The Friendship Challenge: A Six-Week Guide to True Reconciliation--One Friendship at a Time
By Tim Scott and Trey Gowdy
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About this ebook
The Friendship Challenge is a six-week guide, helping individuals and groups promote racial reconciliation in their communities—one person at a time, one friendship at a time. The first week prepares individuals and groups to reach out to a person on the other side of the racial divide, whether it is a person at work or in a nearby church. The next five weeks take that small group through a study that fosters true reconciliation—the kind of reconciliation Jesus showed in his own life and death.
Take the Friendship Challenge and spend the next six weeks cultivating true reconciliation in your community.
Tim Scott
Tim Scott has learned to follow instructions, but seldom does it without at least some resistance. So when told by his editor that the final thing missing from his first book was the author bio, he pointed out that since the book is a memoir, the entire thing is an author bio. So here we are. That quick irreverence and offbeat command of the obvious makes Tim a favorite among people looking for a story or two, and since he doesn't have time to tell them to everyone, he had to write some down. Just Robbed a Bank is the best of the lot. Through his stories, you will get to know the good and bad and the highs and lows of being a bank robber in modern-well, almost modern-America.
Read more from Tim Scott
Unified: How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ben Hogan: The Myths Everyone Knows, the Man No One Knew Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just Robbed a Bank Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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The Friendship Challenge - Tim Scott
Introduction
OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, the very foundation of our melting-pot society in America has been shaken—ironically, by our differences. For generations, people have come to the land of opportunity
to forge a new way of life. They have embraced the American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and have blended their distinct cultural strengths and values into the larger free society. It has never been perfect, and there have certainly been some rocky points along the way, but generally it has worked out for the common good, and our nation has been strengthened by our united pursuit of harmony within diversity. But lately it seems as if an increasing number of people are choosing to distinguish themselves based on identity or ideology. We’ve always been a nation of different people living alongside one another, but now it seems as if we’ve become more interested in dividing over our differences than in learning how to get along.
TREY
One thing I have learned from my time in Washington, DC, is that conflict is a business model. It sells. But it doesn’t solve anything. If we want to move from our current conflict-driven environment to one that is based more on contrast—that is, an appropriate and necessary recognition of our differences, but without the anger, frustration, and intentional divisiveness that come with conflict—we must first recognize that most people have most things in common. It doesn’t make sense that we tend to run toward the things that divide us, while skipping over all the things we agree on.
People often look to government to solve problems in our society. But even though we can pass laws to compel people to change their conduct, no piece of legislation can change someone’s heart. There’s no law that can make people care about each other. That has to come from someplace other than government. To me, that someplace else is friendship.
I believe that friendship has the best chance of transforming our world. If we will just take the time to hear other people out, seek first to understand, and work together toward mutually agreeable solutions, we have a chance to make a positive difference in each other’s lives and in the world around us. We may still disagree strongly about some issues, but if we will commit ourselves to being friends at the beginning of the conversation and friends at the end of the conversation, no matter what, we can work through our differences.
The great things we all want for our future won’t happen in Washington, DC. But they can happen in small groups and in local settings where relationships are built. That’s the genius of who we are as human beings. That’s the genius of how our Creator wired us. We are hardwired for relationships, and as we connect with each other, we find the miracle of problem-solving and reconciliation in the midst of those connections.
In Matthew 18:20, Jesus says, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
[1] That’s a powerful formula.
TIM
I am very hopeful about our future as a nation, but real and lasting change can begin only through committed friendships that reach across lines of division. I agree with Trey that politics is not how we’re going to change the world. We can change the world only by changing people’s hearts—through the transforming power of love. The Bible is very clear that love is not just an emotion; it is a commandment and a commitment. Friendship is born out of the principles of unconditional love and acceptance. Love and acceptance are not situational. They are consistent.
We open the door to reconciliation when we become willing to step outside our comfort zones and try some things that may seem awkward at first—such as initiating a conversation with someone who is different from us. Most of the exciting adventures I’ve had didn’t start off being