3 Expectations for Interacting with Others

Interacting with other people can be difficult. This is true whether at work, at home, or at Church. In fact, sometimes Church interactions can seem the most difficult. Even for the most extroverted extroverts, holding a deep, honest conversation after a Sunday Sermon can prove hard or impossible. However, for a Christian, interacting with fellow Church members isn’t optional:

…addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart

Ephesians 5:19 ESV, emphasis added

If part of our commitment as Church members is interacting with each other and holding meaningful conversations, there is always a need to improve. Improve in our motivation for talking with others and improving our expectations for those conversations. In this post, I want to propose 3 expectations that I have found helpful to hold in my head when interacting with others, particularly fellow Church members.

Expectation 1: Most everyone is at least a little lonely

Everyone craves connection to some extent

“Loneliness” is not just reserved for the husband who lost his wife, the couple who miscarried, or the single who can’t seem to find the right person to marry. Certainly clear, objective, intense loneliness exists everywhere, including the Church. However, I think beneath the calm and collected demeanor most people (including myself) want to project, there is a bit of loneliness in each of us.

This “loneliness” I might also call “the unmet desire for deep, meaningful friendship with others and to be truly known.” It is the man who loves his family and serves the Church, but just wants a good male friend to spend time with every so often. Or it could be the mother with five kids who is worried because she doesn’t feel connected to any of the other young families at Church. Perhaps it is an elder or deacon who feels they must always “have all the answers” and therefore can’t truly open up with any of their congregants.

This “loneliness” is subtle. Beneath the surface. I know of very few people who would share this type of loneliness as a prayer request or openly in a group. But it exists behind the “how was your week?” “It was good” type interactions that can often characterize post-sermon conversations. I could add to this that publication after publication in news and secular studies have argued the way humans are using technology is making us feel more isolated. It seems safe, therefore, to expect subtle loneliness to exist in the lives of those around you.

It matters if you make an effort or not

What is the takeaway? Expect when you look up after the last Sunday hymn has ended that the people around you need and want meaningful friendship and connection. Hold in you mind that, despite their best efforts, no one in the pew around you has attained perfection yet. This perspective does 3 things:

• It makes you more willing to go up and talk with someone. If someone is lonely around you, your instinct as a Christian should be to help bear that burden. This applies to subtle loneliness as much as it does the more drastic type of loneliness. Don’t ask yourself “should I go talk to this person?” Ask instead “I wonder what this person is going through this past week? Let me go ask.”
• It encourages you to keep the conversation going. Most people aren’t going to wear a “I am lonely” shirt. But if you expect they have a subtle, underlying loneliness, you are more likely to keep pursuing interactions and conversations with them, even when it is difficult.
• You see your own need for interacting with others. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are never lonely to some degree. Christians were made to live in dynamic fellowship with other Christians. You going to talk with a Church member after service will likely benefit you as much as it will the other person.

Like all of these expectations, they might not always be true in every specific conversation. Some people really might have a week where they are not lonely at all. But as a general principle, assume those around you need connection. The only way to help is to start trying to connect.

Expectation 2: Every human being is inherently complex

Good and bad, easy and difficult

No one’s week is a one-dimensional, simple, straightforward movement from one joy to the next. We all live in a fallen world with tensions between easy and hard, good and bad. Even if you have had a generally good week, there were almost certainly difficult experiences you went through. And the inverse also applies: if you had a miserable week, there was almost certainly some good that came out of it.

What is the point? No one’s week was simply “good”. When interacting with others at Church, assume whoever you are talking with is not a simple person living a simple life. There is depth and complexity to every single person who is made in the image of God. Even the person you think is the most “dull” or “uninteresting” at your Church has lived through a whole world of complex experiences this past week.

Get to know other people’s complexities

In both personality and experience, every person you interact with is complex and dynamic. A few implications follow:

• Do not take the “my week was good” answer at face value. There is more that the other person is not sharing, guaranteed. To get past the “off the shelf” answers, you need to recognize when someone is oversimplifying their experience. If you get a “my week was good,” follow it up immediately with “what things did the Lord teach you this week?” or “was there anything that was difficult for you during this good week?”
• It might take time, but truly knowing someone is always worth it. Every single interaction with a believer is a conversation with someone who is created in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and is currently in a relationship with the living God. If you let that thought really sink in, there is no reason to ever write another Christian off or categorize them as “boring”. It might take time, but getting to know a fellow Christian is always worth it.
• Set an example of wise openness in your conversations. By “wise” I mean you don’t dump every single experience of your past week on the other person right off the bat. Just because you had a complex week does not mean every single detail must be shared immediately. But it does mean you set the example of sharing the good with the bad, the easy with the difficult.

Expect that beneath every “my week was good” is a human being who lived a whole week with complex emotions, reactions, and experiences. This helps you see the dignity of those around you and to not oversimplify other people to the point that you think “I understand them. They can’t have done anything interesting.”

Expectation 3: You will have to take the initiative

Start the conversation. Continue the conversation.

So you expect people around you to be at least a little lonely and to be complex, interesting human beings. What now? Understanding both of the previous expectations will get you nowhere without this last one. You, not the other person, will have to start the conversation and keep it going. Who doesn’t love it when someone comes up and starts talking with them? Most everyone appreciates someone who has good social skills, who asks good questions, and can hold a conversation.

Stop assuming that person has to be someone else. Take the responsibility to initiate and continue conversations with people around you. Create the environment where that other person can open up and knows you actually care about them as a person. If you come into Church expecting a line out the door of people who want to talk to you, you have the opposite perspective you need to have.

Come into Church on a Sunday thinking “how many people can I have meaningful, encouraging conversations with this morning?”

Pursue the people around you. A great way to serve other believers practically is to simply take the responsibility to talk with them. Does it get any more practical than this? Beneath every face in your service is someone who wants to be known. Bless such a person by actually trying to get to know them. Sure there might be some awkwardness in initiating a conversation with someone you hardly know. But remember expectation 2: each person is made in God’s image and is worth you trying to initiate a conversation with them.

Small talk to deep talk

I read part of a book last year called “The Fine Art of Small Talk” by Debra Fine. The title interested me because “small talk” often gets a bad rap, especially in Christian circles. “I just want to go deep” or “I don’t want to talk about the weather” are phrases that come to mind. And rightfully so: we were made for deeper connection than small talk can bring.

However, one of the impactful ideas in the book that I appreciate is sometimes you have to start with small talk to get to deep talk. I personally have only a handful of really close friends with which I can immediately go deep. You might have one yourself: the type of person 30 seconds after you call them on the phone you are sharing what the Lord is doing or sins you are fighting or Bible passages that have become precious to you.

That is the exception rather than the rule. If you expect every single conversation you have to immediately and without delay to go to your deepest spiritual reflections, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. A more realistic goal is to start with more “mundane” things and then gradually ask questions to guide the conversation to the deeper things. If you are patient and take the initiative to keep a conversation going, there is no reason why it shouldn’t eventually get to deeper discussion.

But it takes time. And patience. Practice too. I recommend you pick up a copy of “The Fine Art of Small Talk” or a similar book just to start thinking about how to better initiate conversations and engage others. As I said before, don’t expect other people to take that responsibility for you. Become the type of Christian who lovingly pursues connection with those around them. But also become a Christian who is patient in that pursuit and is not afraid to talk about the weather because they know even the weather can become an avenue to talk about the Lord and His goodness.

Interacting with others is tough…but worth it

Interacting with others is a topic which cannot be exhausted in one post. But I think the three expectations that most everyone is lonely, everyone is complex, and you have to take the initiative to get to know them can help you become more effective in your conversations. Interacting with those around you is a command of Scripture, yes, but also a precious privilege for a Christian. You never know: interacting with a person around you might start a friendship, provide an encouragement, or bless your own soul.

It isn’t easy. But it is always worth it. Pray that the Lord would increase your own love so that you truly can “love your neighbor as yourself.” Then show that love in your conversations with others.

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