Making Disciples: Build Authentic Friendships
- Tanner Kalina
- 23 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Part Four: To evangelize well, we must first be good and holy friends.
Editor's Note: This column is part of a yearlong series on evangelization, breaking down what often feels like a tall order into real, practical, actionable steps towards intentional accompaniment.
It’s been fifteen grueling months, but my dog is finally obedient. Kind of. Sometimes.
Bernedoodles are notoriously some of the most difficult puppies, but they reputedly grow into some of the best dogs. Benny’s puppy days were filled with ankle biting, couch holes and shredded chair legs. But now! Well, at the very least, he sits when I say “sit.” He goes to his crate when I say “crate.” And he comes when I say “come.” Baby steps, but I’ll take ‘em!
In Matthew 4, Jesus sees Peter and Andrew in their boat and calls them. Peter and Andrew immediately leave their nets and follow him. Jesus then sees James and John in their boat, and he calls them as well. Similarly, James and John immediately leave their boat and follow Jesus.
For most of my life, I’ve viewed Jesus’ encounters with Peter and Andrew, James and John, like someone calling their dog. Jesus says, “Come,” and they come. Pretty straightforward. The message is simple: the apostles were obedient to the call of Christ, so we should be obedient to that call.
Matthew doesn’t offer much detail about these encounters, but a number of things had to unfold for them to happen as they did. Looking under the hood, there were complex interpersonal dynamics that had to take place. Jesus calling his apostles was not at all like a man calling his dog.
For one, after Jesus discerned whom to call his apostles, he had to go to those men. He had to enter into their lives and be with them in the flesh.
Second, he had to invite them to follow him.
And then thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, Peter, Andrew, James and John each had to trust Jesus in order to follow him. The fact that they left their nets and boats (symbols of their livelihood) behind exemplifies their trust.
Once we’ve discerned who the Lord may be inviting us to intentionally accompany, the same three things need to unfold in our accompaniment. We must:
Enter into the lives of those we accompany
Invite them to share life with us
Earn their trust
Put simply, we must build a good friendship.
We must enter into the lives of those we intentionally accompany.
The British evolutionary psychologist, Robin Dunbar, is famous for his 5-15-50-150 model, which helps us understand our social abilities and capacities. I find this model particularly fascinating for making disciples. In it, Dunbar argues that we’re hardwired for only 5 very close relationships, 15 good friends, 50 friends and 150 meaningful contacts.
This could explain why Jesus had 4 very close relationships (Peter, James, John and Mother Mary), 12 apostles, 72 disciples and a broader following of around 120 people, according to some scholars. The quantity and quality of Jesus’ relationships during his earthly life roughly lined up with Dunbar’s secular theories. (Obviously, the resurrected Jesus has billions of intimate relationships because he invites each of us into an intimate relationship with him! But he’s God, and we’re not!)
As humans, we only have so much time, resource and emotional bandwidth to give. Intentional accompaniment requires us to first and foremost arrange our lives in such a way that we can bring those we accompany into our inner circle.
We must carve out the necessary space for the person we accompany to become part of our 15 good friends. They don’t necessarily have to become part of our innermost circle, but they should certainly become part of our inner circle. Intentional accompaniment should be intentional.
And intentional accompaniment is most effective when someone not only becomes one of your good friends, but you become one of their good friends as well. The twelve apostles were a part of Jesus’ inner circle, yes, but Jesus was also a part of their inner circles.
For that type of reciprocity to occur through our intentional accompaniment, as Jesus did with his apostles, we should be the ones taking the initiative.
We must invite those we intentionally accompany to share life with us.
Every friendship begins with an invitation at some point — an invitation to grab coffee, to come over for dinner, to go on a walk, etc.
And because disciples are made from friendships, every disciple’s journey begins with an invitation at some point. Therefore, your invitations matter!
When we’ve discerned someone to intentionally accompany, we should invite that person to share life with us — whether that’s by going to a baseball game or coming over for a cup of tea or whatever it is you enjoy doing. And not just once or twice. But consistently.
Bringing someone into our inner circle and entering someone else’s inner circle requires a consistent, concerted effort to know that person.
And if we already do know that person, then we should begin inviting them to share life with us on a deeper level — by fostering more intentional conversations and uncovering their disposition toward God.
In his first letter to the church in Thessalonica, St. Paul writes, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us" (1 Thessalonians 2:8). In order to share God with others, we must first share ourselves.
Put another way, in order to make disciples, we must make time for others.
Our invitations can be small or big, rejected or accepted, but we should trust that they always inch us closer to earning someone’s trust.
We must earn the trust of those we intentionally accompany.
Trust in a friendship is the bridge that will allow someone to ultimately move toward Christ. Without it, we simply lack the means to effectively accompany.
Think about it: have you ever been taught the faith by someone you didn’t know? Unless it was in a setting in which you were expecting that to happen (i.e., a talk at a conference, a class, a homily, etc.), then chances are it felt off-putting, presumptive or at the very best… awkward.
Without earning the trust of those we accompany, our spiritual conversations risk feeling unpalatable. We have to reach a point where we feel like the person we’re accompanying has “left their nets” around us.
For Jesus, this happened immediately with those he discerned to accompany. The same thing could happen for you.
But chances are, this step will take a while. According to a recent study, the share of adults who said “most people can be trusted” declined from 46% in 1972 to 34% in 2018. That number proved steady as recently as 2024.
In the era of “fake news,” people are naturally less willing to offer their trust.
In fact, University of Kansas professor Jeffrey Hall conducted a first-of-its-kind study and found that it takes about 50 hours to become a meaningful relationship/casual friend, 90 hours to become an actual friend and 200+ hours to become a good friend.
As disciple-makers, may we embrace those many hours with patience and grace. More on how to do that in my next column.
