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"From the Pastors Study"
Christian Fellowship
What is fellowship? Is it a church social event?
A pitch-in dinner? Talking in the hallway after church? Meeting at
a restaurant after evening service? Inviting someone to your house
for ice cream? Small group meetings? Is Christian community simply
a time of testimony or “sharing” in the service? I am not
convinced any of those things are by themselves genuine Christian
fellowship or genuine Christian community, although each of them
provide an opportunity for Christian fellowship to happen.
So what is Christian fellowship?
The Scriptures lead me to understand fellowship
is sharing, communing, participating together in the Christian
life; it is being involved with one another in living for Christ.
It is also referred to as the work of ministry, service, and care
for one another and it leads to growth, edification and a sense of
family unity. It is loving one another and ministering your
spiritual gifts and the “one another’s” in such a way that we need
self-sacrifice, humility, endurance, faith and the help of the
Holy Spirit. It is working together to grow in Christ. It is
Christian community.
Since fellowship is to help people grow, it must
be a means for ministering the Word of God, for by it we grow.
Fellowship is skillful, loving, personal, and truthful interaction
with fellow Christians for the mutual goal of personal growth in
Christ likeness.
It is not simply “sharing” our hearts, our
pasts, our secrets, our dreams, our home, our time, a meal or a
testimony. It is striving to share with each other in the common
calling and experience of faith in Christ. It is living the
Christian life with each other by helping one another in our
common goal of becoming like Christ.
Fellowship exists when we are each participating
with the other’s life in Christ. We confess our sins one to
another, help bear burdens, restore and rescue fallen family
members, accept one another and give comfort. We show hospitality,
exhort, and admonish one another. We forgive and forbear and
confront to hold each other accountable. We serve and edify one
another. We are mutually involved in compassion and comfort,
consideration and dealing in truth one with another. We are not
working against others or for ourselves. We don’t envy or irritate
but instead fellowship leads us to serve each other; and
especially, but not exclusively, in the area of our spiritual
gifting.
Fellowship is the outworking of Agape love for
fellow believers in a way that shares and participates in living
in and for Christ, not just the experience of living. Unbelievers
can do that.
True Christian fellowship is sadly lacking and
desperately needed. It is hard. It is a response of faith in
Christ and is costly. It demands self-sacrifice. One must die to
self to “enjoy” Christian fellowship. It is far beyond a simple
relationship between friends, though it is a relationship between
friends. Remember Jesus said one “could not” be His disciple
unless he died to self. Fellowship cannot seek to be ministered
unto and to minister at the same time. Fellowship’s focus isn’t
primarily ourselves, but God and others. Yet, strangely we need it
from others to grow. Fellowship is not primarily for our
enjoyment, though we benefit greatly. Its goal is other’s good as
we help them love and live for Christ’s glory. The incredible
thing is that when we do that we experience much reward both now
and forever. Sounds a lot like “whoever loses his life for my sake
shall find it” doesn’t it?
Fellowship is vital for growth in Christ,
effective for growth in Christ and clearly taught in the
Scriptures as a significant means of edification, ministry and
service. It is not an option! Yet it takes disciplined work to
endure in skillful, loving, personal, truthful interaction with
fellow Christians for the mutual goal of personal growth in Christ
likeness. But it is God’s work and we don’t want to become guilty
of “enjoying” “the meaningless Christianity of today that is in
touch with earth but not heaven.” (Bob Jones) we want to do more
than just share with each other. Instead, we want the joy and
fruit that comes from seeing heaven use us to touch earth. Lets’
strive to do that God’s way and let’s do it together.
Pastor Bruce Seivers
Valley Chapel Community Church
Fairfield, OH
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