 Compassion  Empathy  Listening/attentive to other’s needs  Communication  Relationship  Unconditional love  Accepting each other as we are  Seeing God in one another  Common interests

 God hasn’t told us how these relationships are to be shaped.  God has only told us that our relationships should be shaped and rooted in love.

 Each friendship must be shaped by the needs and the personalities involved.  Some friendships need to be in a big group while others need to be one-on-one.  From a Christian perspective, it is not the way we spend time with each other that makes the friendship special but rather the attitude that friends have for each other.

 Jesus humbled himself to be the kind of friend that others needed.  We need to stop and ask ourselves “What would Jesus do?”  Jesus shows us that in friendship we must balance our needs with the needs of others.

 From a Christian perspective, a good friend is willing to be with another person in a way that respects the other’s dignity, feelings, values and needs.  This is someone whose whole attitude says, “You are important to me.”

 Sometimes it is not because we mean to hurt them, but because we don’t stop and think about how our actions will affect others.  In order to become a good friend we must develop habits of good friendship – we need to become virtuous people.

Attitudes and habits that help us choose good, even when we don’t stop to think first.  They help us to take control of our lives, channel our emotions and to avoid doing things we will regret.  They are developed through education, prayer and practice.

3 Theological Virtues:  Faith, Hope, Charity 4 Cardinal Virtues:  Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance