Soul Food - Part 5.7 : Your Social Environment

Of all the environmental factors that shape who you are becoming, your social environment is probably the most powerful. More than your physical space, more than your digital inputs, more than your daily routines — the people you are consistently around are forming you in ways that are almost impossible to fully see while they are happening.

I know this because I have lived both sides of it.

The Science Backs This Up

Before we get into the personal side, it is worth noting that what Scripture has said for thousands of years, science has been confirming for decades.

Research from the Framingham Heart Study — one of the longest running cardiovascular studies in history — found that behaviors like obesity, smoking, and drinking spread through social networks almost like a contagion. Having a close friend who is obese significantly increases your own risk of becoming obese, not because of shared genetics or environment, but because of shared norms. The same study found that having a happy friend living nearby makes you 25% more likely to be happy yourself.

The researchers behind this work described a “three degrees of influence” principle — meaning the people you are close to influence you, and the people they are close to influence you, extending outward further than most people would expect.

The mechanism is not dramatic. It is not peer pressure in the obvious sense. It is norms. What feels normal, acceptable, and worth pursuing is shaped quietly and constantly by the people you spend the most time around. Your standards, your habits, your sense of what is possible — all of it drifts toward the average of your social environment without you even noticing it happening.

That is just how humans work. And it means the people you choose to be close to are one of the most consequential decisions you will ever make.

The Arizona Years

Before I moved out of Arizona I had two social environments running at the same time.

The first was my close circle. A small group of guys who had real goals, were working toward something, and held each other to a standard. Those boys are all still doing great today — in great shape, pursuing their futures, building something with their lives. The proximity was producing something good in all of us.

The second was the larger social environment around us. People who were fine, not bad people, just not going anywhere in particular. No real goals, no real direction, just hanging out and getting through. And looking at where those people are today compared to where they were then — most of them are in basically the same place. The environment was not pushing anyone forward.

I was in both simultaneously. And I could feel the difference even then, even before I had the theological language for it.

Here is the uncomfortable truth about that second environment: it was not doing anything dramatic or obvious to pull me in the wrong direction. It was just not pulling me in the right one. And over time, neutral becomes negative. A social environment that is not moving you toward God is moving you away from Him, even if slowly, even if nobody intends it.

There is no in between.

What the Bible Says

Scripture is not gentle about this.

“He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” — Proverbs 13:20 (NASB 1995)

The companion of fools will suffer harm. Not might. Will. The outcome is presented as inevitable because the formation is constant. You do not choose to absorb the values and patterns of the people around you — you just do, because that is how proximity works.

Amos 3:3 asks a simple question:

“Do two men walk together unless they have made an appointment?” — Amos 3:3 (NASB 1995)

Two people walking together have agreed on a direction. You cannot walk closely with someone for a long time and end up in different places. The shared direction is implied by the shared walk. So the question of who you are walking with is really a question of where you are going.

And Paul is direct in 2 Corinthians 6:14:

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” — 2 Corinthians 6:14 (NASB 1995)

This verse is often applied only to marriage, and it does apply there, but the principle is broader. Deep, close, life-shaping friendship requires shared direction. Light and darkness cannot walk closely together without one affecting the other. And if you are honest about which way that influence tends to run — it is usually not the light winning.

Since Coming to Christ

Since coming to Christ I have been very intentional about this. I only want people around me who are pushing me closer to Him. That is not a judgment on people who are not believers — it is just an honest recognition that closeness requires shared direction, and my direction is toward God.

I can still be friends with people who do not share my faith. I can treat them well, have fun with them, be kind and present and genuinely care about them, but close friendship requires something more than that. It requires the kind of mutual sharpening that only happens when two people are headed the same way and holding each other to the same standard.

The honest truth is I do not know if I can ever be truly close with secular friends again the way I was before. Not because there is anything wrong with them as people. Because the standard I hold myself to now is just fundamentally different from the one most people around me are living by. And closeness with people who do not share that standard, even without anyone intending it, pulls you away from it over time.

I hope every secular person in my life comes to Christ. That is God’s work to do, not mine. My job is to be a fun, happy, genuine person who shows the fruit of what following Him actually looks like. Not performing. Not preaching. Just being — and trusting that God does the rest.

Joe and Maya

The clearest picture of what an intentional social environment actually produces in my life is my friendship with Joe and Maya.

These two have pushed me closer to the Lord more than almost anyone. They call out things that are wrong. They have convicted me. They have helped me see things in a new light when I was too close to see them clearly myself. We have a lot of fun — genuinely, it is not a serious friendship in some austere way — but we also bring each other closer to Christ, and that is what makes it different from every other kind of friendship I have had.

That is what the right social environment does. It raises the floor. It makes growth feel normal. It makes the pursuit of God feel like the obvious thing rather than the countercultural thing. When the people around you are all moving in the same direction it becomes harder to drift.

The broader community of believers around us operates the same way. A group of people all pointed toward God, holding each other to something real, showing up for each other in genuine ways. That environment is doing something in all of us whether we can fully see it or not.

The Slow Drift

The danger of a bad social environment is that it rarely announces itself. Nobody sits you down and says your standards are going to erode now. It just happens, slowly, through a thousand small moments where the environment normalizes something that should not be normal.

And the blessing of a good social environment works the same way in reverse. Nobody announces that you are about to grow. It just happens, through proximity and shared pursuit and the quiet influence of people who are further along pulling you forward.

You become who you are around. That is not motivational language. It is just what happens to humans in community. The only question is whether you are being intentional about who that is.