This morning’s most perceptive frontpage was not from the usual broadsheets nor from the mainstream tabloids but of all the national newspapers it was the Daily Star which caught my attention: Rise & Rise of the Billy No-Mates.
So we are informed that the average Brit has just 3.7 true friends and one in ten doesn’t have a single pal. I’m not sure where the newspaper found these statistics. I couldn’t find the article online and there is no way I would risk my hard-won reputation by buying a copy from the Co-op, our nearest newsagent. But it does ring true.
Loneliness is becoming a major problem in this day and age.
In fact, going to the other end of the media spectrum there was an excellent article on loneliness in the New York Timesearlier this month by one of my favourite columnists, Nicholas Kristof.
He begins: “Loneliness crushes the soul, but researchers are finding it does far more damage than that. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide; it breaks the heart literally as well as figuratively.”
He goes on to argue: “One of the paradoxes of humanity is that while we (along with other primates) evolved to be social creatures, wealth drives us toward solitude.
“When we have the resources, we stop sleeping eight to a hut and build a big house with high walls, and each family member has a private bedroom and bathroom — and then to afford the mortgage we work so hard that we never manage to have meals together.”
We need each other, that is how God has made us. And yet the rise and rise of individualism, living just for ourselves, is causing havoc in our society. Our shopping is delivered, we journey in our own cars, we stream our films, we work from home and we no longer go to church.
As Kristof writes: “Traditionally, this role of community building was often filled in America or Europe by a local church or other faith institution, but the decline of religious attendance has left a gap.”
Certainly this was the case in my parents’ day in Bootle: social life was centred on the many churches and numerous pubs, invariably being seen as competing alternatives. I was amazed to be told that in the 1930’s in just a single weekend over a thousand people would visit the Linacre Methodist Mission.
But as we all know only too well, church attendance has collapsed – even for those who would see themselves as Christians. Simply an optional extra if nothing else is happening.
Sadly such is the scale of the decline that in Wigan, a town not unlike Bootle, the CoE is considering closing some 19 churches because of rising costs.
I’m not sure whether she herself is a church member but Councillor Laura Flynn, lead member for youth opportunities, expressed her disappointment: "These churches have been at the heart of our communities for hundreds of years and play an important role in bringing people together."
She goes on to say: “Our churches are more than just buildings to local people and local areas; they are part of the community fabric."
Councillor Flynn is right of course – but what is to be our response as Christians? The writer of the letter to the Hebrews is spot on. “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Notice his phraseology, his use of the double negative: “not neglecting to meet together.” Meeting together as Christians is something we can easily neglect, not give it the attention it deserves. It’s something you can easily miss, even without noticing. And it doesn’t seem to matter, at least in the short time.
I was saddened to hear that one of our local churches has lost about 20% of its Sunday congregations since the Lockdown. For whatever reason these church members had lost the habit.
Of course, building and maintaining relationships is more than just going to church services but regular Sunday attendance is a good place to start, both for our own health but just as importantly, for the health of our community.
Simply to ask the question “What’s in it for me?” is to betray a self-centred lifestyle.
For as disciples of Jesus we need to invest in relationships, from the small number of close friends (Jesus had Peter, James and John) to those folk we regularly bump into and probably can’t remember their names. We need the whole spectrum.
As it happens next Friday’s blog – if all goes to plan – should be coming from London. I am attending our Catz economists reunion: the five of us meet up every other year. It means a 400-mile round-trip and three days away – but it’s worth it.
For the highest rate of return the best investment we can make is not in property or the US stock market but in our relationships. And we begin when we place Christ at the centre.