Growing Together

We admire independence. It sounds strong, capable, and self-sufficient. Isolation can even feel safe. But over time, independence can quietly turn into isolation—and isolation is one of the fastest ways faith begins to drift. In Growing Together, we confront an old pattern that feels normal in today’s culture but slowly weakens our spiritual lives.

We live in a world where we are constantly connected digitally yet increasingly disconnected relationally. We have access to endless information, but information alone does not produce transformation. Faith was never meant to be consumed privately or practiced in isolation. God designed spiritual growth to happen in community, where lives intersect, truth is reinforced, and love takes root. Simply put, transformation happens in community.

The early church faced many of the same pressures we do—cultural confusion, false teaching, and a drift toward self-made spirituality. Writing to the believers in Colossae, Paul urges them to be “encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love” and warns them not to be captured by “empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense… rather than from Christ” (Colossians 2:1–8, NIV). His message is clear: confusion grows fastest when people walk alone.

Isolation leaves us exposed to bad theology, cultural pressure, emotional decision-making, and spiritual shortcuts. Faith rarely disappears all at once; isolation slowly makes it ineffective. Like a hammer, faith may be strong on its own, but it becomes useful only when put to work with others.

The bottom line is unmistakable: out with the old way of going it alone; in with the new way of growing together. Faith grows through practice and people, and habits grow stronger when they are shared—not isolated.