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About ChristianConnect
ChristianConnect is an independent company truly dedicated to the ideal of sound business practice and of encouraging positive values in today's world. ChristianConnect is wholly owned by Simpatico Networks Inc, the company that founded the largest network of multi-faith spiritual content on the web, Faith.com. Simpatico Networks Inc. is also the owner of Christian Network's sister site, Christian Gateway. Simpatico Networks Inc. was formed over six years ago and has always remained loyal to its goal of providing a lively, open, intelligent forum for people to explore and experience spirituality and religion.
On our sister network, Christian Gateway, you can find breaking Christian news, Christian audio and video resources, resources for Christian families, educational links, links to Christian organizations and charities, holiday information, daily affirmations, daily polling questions, an abundance or articles and sacred texts as well as a church locator and a carefully selected group of recently reviewed Christian books. The editors of Christian Gateway and of this site, ChristianConnect, are Harvard and Oxford trained specialists in religion who have worked for many years to bring only the most captivating and relevant Christian material to these carefully curated websites.
We Care
Take a look at our sister networks, Faith.com and Christian Gateway and you'll find superior content— lots to keep you interested... and a taste of what's coming soon for ChristianConnect.
The Basics: What is ChristianConnect?
ChristianConnect is the first online resource for the Christian community that provides a truly trustworthy network for meeting friends, finding romantic partners, and making business contacts.
This is not a community of strangers. It's a place where you can refer your friends, make new contacts, and meet new people through people you already know. It's the closest thing to a live network of friends and acquaintances that you can have online. Best of all, it's a place where you can meet people who share your deepest interests and values.
Anyone from any background can join. You don't need to be super-religious to be an active member of ChristianConnect. There are members online now, from all over the world!
Whats Christianity got to do with it?
Of all the world religions, none have as much to say about love as Christianity does. "God is love," we read in the Bible. Christ told his disciples to "love one another as I have loved you."
In today's world, it can be hard sometimes to understand what we mean when we talk about love. Is it an intense, passionate attraction? Is it a feeling of warmth and kindness? What does love in all these forms have to do with Christ's teachings?
Christianity speaks of four different types of love. In the Greek in which the New Testament was first written, there was not one word for love, but four. Each of them has its place in the scheme of things. When you're beginning to explore new dimensions of love, romance, and friendship, it's helpful to know what they are from a Christian perspective:
The first is called eros. It's the source of our word erotic. It has to do with sexual and romantic feelings of all kinds. When people say they're looking for love, this is the kind they often mean.
The second kind of love is called storge (pronounced stor-gay). It's the kind of love you feel for your family members and relatives. The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis said that the word closest to it in English is probably "affection." It's a love based on mutual needs and dependencies, the way a child loves a parent or a parent loves a child.
Friendship (philia in Greek) is the third kind of love. Many of the ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle and Cicero, considered it one of the highest kinds of love. Why? Because you accept your friends the way they are. You don't make the same demands of them as you would of a romantic partner or a member of your family. And friendship isn't exclusive. Having one person as a friend doesn't mean you can't have others.
The last kind of love — and the most important one in Christianity — is called agape (pronounced ah-gah-pay). In the Gospels, when Christ is speaking of love, this is the word he usually employs. In the famous passage about love in 1 Corinthians, this is the word Paul uses as well. (Some versions of the Bible translate this word as charity.) Paul tells us something about this kind of love. It "seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil" (1 Cor. 13:5). In short, it's what we today sometimes call unconditional love.
Most forms of love involve some sort of reciprocity. You love another person, and he or she loves you back. If one of you stops, the other feels entitled to stop as well. This is the way of most human relationships — friendship, romantic love, sometimes even love between family members. ...But Christianity says there is something more.
Agape, the kind of love Christ is talking about, doesn't have strings attached. You express it toward anyone and everyone, equally and impartially. You don't keep mental accounts of whether the person was nice or not nice to you. Whatever happens, however you are treated, you still continue to love.
Agape can sound terribly hard. It can feel as if you are giving without getting anything back. But this isn't the best way to understand it. It's better to think of agape as love and compassion that goes past all the limitations and demands of ordinary social relations. You can bestow it anywhere and at any time, no matter what kind of response you get.
You may think that if you begin to practice agape, you will have to give something up. In a way, that's true. You have to give up the gives-and-gets, the double-entry accounting of the heart that confuses and confounds so many of our human relations. But probably you'll find that if you can take this step, instead of a sense of loss, you'll feel that a gift has been given you. And so it has. It's one of the most tremendous gifts life has to offer.
There's one important thing to remember as you cultivate agape. It's not instead of the other kinds of love — romance, friendship, family feeling — it's in addition to them. You can bring this feeling of warm, free, totally unattached love to all the relationships you have at any time. Will it make them all instantly perfect? Probably not. But you may be amazed at how quickly and easily agape can transform and redeem them.
Join Us!
Here at ChristianConnect, we hope you'll remember some of these ideas as you explore new friendships and connections. We hope you'll meet new friends, romantic interests, business contacts. However your connections develop, we hope that this sense of agape, this unconditional love, will touch them all and bring its blessings to you and to everyone. Welcome!
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