At my request, Paul was willing to share some of this thoughts on how we as men can get to know one another. Paul tells me that this is his first blog post, ever. So far so good Paul! Here it is:
If the rest of you are anything like me, then you really don’t know much about the other men in the church. This lack of basic information along with my natural inclination toward independence and the energy it takes for me to reach out results in few friendships. Gathering and sharing basic biographical information would be a good start toward finding connections and forming relationships that extend outside the church building and enable discipleship. I suggest gathering the information in face to face meetings, over breakfast or lunch would be low key and eating is something we all do. I find it works best if you introduce the person you got to know as a way of sharing the information and building the other person up. Once the basics are known about those in our group, it should give some insight into common interests and other ways to build relationship. Below is a list of questions, don’t feel restricted to these but they are a good start:
Where did you grow up and where have you lived, what influence has that had
Family background: parents, siblings and birth order, significant events growing up
Marital status
Children; #, ages, how are they doing
Work situation; what do you do, for whom
Education and training background
Hobbies, interests, goals
Tell about some accomplishment that you personally are proud of (may not be something others have recognized), what was it, how did you go about doing it?
In order to get started within our group, Benjamin and I will assign “homework” to pairings. The assignment will be to meet and gather this information and come prepared to introduce the other person.
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