Responses to DB - A Blog Series - Friendships: The Reason For Living

How important are friendships!? Personally, I don't know where I would be if it were not for the friends that I have had over the years; even in times that seemed to be far from the path that God has laid for me.
Purdue: My roommates gave me the opportunity to experience a life that I would have never experienced inside the walls of the dorm room, waiting for them to come back.
Officiating: I have some pretty sweet guys that I can hang with and talk about just about anything.
And then there are some of the friendships that have truly shaped who I am and have been relationships that I could depend on in the thickest of situations.
Bethel: So many people that have shaped me into the man I am. Professors, peers, roommates, and classmates. I can't even begin to name all the people that have contributed to this.
Ministry: The pastors that I have been able to be mentored by and the volunteers that I work with are the best people in the world to work with. I would trade them for nothing.

The point of listing the different places that I have friendships and how they have affected me is to point out that we are made for relationships. Even the most intense introvert desires some form of relationship. We are so based on relationship that we have made more and more social networking sites on the Internet. We can't live without the relationships that dominated our lives.

As one who is in the business of connecting with students, I am finding that these students desire relationships, more and more. That seems very contrary to the common belief that students today are becoming less and less social because of texting, instant messaging, and impersonal communication. Our students crave relationships and that is why they are on all of the social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and are constantly texting. They want to know more and more that they are connected to someone. I find it interesting how it is to operate in that world. Instant connection to all the people that you have ever known is very important to these students.

And the idea is permeating into the older generations. While this trend is far from the dominance that it has shown in the youngest of generations, it is catching onto the adults of this world; the people who want to connect face-to-face are doing what they can to fulfill that desire for relationships. Parents are acquiring Facebook accounts (and they should!) more and more each day. Whether the original intent is to check on their kid, or to connect with as many people in their high school graduating class, the desire to be fulfilled is still the need for relationship in their lives.

Relationships are paramount to our culture and we cannot avoid them. No matter how "old fashioned" we want to be.