Church, Small Groups & Social Anxiety

Snurp · Mar 25, 2018

I've been thinking about whether or not I should attempt to join a small group at church. It sounds like such groups meet in people's houses. I'm concerned that if it goes badly I may stop attending church altogether for years, maybe permanently.

I am an introvert, and I have social anxiety and something akin to aspergers. I find that my social anxiety is especially bad when I'm around other Christians or anybody who I'd like to be friends with. On Sunday mornings, it is a struggle to talk myself into going to church. In fact, it can take months or years to finally talk myself into going. Once (if) I get there, I get really uncomfortable if someone sits within a few seats beside me or right behind me or if the person sitting in the row in front of me sits down while everyone is standing up (I seem to have an expansive personal space bubble when I'm in church). During times when people are supposed to mingle, I do my best to avoid making eye contact with anyone and look like I'm busy reading the bulletin or something. Another situation that I have trouble with is going to somebody's house or having somebody in my house. I don't know what to say or do with myself and it ends up being awkward and uncomfortable for everybody. I know I'm not imagining that it's uncomfortable for the other people because they have told me that I make them uncomfortable.

I really do want to have friends, but I've had some really bad experiences that have left me the way I am. My social anxiety wasn't always this intense, and it gets worse every time I put myself out there and get burnt. I've tried therapy several times and have been told that what normally works for other people won't work for me due to aspergers.

So now I've spent the last couple of years considering whether I should try joining a small group because it seems like that is the thing Christians are supposed to do and I really would like to have a friend or two who I could study the Bible with. I've done some reading and it sounds like small groups tend to be uncomfortable for normal introverts and often result in a false sense of close friendship. I'm an abnormally introverted introvert and have had major issues in the past as a result of thinking people were my friends when they were not. If it doesn't go well, I don't know how one gets out of a small group after having joined one or whether I'll be able to convince myself to even go back to church anymore if I join one and then leave.

Any thoughts? Is there anyone else out there even a bit like me who has tried a small group?

R. Hartono · Mar 25, 2018

Snurp said:
I find that my social anxiety is especially bad when I'm around other Christians or anybody who I'd like to be friends with

We are all created as a social being and we need to share our world together, its not necessary to be afraid to get along with people, there are thousands of people with different personality we shouldnt be afraid when we meet some unfavourable ones. Give your attention and join their conversation, nothing wrong with that, be friendly and be meek, open your mouth and greet people kindly.

People would love to be cared for, share your attention show that you care. theres nothing wrong with that.

FireDragon76 · Mar 25, 2018

I have Asperger's also. Be careful careful where you invest the limited amount of socialization you can do. Being in a small group may not be a good use of your energy. It also is not necessary to being a Christian, despite what other people will try to tell you.

If you are working with a therapist, that might help you to learn to socialize. There is also a quite old book that is still valuable by Dale Carnegie, called How to Wing Friends and Influence People, that is worth reading.

Snurp · Mar 26, 2018

R. Hartono said:
People would love to be cared for, share your attention show that you care. theres nothing wrong with that.

Not by me. They've told me so.

FireDragon76 said:
If you are working with a therapist, that might help you to learn to socialize.

I'm not anymore. It was a waste of resources.

R. Hartono · Mar 26, 2018

Snurp said:
Not by me. They've told me so.

Well if some people are proud enough to reject your friendship there are still many other friendly people, why be discouraged by some conceited people ? Share Jesus love with others.

Snurp · Mar 26, 2018

R. Hartono said:
Well if some people are proud enough to reject your friendship there are still many other friendly people, why be discouraged by some conceited people ? Share Jesus love with others.

They aren't conceited; they are some of the nicest people I've met. I wish I could be friends with them. The nicest thing I can do for people is keep my distance. Thus bringing me back to the small groups dilemma... I imagine in a small group one is supposed to maintain the illusion of openness/closeness while in fact keeping one's distance and pretending there is no illusion?

Aino · Mar 26, 2018

I also think joining a small group is not a must. Especially if it takes more energy than it gives. Church gatherings are generally something that should give you power and tools to live the rest of your life as a christian. Not the other way round: you're not supposed to work all week in order to survive a Bible study. If you can go to church for worship now then keep doing that. Having communion and at least that small form of commitment to your local community is something good. Not everyone has to be as sociable as others. There's online Bible studies too for people in need of other peoples insights into scriptures.

If you really want to socialize with others, you don't have to sign up for something just because someone else does it or because someone recommends it. You can do things your own way, taking smaller or different steps, that suit your needs and strengths better. Maybe try talking to someone at church first, think of a couple of lines before so you know at least something you can say. Or say hi to your neighbor, start a conversation with them next time, whatever, anything you can come up with that seems natural to you. Maybe you can try practicing these things with your family as well, holding a conversation, discussing different topics etc..

Snurp · Mar 26, 2018

Aino said:
Maybe try talking to someone at church first, think of a couple of lines before so you know at least something you can say. Or say hi to your neighbor, start a conversation with them next time, whatever, anything you can come up with that seems natural to you. Maybe you can try practicing these things with your family as well, holding a conversation, discussing different topics etc..

For some reason, I can't do that in a church setting or when I'm with someone who I actually want to become friends with. I can in some secular settings, although not all, and I haven't been able to find any more of a pattern than that. When I really want to talk to someone, I find myself sitting there unable to say anything at all, which gets awkward pretty fast. Generally conversation isn't natural for me at all.

Aino said:
You can do things your own way, taking smaller or different steps, that suit your needs and strengths better.

I don't seem to have any social strengths.

Aino · Mar 26, 2018

Snurp said:
For some reason, I can't do that in a church setting or when I'm with someone who I actually want to become friends with. I can in some secular settings, although not all, and I haven't been able to find any more of a pattern than that. When I really want to talk to someone, I find myself sitting there unable to say anything at all, which gets awkward pretty fast. Generally conversation isn't natural for me at all.
I don't seem to have any social strengths.

Why not do something in those secular settings then? And then give some more time for getting used to the church part. Maybe once you're not so mega eager to talk to those specific people any more you'll be able to relax more and starting will get easier, I don't know?

Snurp · Mar 26, 2018

So, possible conclusion: I'm not suited for small groups. Any further thoughts/discussion, especially from anyone who has been to a small group and knows what they are like?

Snurp · Mar 26, 2018

Aino said:
Why not do something in those secular settings then? And then give some more time for getting used to the church part. Maybe once you're not so mega eager to talk to those specific people any more you'll be able to relax more and starting will get easier, I don't know?

Time isn't helping. This has been a problem for decades.

Kit Sigmon · Mar 26, 2018

All believers are to continue to walk humbly with the Lord, regularly
fellowship with other believers, renew they mind on God's Word, put on the
full armor of God, share the good news of the gospel and extend forgiveness
when someone has wronged and or offended you, pray always etc.

Aino · Mar 27, 2018

Kit Sigmon said:
All believers are to continue to walk humbly with the Lord, regularly
fellowship with other believers, renew they mind on God's Word, put on the
full armor of God, share the good news of the gospel and extend forgiveness
when someone has wronged and or offended you, pray always etc.

Going to a small group is not the only way of having fellowship with other believers.

Back to what the op asked in their last post. I didn't it had been going on so long. I have no idea what other insights to give you. It'd rather difficult online as well. Have you tried christian counseling? Long-term therapy (it takes years to really work well)? Medication even might be an option. Edit: oh yes you've had therapy. Get another therapist, someone who has exoerience of aspergers as well. when it comes to therapy, it matters much, who you're talking to.

aiki · Mar 27, 2018

Snurp said:
I've been thinking about whether or not I should attempt to join a small group at church. It sounds like such groups meet in people's houses. I'm concerned that if it goes badly I may stop attending church altogether for years, maybe permanently.

I am an introvert, and I have social anxiety and something akin to aspergers. I find that my social anxiety is especially bad when I'm around other Christians or anybody who I'd like to be friends with.

Social anxiety at bottom is just selfishness in a pathological degree. Why are you so socially anxious? Because in some way or other you are trying to protect yourself. You don't want to feel awkward, or rejected, or whatever and so you insulate yourself against such things by avoiding them. And if you put a psychological label on your inordinate Self-protection, you can make out like you're a victim of some "disorder" beyond your control. But the truth is that you're being so extremely self-centered its cutting you off from other people. I speak from experience here. I used to do and think the very things I've just described. I can tell you its a trap, a prison, and makes you utterly useless to God. In fact, until Self dies in you, you can't really walk with God properly; until you let go of centering yourself at the core of your life and put God there instead, you cannot know the "abundant life" God offers to you in Jesus Christ. Not only is this what the Bible says, but, again, I speak from experience in this, too.

Look, loving human beings is a painful business. Doing so cost Jesus his life! If you think you can obey God and love others as He has called you to do without pain to yourself, forget it! This is, in part, why Jesus said to his disciples,

Matthew 16:24-25
24..."If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Paul the apostle wrote,

2 Corinthians 12:15
15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

This loveless response that Paul anticipated is inevitable when we obey God's command and love others as He loves them. And this is why Self has to go: You can't love others well and be protecting Self at every turn. To the degree a disciple of Christ, a Christian, is occupied with loving and protecting himself, to that same degree he is unable to really love others.

So, what will you do? Will you keep on your present course, increasingly isolated from those you've been commanded by God to sacrificially love and, by your selfishness, cut-off from the rich fellowship with God that is the birthright of every truly born-again child of God? Will you allow your self-centeredness to drive you farther and farther from others and God? Or will you die to yourself and begin to really live?

FireDragon76 · Mar 27, 2018

Finding a therapist can be a challenge but it's worth pursuing. There are therapists that can help with Asperger's-related problems but they typically involve more than the standard "cognitive-behavioral" approaches. Dialectic behavioral therapy, mindfulness, are all useful tools for managing anxiety.

Wantingtobeanextrovert · Jun 16, 2020

aiki said:
Social anxiety at bottom is just selfishness in a pathological degree. Why are you so socially anxious? Because in some way or other you are trying to protect yourself. You don't want to feel awkward, or rejected, or whatever and so you insulate yourself against such things by avoiding them. And if you put a psychological label on your inordinate Self-protection, you can make out like you're a victim of some "disorder" beyond your control. But the truth is that you're being so extremely self-centered its cutting you off from other people. I speak from experience here. I used to do and think the very things I've just described. I can tell you its a trap, a prison, and makes you utterly useless to God. In fact, until Self dies in you, you can't really walk with God properly; until you let go of centering yourself at the core of your life and put God there instead, you cannot know the "abundant life" God offers to you in Jesus Christ. Not only is this what the Bible says, but, again, I speak from experience in this, too.

Look, loving human beings is a painful business. Doing so cost Jesus his life! If you think you can obey God and love others as He has called you to do without pain to yourself, forget it! This is, in part, why Jesus said to his disciples,

Matthew 16:24-25
24..."If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Paul the apostle wrote,

2 Corinthians 12:15
15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

This loveless response that Paul anticipated is inevitable when we obey God's command and love others as He loves them. And this is why Self has to go: You can't love others well and be protecting Self at every turn. To the degree a disciple of Christ, a Christian, is occupied with loving and protecting himself, to that same degree he is unable to really love others.

So, what will you do? Will you keep on your present course, increasingly isolated from those you've been commanded by God to sacrificially love and, by your selfishness, cut-off from the rich fellowship with God that is the birthright of every truly born-again child of God? Will you allow your self-centeredness to drive you farther and farther from others and God? Or will you die to yourself and begin to really live?

Wantingtobeanextrovert · Jun 16, 2020

aiki said:
Social anxiety at bottom is just selfishness in a pathological degree. Why are you so socially anxious? Because in some way or other you are trying to protect yourself. You don't want to feel awkward, or rejected, or whatever and so you insulate yourself against such things by avoiding them. And if you put a psychological label on your inordinate Self-protection, you can make out like you're a victim of some "disorder" beyond your control. But the truth is that you're being so extremely self-centered its cutting you off from other people. I speak from experience here. I used to do and think the very things I've just described. I can tell you its a trap, a prison, and makes you utterly useless to God. In fact, until Self dies in you, you can't really walk with God properly; until you let go of centering yourself at the core of your life and put God there instead, you cannot know the "abundant life" God offers to you in Jesus Christ. Not only is this what the Bible says, but, again, I speak from experience in this, too.

Look, loving human beings is a painful business. Doing so cost Jesus his life! If you think you can obey God and love others as He has called you to do without pain to yourself, forget it! This is, in part, why Jesus said to his disciples,

Matthew 16:24-25
24..."If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Paul the apostle wrote,

2 Corinthians 12:15
15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

This loveless response that Paul anticipated is inevitable when we obey God's command and love others as He loves them. And this is why Self has to go: You can't love others well and be protecting Self at every turn. To the degree a disciple of Christ, a Christian, is occupied with loving and protecting himself, to that same degree he is unable to really love others.

So, what will you do? Will you keep on your present course, increasingly isolated from those you've been commanded by God to sacrificially love and, by your selfishness, cut-off from the rich fellowship with God that is the birthright of every truly born-again child of God? Will you allow your self-centeredness to drive you farther and farther from others and God? Or will you die to yourself and begin to really live?

How did you stop from isolating yourself and get the courage to get back out there regardless of the outcome you experienced with people after doing so?

aiki · Jul 5, 2020

Wantingtobeanextrovert said:
How did you stop from isolating yourself and get the courage to get back out there regardless of the outcome you experienced with people after doing so?

I didn't stop isolating myself. Self can't fight itself. Not really. Only God could make me different than I was. He began to do so by showing me just how self-centered I was. I thought at one time that I was just "introverted," "shy," "reserved," and/or "quiet." No one seemed to think my being withdrawn and unsociable was sinful. I certainly didn't. But, then, God intruded upon me and pointed out through His word that I could not be at all useful to Him, I could not truly serve Him, so long as I was serving myself, which in my case meant keeping to myself. I was not eager to see that what I thought of as laudable "thoughtful reserve" was mostly just self-centeredness, even pride.

There was a spiritual cost, of course, to being as I was. My fellowship with God was enormously hindered by my selfish introversion. God's eyes are always fixed in love upon all the people I was keeping at arms' length. (John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-11; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3) If I was to enjoy God, then, I had to come to love what He loved which was all those people I was avoiding. As the prophet Amos wrote, "Can two walk together unless they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3) God and I didn't agree about all the people I was shutting out of my life. He loved them; I did not. He wanted me to move toward them with His love and I wanted to move away. And so, God and I could not walk together because I was not in agreement with Him about all those people around me that He loved. It was the awareness of the absence of truly intimate communion with God (pressed upon me, of course, by the Holy Spirit - John 16:8-13) that compelled me to begin to forsake myself (Matthew 16:24-25) and submit to God's transforming work. I dearly wanted the abundant life in Christ, the life of joyful, deep, rich fellowship with God, that I saw held out to me in Scripture and knew that I didn't have it. I had religious activity and knowledge but not the delightful, loving communion with God I saw described in the Bible. The Holy Spirit kept me keenly aware that I wasn't truly enjoying God, that in fact I was a prisoner to my own selfishness, crippled by Self, and this began the transformation that brought me out of myself.

The key to being changed by God was surrender. I had to get out of God's way; I had to give Him control of me, of my mind, my desires and actions; and I had to do this all throughout every day (Romans 6:11; 12:1; James 4:6-10; 1 Peter 5:6). As often as I took back control from God and realized it, I had to surrender myself again to His Lordship, to His will and way. Because God knows that the life He made me for, the best, most fulfilling life, can only be mine as I die to Self (Romans 6; Galatians 5:24; 6:14; Colossians 3:3, etc.), this is what He led me into: the life of the Cross, the crucified life, that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 16:24-25. The more I enter into this life, the more the Holy Spirit works in me to bring me further into this life, the more I enjoy God and the more I find myself delighting in the intersections with other people to which He repeatedly and frequently brings me.

It is always and only God who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He changes us; we cannot really change ourselves - not in the way God desires, anyway. The key to His changing of us is our yielding to Him, our surrender, which we come to see He has also enabled.

Justified_By_Christ_Alone · Jul 5, 2020

Reading this it sounds like I wrote it.. I am honestly wondering the same thing. The problem with small groups is I let everyone else do the talking. But one-on-one connections you are pretty much forced to talk so it makes things less awkward I find. In small groups I always feel like I'm the odd one out. It's difficult especially when it comes to church because you want to be friends with other believers and that just makes you even more anxious because it's important to you, I feel the same exact way. I have made online friendships in the past but they are just not the same as real life connections. Real-life social interaction is important both spiritually and mentally.

Justified_By_Christ_Alone · Jul 5, 2020

aiki said:
Social anxiety at bottom is just selfishness in a pathological degree. Why are you so socially anxious? Because in some way or other you are trying to protect yourself. You don't want to feel awkward, or rejected, or whatever and so you insulate yourself against such things by avoiding them. And if you put a psychological label on your inordinate Self-protection, you can make out like you're a victim of some "disorder" beyond your control. But the truth is that you're being so extremely self-centered its cutting you off from other people. I speak from experience here. I used to do and think the very things I've just described. I can tell you its a trap, a prison, and makes you utterly useless to God. In fact, until Self dies in you, you can't really walk with God properly; until you let go of centering yourself at the core of your life and put God there instead, you cannot know the "abundant life" God offers to you in Jesus Christ. Not only is this what the Bible says, but, again, I speak from experience in this, too.

Look, loving human beings is a painful business. Doing so cost Jesus his life! If you think you can obey God and love others as He has called you to do without pain to yourself, forget it! This is, in part, why Jesus said to his disciples,

Matthew 16:24-25
24..."If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Paul the apostle wrote,

2 Corinthians 12:15
15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

This loveless response that Paul anticipated is inevitable when we obey God's command and love others as He loves them. And this is why Self has to go: You can't love others well and be protecting Self at every turn. To the degree a disciple of Christ, a Christian, is occupied with loving and protecting himself, to that same degree he is unable to really love others.

So, what will you do? Will you keep on your present course, increasingly isolated from those you've been commanded by God to sacrificially love and, by your selfishness, cut-off from the rich fellowship with God that is the birthright of every truly born-again child of God? Will you allow your self-centeredness to drive you farther and farther from others and God? Or will you die to yourself and begin to really live?

Wow you are very condemning... Swallow your pride. You need to realize mental illness is real. And some people have problems and need help with them. Stop condemning people for health issues and anxiety they struggle with.

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