When Church Was a Family, by Joesph Hellerman
Dunbar's Number

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