Open the message thread with a friend you used to talk to every week, and look at the date of the last message. Then think of a relationship you ended quickly because you were sure the other person was toxic, and notice whether you have ever examined that decision. Write both down in a notebook you can keep for five weeks. They are the material you will be working with.
Friendship is hard because most of us were never trained for it. We learned to save effort and intimacy for romance, to treat discomfort as a sign of danger, and to call leaving maturity. Seven voices from Jude 3 Project conversations each take up part of the problem: Kristen Newton, Jada Edwards, Dr. Dharius Daniels, BJ Thompson, Kristel Acevedo, Yana Conner and Lisa Fields. Read together, they describe friendship as a set of practices a person can learn, resting on a love that does not run out.
The five sessions build on each other. You will notice what you were taught about closeness, practice letting someone further in, test the word "toxic" against a careful definition and against Scripture, examine your own part in conflict, and work through repair after something breaks, including the point where repair ends and a boundary begins. Every session ends with something to do during the week. The last one sends you back to the page you just started.