A Crisis of Meaningless Chatter

Of course we're lonely. Nobody says anything meaningful.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

There’s a crisis of loneliness. I’m not going to provide any evidence because at this point it’s self-evident. I’m lonely. A lot of the adults I know are lonely. I’ve written about the phenomena of friendlessness in middle-age elsewhere, and my explanation for the loneliness crisis would essentially be the same: the structures and practices of our culture work against the basic, necessary conditions for deep, lasting, intimate relationships. It’s possible to have them, but you have to work a lot harder.

Most churches try to mitigate this problem through small groups/home groups/life groups whatever branded name they come up with to describe a small group (best term?) of church members who meet on a semi-regular basis outside of Sunday morning (usually) to study the bible, a book, or pray, fellowship, worship, and so on.