FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: I will never forget standing in the front of the church officiating your sister's funeral. I was looking toward the back, so you probably don't even remember this moment. You remember what happened, but I see the back door of this church open and in walk seven couples of our best friends from Detroit.

Ann Wilson: To watch those friends walk in, I still get emotional about it because it meant everything. They're here. There's something about having a friend be there with you in your darkest time that means so much because you feel like you can't even stand up on your own.

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: We were made for community, and we're going to talk about that today with Jennie Allen. She just came into Orlando, Florida. She's been on FamilyLife Today, but Jennie, welcome back.

Jennie Allen: Thanks for having me, guys. This is fun.

Dave Wilson: You grew up in Little Rock, so you used to go on FamilyLife in your hometown. Does it feel any different being in Orlando?

Jennie Allen: No, this is so fun. It's a beautiful campus and I'm such a fan of Cru, so it's so great to be here with you guys today.

Ann Wilson: Jennie, it's fun because for 35 years, I worked with Detroit Lions wives. Their wives or girlfriends were coming into Detroit of all places and they were depressed coming into Detroit so many times. We've done several of your books, and the thing that I love about you is how you take us closer to Jesus.

But here's what the women say, and I think a lot of women say this: She's just like me. She's gone through what I've gone through, but she has a focus on Jesus that's gotten her through so much. That's what I feel like you have discipled so many women over the years and that's meant so much to me and so much to all of us.

Jennie Allen: It doesn't go very far unless there are women like you leading in their places and helping people get these resources. I feel like we're teammates.

Dave Wilson: Our middle son is a literary agent. He's our agent, and so he has books all over his house. I was out there a couple years ago and I see your book *Get Out of Your Head*. I've got to be honest, I pick it up and think this is a book for women. She's a women's writer and she wrote for women. I start reading this thing and it was awesome. I was so impressed with Jennie Allen as an author.

Ann Wilson: Does that mean you get in your head, too?

Dave Wilson: Everybody does. This subject is not just written for women; it's written for everybody.

Jennie Allen: I've noticed that more and more. There's definitely a lot more men reading my material and I try to be thoughtful of that as I go forward. Certainly in the beginning that wasn't in my mind, but the issues we face are similar. Honestly, especially lately, we are universally going through similar things. There is something that is just human about all of us in the struggles we're having right now.

Ann Wilson: And you started the IF:Gathering. For those of our listeners that don't know what that is, explain that a little bit.

Jennie Allen: This was a dream to bring women together and hopefully just further discipleship was the goal. It's so beautiful because it crosses denomination lines and all different types of lines that exist in culture. Women across the world come together and learn about Jesus and read the Word together and hopefully change and grow together.

Dave Wilson: Let's talk about *Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World*. Where did this come from? What's the vision behind it?

Jennie Allen: The timing of this book seems very brilliant because who knew we would be coming out of a pandemic. It was forecasted for this moment prior to the pandemic existing. I look back and I was in Uganda visiting there and doing some work and storytelling with a ministry.

I was driving past these two women that were beautiful and they had buckets on their heads and they were walking down to get their water for the day. They were having a ball together. They were laughing and cutting up. Then I ended up in one of the villages, which I've done many times, and I started noticing the rhythms of their lives and how communal they were, and I was jealous.

I was bothered more than anything. I thought this is my son's country. My youngest son is from Rwanda, so we go to his country a lot and we're friends with a lot of people from Rwanda. One of the pastors there told me once, "Jennie, I feel sorry for you all. We are living in each other's lives day in and day out. I come here and it's so lonely and so isolated."

I began to just be curious. Are we just stuck in this individualistic culture called America and specifically all over the West? You see a very hyper "I can pull myself up by my bootstraps, I can make it happen" mentality. If someone does, we're so proud of them, like that was amazing, they're the hero. I saw this twisted, backwards culture of what we're supporting and what we're even encouraging our kids to do.

Ann Wilson: Is that what bothered you?

Jennie Allen: It made me sad. I wanted something different. I wanted us to live more like the people of Uganda and Rwanda. That began a journey where I interviewed people from all over the world. I researched the history of civilization as well as what the Bible has to say about it and found a lot of troubling things.

Ann Wilson: What was that? When you research our history in America, what was troubling?

Jennie Allen: We're the loneliest generation that has ever lived on earth and nobody's arguing it. Twenty percent of the world no longer lives in village-like communities. That began with the Industrial Revolution. When you look prior to that, 100 percent of people—unless you literally were alone somewhere, which you wouldn't survive long—lived in a village-type existence.

That was anywhere from 50 to 150 people. Then there would be a new village that broke off because they would need a school and they would need different resources. This is how people have lived throughout all of time. Ironically, the research done in our generation is fascinating because it absolutely matches that mentality.

About 150 people is our capacity to be able to keep up with and know what's happening in their lives—to know if somebody has cancer or to care about taking them a casserole. That's about what we have the capacity to care about. Then if you move on down the circles of people, you've got the capacity for three to five close friends that know your daily in-and-out life.

Then you have a capacity for a little bit more to be in and out of your life on a weekly basis. So you look at the research and it all supports what has been true of humanity for all of time. Yet we find ourselves, many of us, in places where we live in a neighborhood where we have fences and we don't even know our neighbors.

We live in a world where we go and commute to work, and our work friends aren't our home friends, and our church friends aren't our neighbors, and it's all divided into these silos. We're very isolated and we wonder what's broken because we haven't known another way. What I wanted to do was really tell the story of another way.

This is how humanity has always lived. It has been fruitful and healthy and they've prospered in these villages. That cannot be my reality. At the same time as working on this project, I moved to a metroplex. I moved to Dallas, Texas. We had to figure it out there. But I was thinking about all these things and one thing that took us to Dallas was we had family there. We really started to make choices based on people rather than cool cities or jobs or weather—whatever reasons people tend to move these days. I wanted to choose family. It was closer to my family and we were in town with his.

Dave Wilson: What did you find when you went to Scripture? Same thing?

Jennie Allen: The first thing I do on every project is I pull every scripture out of the Bible on that subject. We begin with mountains of scriptures usually on a topic. Of course, I went to seminary so I've got a theological framework before I begin anything on any subject, but that's where I start.

It was interesting because when we pulled it all, there wasn't as much as I thought. Then I had to step back and think theologically about it and go, "Wait, no. The whole book is written about people, about families, and to groups of people." When I began to theologically see that grid—which is how I wrote the Bible study—of just the theological arc of community through Scripture, there really is no verse that's written outside of the context of community.

It was all written to people groups. In the Old Testament you see it written to Israel, you see it written to nations. Nations at that point were, of course, a lot smaller and groups of people. Then you see in the New Testament it was written to the local churches. Many of the letters were written to local churches.

When I began to view it like that, there really wasn't any of the Bible that wasn't about it. So that's why I took a really theological, high-level picture. You look at Genesis—let's start there. You see a communal God who even uses the plural in those scriptures of creation. He says, "Let us create man in our image." He reveals His Trinitarian form in that moment.

God is three and God is one—Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He reveals His Trinitarian form in Genesis as He's creating man. Then the first thing He says about the man is it is not good for that man to be alone. Now we always talk about it in the context of marriage, but He just meant you can't be alone. It's not good. It's never good.

It's not just men; it's men and women, mankind. We are communal beings. It says that we were created in His image as He's revealing His Trinitarian form. You know that He is a communal God in His very presence and essence. He is communal. Therefore, when He builds a man in His image, He builds him communal. It's not something that we crave, it's not something that we feel sad when we're missing; it's part of who we are.

My friend that's a Christian and a psychiatrist and neuro-researcher says we come into the world looking for someone looking for us, and we never stop looking for that. An infant is born looking for someone looking for them. We all see that in a baby's eyes. You can see it from birth that they're looking for someone looking for them. I think it's important for people to realize that theologically we are communal. Otherwise, we'll try to slap a supper club on it or Bible study and think that's enough. But we were really meant to live day in and day out with people.

Ann Wilson: What does that look like for you?

Jennie Allen: It's been a shift. When we moved to Dallas and this was a value and I was thinking about these things, we began by moving somewhere where we could see our family, where we were blocks away. Last week I stopped by my mother-in-law's house to see what she had planted that day. We wanted to be somewhere where we could run into our friends and neighbors.

Then I began to pray for five friends within five miles. I really believed that I was going to build my own little village. And what's cool is we have. Our small group has been together five years and we're very committed to each other. We're doing life in a very transparent way. We are helping each other raise our kids. All of our kids know each other and are great friends.

Ann Wilson: Was this the perfect small group? Was this the end-all-be-all small group?

Jennie Allen: We didn't know, but they were proximate to us and we knew we would be raising our kids together. I began to make choices where proximity was a value. I began to make choices where the hardest one I had to make was just to be more vulnerable. As a leader and someone that's in the public eye, it's a hard thing to choose to do. I just had to risk. I had been hurt before.

Ann Wilson: I was going to say, as a woman, I've talked to so many women as you have that say, "I'm not doing that. Women are mean. Girls are mean."

Dave Wilson: Newsflash, so are guys.

Ann Wilson: But women will start with that. "I don't have any friends because women are mean and I've been burned, and so I'm not going to be there." For you to go back there and say, "God, I'm going to pray for five friends within five miles," women are probably thinking, "I want that, but I've prayed that and I haven't found it." And you're walking through with us how that happens.

Jennie Allen: One thing I did in the book was I held everybody's hand because I have gotten a million messages about how hard this is for people.

Ann Wilson: What do you mean you held their hand?

Jennie Allen: I told them exactly what to do. I'm like, this is how you make a friend. I give them language. It's funny, some people are just like, "These are the hardest projects I've ever had in a book." It's because of that vulnerability piece. It's because it's awkward to make friends. Many people have the friends, but they haven't gone deep with the friends.

That's my vision for the book. It's not just for someone that's lonely; it's for people that have friends and maybe they're not as deep and connected as they wish they were.

Ann Wilson: Or they don't know you. They know your surface stuff, they know about your kids and the schools, but they don't know your fears. They don't know your vulnerabilities. That's what you're saying—to find those friends that will go deep with you.

Jennie Allen: And all of us have been hurt. This subject was so difficult to write about because we've all hurt people and we've all been hurt. If you've ever been close to anyone, right? People are the best parts of life and people are the hardest parts of life. In some ways it's a cute little yellow fun cover, but in other ways you open the book and it's war. It's a tender thing and we have to fight for it and it's not easy.

Ann Wilson: Because the enemy, Satan, hates for us to be friends and so he'll do anything to divide us, too.

Jennie Allen: We've got a cultural issue that I've already mentioned, we've got a relational issue—we've been hurt—and then there of course the biggest thing is there's an enemy that hates it. If we were made in God's image to live communally, and if we ever experience that in the form that the Bible calls us to, then yes, he wants to destroy it.

There was a whole part of the book about just not quitting people when it gets hard because our enemy isn't flesh and blood. Ephesians says that we're battling dark cosmic forces. We don't talk about that a lot, but that's happening. It helped me have perspective that we're at war, and the tensions we face in that war are going to want to and try to destroy our relationships.

Dave Wilson: And pull us apart. Exactly. So how did you find your book title, *Find Your People*? I know when we moved to Detroit years ago, we knew nobody going there to be the Lions chaplain and then we ended up starting a church. But I knew then—this is 30 plus years ago—I need guys. I've got to have guys.

It's sort of funny, I found a couple groups. I got in one and I thought, "Okay, these are my guys." There's probably too many guys, but I'm in this group and I remember one day coming in there—you talk about being vulnerable—and I said, "Guys, I've got to share something. I struggle with the *Sports Illustrated* swimsuit issue. I've just got to say that."

Here's the reaction: "I can't believe it." They just looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. I said, "None of you guys—I'm not saying you struggled this week—have any of you ever struggled?" "Never. Not one time in my life."

Jennie Allen: That is such a lie. I'm sorry, that is a lie.

Dave Wilson: That's exactly what I thought. All I know is I walked out of that room thinking, "Okay, they're probably not being truthful and here's the other thing I thought: these aren't my people." And I've found them since. I've celebrated them now. Was your struggle—how did you find your people?

Jennie Allen: What a great story. I love that you just shared that because what a great example of what's actually happening out there. So many people listening are going, "Listen, I've tried this." And what you didn't do was say, "I'm going to stop here." You just said, "Nope, okay, these aren't them." And that's okay.

I think we've got to be selective. You saw Jesus be very selective about who he spent time with and choosy, I would say. He didn't just let the masses come all the time. He certainly chose people to have dinner with and spend time with and he preached to the masses, but who was in his inner circle? He was selective about.

There's three things that in my life I feel like have worked well to bring these people into my life: 1. Humility. That means you can resolve conflict because there will be conflict. 2. Availability. You need people that need friends. If you are trying to break into a group that has been together for years, that's probably going to be exhausting.

Now, one of those people might be your friend because you really click with them, but you don't need to be in that group. Maybe it will work out, but it's okay if your friends are not all in one group. You can have different friends that you spend different time with and they come together for your birthday and they get to know each other, but it doesn't have to be my circle. My circles are bigger than those five small group people now, but they all know each other, but they're not all best friends. And that's okay.

Availability—they need to be available. You need to be able to see them more than once a month. I would say more than once a week you should be able to see them. I know that blows people's minds. They're like, "I don't have time for this." And I'd like to address that after this.

Availability, humility, and then 3. Transparency. If you say something—the way I tell people to test this is to start by sharing something a little bit vulnerable. That was a great one because you were testing them. "Can I share this here?" Share something a little bit vulnerable—not something that you'll walk away completely wounded if they throw shame back your way—but share something a little bit vulnerable and then see how it goes.

If you really believe that potential is there, another thing I'll say is use your words. If you've spent significant time with people and you're being vulnerable, say, "Guys, I need you to listen," or "I need you to give me advice," or "I need you to nod and read Romans 8:1 over me. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I need you to share back. One thing we don't do in friendship is we don't use our words. We don't say—we walk away from a friendship before we say, "Hey, this is what I need in this friendship."

Ann Wilson: I have a really—it's my best friend—but when we started becoming friends, she moved into our area. Dave and her husband were friends and starting to get to know each other.

Dave Wilson: He was in my group.

Ann Wilson: Yeah. We both had little kids, babies, and it was a struggle. And so we'd just get together once a month. There was a point where we had this "define the relationship" talk, which I think is what you're talking about. She said, "Why do you hardly ever call me?" And I said, "Are you kidding? I have no life. I can't even call my mom, let alone my friend."

And then I said, "What do you want from our relationship?" which I had never asked another woman that question. She said, "Well, let me be specific. I want you to call me every day and just say 'Are you surviving?'" I'm like, "Every day?" And so then we start talking about, "Well, could we make it three days a week or five days a week?"

Then we started getting into, just like you would with a male-female relationship, what would this look like? What could it look like? It was amazing and I had never done that with somebody because before, I think what I had done is I'd disappoint them, I'd feel a tension and then I would pull away. Like, "Oh, I've disappointed her again, I'm not a good friend." But this friend was saying, "No, I think you can do this. Let's do that. Why aren't you saying that?"

Jennie Allen: I'm like you and I have a friend like your friend. Her name's Lindsay and I talk about her a lot in the book because she is—I call her my intrusive friend. She gets so mad at me because she's like, "That sounds negative," and I'm like, "It is, and some days I feel that way." No, I love it, but she tells me, and she has come over regularly, she drops in, she changed the way I view friendship.

In fact, she's in the book so much because I call her my relationship coach. She is just this passionate zealot for friendship and she's really good at it. She's Michelle and she fights for you. When I say, "Oh, I'm fine," she's like, "No, you're not. You're lying. What's wrong?" I never had really had someone fight that hard for me where they didn't give up.

What had happened in the past was because I wasn't vulnerable and because it was hard for me—because I'd been wounded—I actually, if I look back at myself in my 20s, I actually was super vulnerable. It was being a pastor's wife that kind of took that from me. And so I needed somebody to train it back out of me and to flex that muscle again and to remember how to do that and to remember that I'm safe—not always, but certainly with this group that has proven safe.

She taught me how and she pulled me out. I think not everyone has someone like that. What I talk about in the book is if you become that, you will have it. And that's what I've seen be true of my life. If I initiate—when you asked how do you actually make those people or find those people, it was the most awkward move into Dallas. I certainly know people in the DFW area, but not many people that were blocks or in those five miles.

I had to start from scratch somewhat. I had to make phone calls and I reached out on Facebook to my old college counselor that I knew lived in the neighborhood and said, "Can we go to coffee?" We hadn't seen each other in 20 years. That's how I got that small group, was I took a risky, awkward step. I mean, can you imagine? She's like, "This poor desperate girl. She's needy. She's really reaching here." But we had the best coffee and then she said, "You know what, we're about to join a small group, would you all want to join?" And I said, "I don't know if we're ready for that." And then she stayed on me and a few months later that was actually the group we joined, and we're still together. I think it does just take looking for any little potential that you could possibly imagine and pursuing it and taking initiative.

Dave Wilson: And I think it's really important what you just said: pursuing it. Because I think often we become the victim and we say, "I don't really have any friends, nobody's reaching out to me," and we sort of sit and wait. You're saying, "No, get out there. If you want it, go find it. God will bring you the people."

Jennie Allen: And I would say right now, the reason it's a book and not just a podcast or a pamphlet is because a lot of people are tired right now. So much of what I did in the book was to create a vision and to say this is actually worth it. What you know is hard, it is hard. I'm not suggesting it's otherwise. It's awkward, it takes risk, it takes work, you could get hurt—all of that is true.

I'm just saying there's not really life apart from relationships. That is life. You will not look back at—I'm sure—your sister's funeral. If she was a believer and saw all the people there, that was the greatest investment of her life in that room. That was it. So you know that those are what make life worth living. You almost have to just say—like take it like vitamins—be like, "You know what, maybe I'm not in the mood, maybe I'd rather watch Netflix in my robe tonight, I'm going to call someone and I'm going to invite someone and I'm going to do this."

As that happens, the stories are already coming in of how that has changed their life. Just that phone call, just that text, just that coffee date. Just having—for one friend it was she's been sitting at her daughter's gymnastics class for years with the same women and they sit there and scroll their phones. They say hi and they small talk but they scroll their phones. And she was like, "We're sitting here for an hour a few times a week."

So she turned to one of them and started asking deep questions and then the next week they came over for dinner and they had a couples' game night. They now have a relationship with someone she'd been sitting beside for years. So I just say, look at who's already around you, notice, initiate, and see what happens.

Dave Wilson: Man, I always love having Jennie Allen on. Again, her book is called *Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World*.

Ann Wilson: And you can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com. Our vision at FamilyLife is every home a godly home, and we need your help to get there. When you become a FamilyLife partner, your monthly support makes that vision actually possible.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, you'll get access to exclusive updates and events and the chance to join our partners-only online community. But more than that, you're helping change the future of families. So the question is: will you come alongside us and alongside families in need?

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Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry, celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.