Instead of complaining about the current state of affairs, we need to offer better alternatives. [...] we need to stop cursing the darkness and start lighting some candles!

Part of being a Christian is recognizing that sin deceives us, and we need other believers to help us see the things we cannot see about ourselves. Joining a church, I've often said, is like throwing paint on the invisible man. New sins become visible in the course of our discipling relationships.

Yet the Bible teaches that the local church is the natural environment for discipling. In fact, it teaches that the local church is itself the basic discipler of Christians. It does this through its weekly gatherings and its accountability structures (this chapter), as well as its elders and its members (next chapter). These in turn provide the context for the one-on-one discipling we have been considering so far.

Ask your friends what God has been teaching you about himself. Small groups can also be useful for facilitating these kinds of relationships.

Churches don't need programs so much as they need cultures of discipling, cultures where each member prioritizes the spiritual health of others.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.

A friend is a second self, so that our consciousness of a friend's existence...makes us more fully conscious of our own existence.

We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends behave to us

Men cannot know each other till they have 'eaten salt together'.

Friends are a comfort in misfortune but one should not make them unhappy by seeking their sympathy...

Really, Watson, you excel yourself, said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.