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Soon after Jesus’ desert experience, he begins calling disciples into relationship with himself. In Mark 1:16–18, Jesus calls two fisherman, Simon and Andrew, to “Come, follow me.” This is one snapshot that illustrates the ongoing theme of relationships and community in Jesus’ life.

Jesus’ life was filled with relationships. The Gospels provide many vivid snapshots of Jesus with people. He had ongoing relationships with his family and disciples. He loved children, reached out to the sick and marginalized, spent time with the sinful, challenged the religious and engaged the powerful. Jesus lived, loved, served and suffered in the context of close relationships and community.

Similarly, you and I are created for relationships. As the director of Arrow in England, James Lawrence, writes, “We can certainly connect to God ‘vertically’ through prayer, but to feel his grace completely, we have to open our hearts to the full expression of it ‘horizontally’ through other people.”⁷

As we seek to lead ourselves, we need relationships. We need community. As Christ-followers we are one part of a larger body. We need the support, gifts and accountability of the larger body. We need to foster healthy friendships, love our neighbors, engage in a local church, support the marginalized and be ambassadors who build bridges to those who don’t yet follow Jesus. Those who are married need to nurture their marriages and invest in their children.

This isn’t easy. Beyond prioritizing relationships, we need specific skills to help to cultivate them. We need to practice the long list of “one anothers” of the New Testament. We need to be able to engage conflict redemptively, to share our faith contagiously, to invite others into our lives, to develop appropriate boundaries and much more.

The relational gauge explores the health of your relationships as well as your relational skillset. Depending on life circumstances, this area can involve a wide variety of relationships, including with a spouse, children, extended family, close friends, neighbors, people without faith in Christ, church family, etc. Here are some key reflection questions for this gauge:

•Review your primary relationships. What words would you use to describe them: disconnected, frustrating, stagnant, supportive, deepening, flourishing?

•Are you able to engage conflict in healthy, redemptive ways?

•Have you recently connected with a good friend?

•How would you describe the system of relational support in your life?

•Do you have many intentional, ongoing relationships with people who don’t yet follow Jesus?