Why Can't We Be Friends Series

and years, crying with people, weeping with people I draw these five suggestions from the fact

that if most of the people I had talked to had had one or more of these five guardrails, they

would’ve avoided some of the greatest heartbreaking experiences of their lives, and I want that

for you.

Now, as I’m giving these to you, some of you are going to push back in this way. You’re

going to say, Andy, that doesn’t sound very compassionate. That doesn’t sound very loving. That

doesn’t even sound very Christian. What would Jesus do? Do you think Jesus would have

guardrails? So I want you to take all of that concern and I want you to set it aside for five

minutes and then I’m going to come back to that. I just want you to know ahead of time, I

understand that concern. I don’t want anything to get in the way of you processing these

suggestions. I don’t expect that you adopt all five of these. I think it’d be a great idea if you did.

These are some of the things that Sandra and I do and we encourage our kids to do, but I just

want you to listen, because my goal for you is not that you do these five things. My goal for you

is that you recognize the danger and the pitfalls of friendship, and that you establish some

guardrails that keep you safely back from some oncoming traffic, because in our world that’s just

unavoidable reality.

Here’s the first one. I think your conscience should just light up. I mean, this is like, bam,

guardrail. Your conscience should light up when it dawns on you that your core group isn’t

moving in the direction you want your life to be moving in. You should just light up when it

dawns on you that your core group isn’t moving in the direction you want your life to be moving.

When it dawns on you, You know what, my value system, what I want for my marriage, for my

kids, for my finances, for my spirituality, for my health is going this way and most of the people

I spend time with are going this way. When that dawns on you, you should be concerned. Here’s

what we normally do. It dawns on us, but we say, but I’m no worse for it. I’m not developing any

of those habits. But when it dawns on you that opposite direction—close proximity—that should

concern you. It should concern you to the point that you do something about it, that you not wait

until there’s a problem. This is one of the reasons we’re so crazy about community groups here,

starting point groups. This is one of the reasons I’m constantly saying, please don’t spend years

and years and years sitting in rows. I want you to get in circles. Community group—our whole

small groups strategy is an attempt to help you jump-start some new relationships with some

people that are moving hopefully in the same direction in which you’re moving, because the

challenge of this whole process and the challenge of this whole principle is, Okay, but Andy,

these are my friends. These are the people I do life with. These are the people I work with. These