Going to church with people doesn’t make them your friends. Just move out of a ward and find out how close your “friends” really were.

The church is all about community, right? We applaud staying inside the fold and developing our relationships with other church members who it would seem become our closest friends. But as soon as you leave a ward—even if it is just moving across town, take an assessment of how many of those “fantastic relationships” disappear into thin air. I would argue that our church friendships are as artificial as they come—built more on convenience than substance. In fact, I think we give up lots of opportunities to develop real friendships in other parts of our lives because of the forced commitments to the “ward family.”

Ward family. As long as you don’t leave…