BFF... Best Friends Forever?

There is a concept called the Friendship Factor.  The Friendship Factor says that some 70-90% of people who join a church join primarily for the reason of friendship[1].  The power of friendship and kinship[2] tends to be a primary reason or opportunity for assimilation of people into the church body.  I appreciate and think it is a wonderful strength to allow ministry to happen through the natural oikos or family.   Furthermore, assimilation does happen as friendships are made and established and people are incorporated into serving in the church body.  However, is this what ultimately unites the church... friendships and family?  Or is there something more profound that unites the church than simply a blood relationship or common interests?

            The downfall to the Friendship Factor of Assimilation is that this way of integrating people into the church does not go far enough, or it might simply be the wrong way of assimilating to begin with.  For example, if people are assimilated into a church on the basis of the Friendship Factor, then the assimilation is only as good as the relationships are.  Furthermore, church unity is then hinged upon friendships and family.  From personal experience I have seen how assimilation into a church can happen on the basis of the Friendship Factor but dis-assimilation can also easily occur when those same friendships destroy assimilation and end up in people leaving the church on the basis of personalities. I have also seen in where a new individual tries to connect to a church body only to fail because he/she does not have the right family ties or the right interests to conjure up a fruitful friendship that would connect him/her to the church body.  
           ...continued on Friday.

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[1] Joel Heck, New Member Assimilation ~ Practical Prevention of Backdoor Loss Through Frontdoor Care (Concordia Publishing House, 1988), 21.

[2] The Friendship Factor is the essentially the same thing as the oikos network that has already been established in the previous part of this paper.  As it is stated, 70-90% of the people who join the church join primarily because of friendships and kinship.  This is the incredible power and opportunity that is presented to the church through the natural network of the oikos.