Appetite for More

Ever want more?  Sure, we all do, that's the nature of appetites.  No matter how much you have if you have an appetite for food, success, power, love, money........you want more.

In my travels, one of the most common things I hear people say is they want more meaningful relationships.

More relationships?  No, more "meaningful" relationships!

In a day where pretty much everyone is at your finger tips by way of cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, txt messages, email  and dozens of other social networks there is still a longing for more, but not just more, more meaningful relationships.

So how do we get there?  There's a lot of things we can do, but for a moment let me share a thought from Philippians 3:10-11  "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹ if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

While Paul is encouraging the Church of Philippi to "press towards the goal" of living for Christ.  I see also in this scripture one of the keys to developing more meaningful relationships.  Many times our friendships hang out at the "knowledge of His resurrection."  We fellowship with other believers and build connections based on the fact we're Christians.  That's a good things, it's a starting point.  But to stay there is not only shallow, but encourages our appetite for more.

"Fellowship of His sufferings,"  this is real rubber meets the road when it comes to going deeper.  Who have you suffered with?  Who are the friends that you have cried together, have gone through the pain of life with?  Who knows your struggles, temptations and shortcomings?

"Being conformed to His death."  Death stinks!  Let's face it, not to many dead people walking around these days.  Dead to agendas, dead to selfishness gain. Dead to excuses.   You know what I mean.  I'm guilty.  I've often used social media to promote me.  Getting to a place where everyone in the relationship is giving of themselves till it hurts is a hard place to get.   It's living a life where your house, your phone bill, your food, your clothes, your children, your job, your gas is not yours anymore.  It's His and theirs.

But the truth be told, when you get there you find out it doesn't hurt at all because you cant hurt a dead person.

Going deeper is a process, hopefully you got some ideas for your next step in having more meaningful relationships.

Controlled Chaos

One of the things I'd try to make sure we had in our youth ministries was a little element called "controlled chaos."
Let's face it, teens just want to have fun. Guys too.
I believe that if you can have a time in every service for a little controlled chaos, then great things could happen.
Whether it be a group activity, silly game, gross contest, controlled chaos is something to get teens up and having fun. It helps create an atmosphere for good things to happen.

In the movie "The Dark Knight" there is a scene where "The Joker" is having some one-on-one time with Harvey Dent in the hospital. He makes a statement, "Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos...I'm an agent of chaos. Oh and you know the thing about chaos...it's fair."
A little over the top? Yes! However, there is a lot of truth (I believe) to it.

Think about this.
When it comes to the most meaningful relationships in your life; spouse, family, friends, God-- would you say that you have a real in depth relationship with them or are they more on the surface? The truth be told, it's easy for the best relationships we have to quickly fall into a pseudo style relationship.

So how do we keep those relationships real, instead of slipping into surface acquaintances?
Introduce a little chaos.

Bill Hybles calls it, "The Tunnel of Chaos" and Mike Yaconelli gives detail in his book "Messy Spiritually" that if you want to really grow then you've got to go through this stage in your relationships.
A level of chaos has to be introduced! You've got to come to a place where you can look at each other and say, "if we're going to move from a pseudo relationship to a real in depth meaningful relationship then we've got to allow each others messiness to get on us."

Real openness.
Real transparency.
Real arguments.
Real love.
Real forgiveness.
Real accountability.

Upset the established order to your surface relationships, introduce a little controlled chaos and watch great things happen.