Are You a Fellowship Skipper?

Are you a fellowship skipper?  Do you regularly avoid home Bible studies, mid-week get-togethers, and church picnics because they’re, in your opinion, “not really necessary”?  Do you place a high priority on church attendance on Sunday, making sure to sing all the songs, participate in the offering, and listen to the sermon, but see fellowship as optional?  Maybe you’ve gotten into the habit of showing up late for a church service, sitting on the side or in the back of the room closest to the door, and then heading for the parking lot before the song leader can finish saying, “You’re dismissed.”  Not to be rude, of course – you like the people at Grace Community Church – but there always seems to be a good reason to shortchange fellowship time.  You’re tired, you’re hungry, all your close friends are out of town this week.  You’ve got to prepare lunch or dinner, you forgot to TiVo a movie that’s coming on in an hour.  You’re not a people-person, you want to beat the crowd to the Olive Garden…..the list of excuses grows each week.  But there is no need to feel guilty, you think, because you heard the lesson, you gave your contribution, and you took part in the Lord’s Table.  Those are the things God is most concerned about, after all – right?

I used to have those thoughts about fellowship, but I was terribly misguided.  Fellowship is not like the non-essential parsley on a restaurant dinner platter, a pretty garnish that adds almost nothing to the meal.  It is much more than the sum of its parts, deceptively more than meets the eye.  That’s because our loving and all-knowing heavenly Father is the inventor and designer of Christian fellowship.  It is He who imbued it with so much purpose and power that if you are a Christian who regularly skips fellowship, you may be missing out on one of the main benefits of being a member of the church.

To get an understanding of the effective way God uses Christian fellowship it helps to know exactly what it is…..and what it isn’t.

I love God's awesome design for the church!

What Is Christian Fellowship?

The world doesn’t often use the term “fellowship”.   In fact, I have never heard any of my co-workers or friends outside of church say the word.  And if I asked them, “Shall we fellowship at the Town Center tonight after work?” I would probably get some strange looks and confused silence in response.  Say “fellowship” around Christians, however, and no one bats an eye – we’re all very familiar with the term.  But even though we as Christians know fellowship is special and unique to church life, we still sometimes see it from a worldly point of view.

You may think fellowship is really no big deal.  To you, it’s just hanging out, spending casual time together, talking to each other – only instead of doing this with anyone you’re doing it with Christians and you affect a more “holy” flair.  Like when you’re watching a football game with Christians; instead of holding up your hands and yelling, “Yeah!  Touchdown, baby!” you say “Praise the Lord!  By His sovereign will my team is up 14-0!” 

No, that isn’t exactly fellowship.  Fellowship is much more intentional and has much more intricate functions even if we are not fully aware of them.  Consider, for instance, the “one-anothers” of Scripture.  Throughout the New Testament, Christians are commanded to,

“Love one another with brotherly affection.”  – Romans 12:10

“…instruct one another….” – Romans 15:14

“…serve one another.” – Galatians 5:13

“Bear one another’s burdens…” – Galatians 6:2

“Be kind to one another….forgiving one another…” – Ephesians 4:32

Teach and admonish one another – Colossians 3:16

“…encourage one another and build one another up…” – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

“…exhort one another every day…” – Hebrews 3:13

“…stir up one another to love and good works…” – Hebrews 10:24

“…confess your sins to one another….” – James 5:16

“…pray for one another…” – James 5:16

“…keep loving one another earnestly…” – 1 Peter 4:8

“…show hospitality to one another…” – 1 Peter 4:9

“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another…” – 1 Peter 4:10

I love you, Grace Community Church!

It is impossible to obey these commands (and they are commands, not simply suggestions) if you do not fellowship.  How can you, for example, forgive a fellow Christian when you never interact with them enough to warrant such forgiveness?  If your time in fellowship is nothing more than greeting people as you walk into the sanctuary and waving goodbye to them all as you jump into your car to leave, you will never have the opportunity to teach and admonish anyone, pray for anyone, exhort anyone, bear anyone’s burdens (how could you possibly know what they are?), or even truly love anyone (because love is more than just general pleasant feelings).   In the same way, you will not receive forgiveness, admonishment, exhortation, prayer, or love if you never fellowship.

God has designed the church, and fellowship within the church, to be a conduit through which He administers grace to us, sanctifies us, displays the gifts of the Holy Spirit through us, teaches us, and grows us up, individually and corporately, into the image of Christ.  God never intended for us to be little spiritual islands, studying alone, listening to hymns in solitude, affecting no one and being affected by no one. Therefore, though you may think you have covered all the bases with church attendance, if you don’t intentionally fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, you may still not be pleasing the Lord at all.  I’ll even go this far – show me a Christian who regularly avoids fellowship and I’ll show you a Christian who…

1.      Has a lot of head knowledge that he rarely puts into action.

2.      Does not use his spiritual gift.  He possibly doesn’t even know what his spiritual gift is.

3.      Hasn’t grown but has remained in the same place spiritually for years.

 

Fellowshipping with Jack and Jill

Let me let you in on an example of the way God uses fellowship from my own experience.  There is a couple at Grace Community Church that I recently enjoyed fellowshipping with over lunch one day.  For the sake of anonymity, I’ll call them Jack and Jill.  While enjoying lunch together, Jack asked me how things were going on my job and Jill piped in that they had both been praying for me, knowing that I often work long hours and the job was sometimes stressful.

Taking full advantage of what I thought was an opportunity to complain and whine, I went into a long sob story about how I had worked long hours the previous week, struggling to reconcile a pile of interrelated general ledger accounts.  Our executive managers had accelerated the deadlines of our end-of-quarter accounting close which meant I even had to work until 10pm on Friday night.  Jack and Jill were both kindly attentive and sympathetic, both telling me that they would pray for me that the Lord would give me strength.  Things changed a little however when I flew into my next story.

I told them that we were expected to work last Saturday and that my boss was considering it a normal workday, due to the accelerated deadlines we were under.  She expected me to arrive at work no later than 9am, but I dragged in at around 11:00 that day.  “Do you believe my boss had the audacity to reprimand me for that?!”  I said, incredulously.  “I mean, I was really tired!  And I already had to work late Friday.  I didn’t feel like getting up early on a Saturday.  So I don’t care what she thinks because …”

I looked up from my lunch midway through my whiny rant, expecting Jack and Jill to return more looks of sympathy, but I was shocked to see a look of deep concern and consternation on their faces, particularly Jack’s.  They had both stopped eating and seemed to be trying to figure out what to say to me.  I stopped talking and Jack finally said quietly, “Janice, you were wrong.”

“WRONG?!!”  I thought, the word ringing like a gong in my head.  “Shouldn’t they be sympathizing with me?!” I said to myself.  “Isn’t that what buddies do?  Listen to your gripe-fests and agree with everything you say, no matter how irritating it is?”   

But Jack’s very godly answer corrected my thinking.  “Janice, you knew you were supposed to be at work that day at  9.  If you were going to be late you should have called.  Or better yet, you should have made sure you were there on time.  People on your job know you are a Christian.  When you behave this way, what does that tell them about Christianity?  What must they think about Christ?  Remember you are supposed to be an ambassador for Christ.  How can you be if you are not as diligent to follow the rules as those who don’t even know the Lord?”

I love my church, too, but.........this might be going too far

That was a humbling experience.  And I thank God for it!  I also thank the Lord for Jack and Jill, my dear brother and sister in Christ who love me enough and love the Lord enough to lovingly correct me – for the sake of my soul and for the sake of Christ.  I asked the Lord to forgive me for how I had behaved at work, knowing I had brought shame on Him.  The three of us then talked more about what it meant to work for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23-24) and how I could let my light shine before others so they would see my good works and glorify God (Matthew 5:16).

Don’t Be a Fellowship Skipper!

See how important and critical fellowship is to our Christian walk?  If we see church membership as nothing more than a legalistic focus on doing the “five acts of worship”, we will miss the true purpose of church membership altogether.  When you understand how the Lord uses fellowship, however, you will no longer see it as a waste of time but as precious minutes and hours in which you get to spur your fellow brothers and sisters at Grace Community Church on to good works and be spurred on by them.  The Lord knows that none of us is perfect, that we all have sins and blind spots that we can’t see but our fellow Christians can see.  Fellowship is God’s means for bringing brothers and sisters alongside to encourage, admonish, correct, and pray for each other.  It is an integral part of His awesome design for the church!