Lots of great stuff in this chapter. I really liked this description about fellowship: experiencing authenticity, mutuality, sympathy, and mercy. As more and more people become part of a local congregation, it's important that more and more people take the initiative to build at least one or two friendships with others. A church ought to work hard to make it easy for people to meet each other, get to know each other, to build fellowship with a few other people.
Fellowship doesn't mean cliques. Cliques exist to protect you from undesirable people, they exist to fuel your false-sense of superiority. Fellowship is about love, about acceptance, about life together. But, the reality is that a small group of people can only have a limited amount of people in it, otherwise it isn't small anymore. It's really about the attitude going into it: is it about me and what I can get out of it, or what can I give to it?
There are lots of ways that fellowship can happen in a church: small groups is the most famous way, although it's not always the most practical way. Fellowship happens best when a few people make a point to get together on their own. Whether it's a once a week thing, once a month thing, or however they set it up. But for members of a church, there is the fellowship that happens on a Sunday morning, and then that helps fuel the kind of fellowship you can have later on in the week. Worship is where you meet people, Fellowship is where you get to really know people.
I can't stress this enough: people must take the initiative to get to know other people. If you want to have a friend, be a friend. Don't wait for others to "let you in" to their group. Begin the looking for ways to be a friend, and allow the Spirit to guide that search along. If you want fellowship, you have to be willing to give fellowship, to make time and energy for fellowship. Don't wait for a church to start a fellowship program.
Fellowship doesn't always have to be deep, intense times of sharing the secrets of your life. Those moments can be important, but to get there, there has to be plenty of moments of fun, of serving together, of playing together, of working together on projects. So, when a church offers a work day, or a potluck dinner, or a movie night, or neighborhood clean-up day, or Lenten services with other churches, or ministry opportunities on a Sunday morning, or a Bible study, or softball games, or mission trips, or fundraiser events, or etc: these are all opportunities for building fellowship, for getting to know others, for building friendships.
"Share each other's troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2 (NLT)
What have been some fellowship events that have been a good experience for you?
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