Speak Truth
By Paul Michalski
“Live Pure, Speak Truth, Right Wrong, Worship the King”—this NCS paraphrase of Lancelot sounds really good, but what does it mean for us—NCS men? I have been giving that question a lot of thought. In this inaugural NCS Newsletter I will share some of my thinking on “Speak Truth”, because it is arguably one of the most central tenets to our mission.
While the world might think “Speak Truth” just means “don’t lie” and Christians would agree it also means “preach the Word of God accurately”, it has a much deeper meaning in our NCS community. For us, “speaking truth” also means being committed to TRANSPARENCY in our friendships. Until recently, I only understood one side of transparency. It’s the side that we NCS men have gotten pretty good at—owning up to our failures and mistakes. It’s tough because it makes me vulnerable to others, but I believe this type of transparency is critical to deep friendship because my vulnerability hopefully leads to your trust (and vice versa).
More recently, I have come to understand another equally important side of transparency in friendship. I now see I have two dark sides—the one I hide and must confess to others for light to shine on it (admitting my faults) and the one that is in my blind-spot that only others can help me see. Transparent friendship requires both (1) being able to share my hidden darkness without fear of judgment (the fear that says “if you really knew me you wouldn’t be my friend”) AND (2) giving a friend the permission to reveal to me the darkness I do not see in myself (without fear that I will reject him) and being willing to be honest with my friend about his blind-spots. It means being willing to risk a friendship for the good of a friend—that takes permission from the friend and tremendous trust in God’s ability and willingness to support transformation through transparent friendship. In fact, this second type of transparency is where I REALLY need my friends—if no one loves me enough to point out how I am blindly sabotaging my own life then I am doomed to continue blindly sabotaging it!! Of course, before revealing to a friend the “truth” about him that you see, it is critical to ensure that you are indeed speaking “truth” from your perspective—that it is grounded in the Word, coming from a pure heart, spoken in love and expressed in words of what you see, feel or experience from your friend’s actions or behavior rather than in words of judgment , condemnation or accusation about your friend. As one NCS brudder said recently—“That kind of transparency scares the spit out of me!” There was a great observation in a recent devotional by Ron Hutchcraft:
Fear often keeps us from God's best - parenting out of fear, leading (or failing to lead) because of fear, resisting God's call or God's assignment because of fear, missing God's best because of fear of failure, leaving someone we know spiritually lost because of fear of sharing Jesus with them. Faith, on the other hand, focuses on the greatness of your Lord and reaches for His hand, and says, "I'll go if You're going with me."
Not only is this kind of transparency in friendship difficult, it is hard (really hard) to achieve in a big NCS chapter meeting—it requires the intimacy that is found in an NCS Energy Group. I would submit that Energy Groups, not Chapters, are really the core of NCS and the key to moving closer to the vision of transformation through transparent friendships. Get in an NCS Energy Group and step out in faith with some brudders.