Find Your People

1.Jennie points to both neuroscience and the biblical narrative to argue that humans were wired for connection. Which of these two lines of evidence — the scientific or the theological — was more compelling to you, and why?

1.Jennie identifies several enemies of community — things like busyness, fear, consumerism, and our curated online lives. Which of these resonates most strongly as the primary barrier in your own life right now? Be specific.

1.Jennie argues that we cannot experience genuine community while hiding behind a curated version of ourselves. What does the 'curated version' of you look like — what do you most carefully hide from new or even established friends?

1.Jennie insists that deep friendships don't just happen — they require intentional initiation. How comfortable are you with initiating? On a scale of 1–10, where do you land, and what past experience most shaped that number?

1.Jennie identifies five ingredients essential to deep community: proximity, consistency, vulnerability, a shared mission, and a catalyst (often shared suffering). Before going through each one, which of these five do you already have in at least one current relationship, and which are almost entirely absent from your relational life?

1.Jennie encourages readers to identify the type of friend they are — the one who initiates, the one who deepens, the one who shows up in crisis, the one who celebrates, and so on. Without using the ideal answer, what kind of friend are you most naturally? What kind of friend do you find hardest to be?

1.Jennie makes a strong case that we live in a commitment-averse culture — one that keeps our options open and treats relationships as interchangeable and dispensable. Where do you see that cultural value operating in your own relational life? How has it cost you?

1.Jennie describes the experience of being with someone who is truly, fully present — no phone, no distraction, completely there. Can you think of someone in your life who makes you feel that way? What does their presence do for you? What do they do (or not do) that communicates that you have their full attention?

1.Jennie makes the counterintuitive claim that conflict, navigated well, actually deepens friendship rather than destroying it. Does that resonate with your experience, or does it feel naively optimistic? Think of a friendship where conflict was the turning point — either toward depth or toward distance. What made the difference?

1.Jennie writes about the way comparison and envy quietly erode friendship — turning people who should be our greatest champions into unwitting rivals. When is comparison most likely to visit you? Is it tied to a specific area of life — career, marriage, parenting, appearance, ministry?

1.Jennie argues that shared suffering is often the catalyst that turns a group of people into a genuine community — that difficulty accelerates depth in ways that easy seasons cannot. Does your own experience confirm this? Think of a relationship that was transformed by going through something hard together.

1.Jennie ends by painting a picture of what thriving, deep community actually looks like in practice — not perfect, but real, committed, and marked by love. How does her vision compare to the community you currently have? What's the distance between the two, and what's one thing that could begin to close it?

1.Looking back across the whole book, which chapter or idea hit you the hardest? Was it the five ingredients, the call to initiate, the chapter on conflict, the vision of shared suffering, or something else? What made that particular chapter land with such force?