- The word fellowship is overworked and undervalued, genial friendliness, psa, a superficial mateyness, a good gossip
- We have to recover it, three reasons, biblical, historical, practical
- Biblical warrant, not good for man to be on his own, not just about marriage, aloneness is not the will of God for anyone, people are built for fellowship for company, it is God’s will that they should have it!
- But this isn’t met by churchgoing alone, too often in a crowd like this you can be all alone, not a congregation rather an aggregation, church can perpetuate aloneness rather than cure it.
- There is a need for small groups in the life of the church for the life of the people, the value of small group is that they become a community of related people, the benefit and challenge of which cannot be missed or evaded
- Same for a human family, our growth into maturity according to the purpose of God takes place in the context of a family group. A complex pattern between parents, children, brothers, sisters, which more than anything else governs our development into adulthood, even with single children and on parent families there are usually relatives and neighbours and friends that mould us, those who keep alone and aloof in the Christian family are likely to damage or stunt their own spiritual progress.
- We want to grow bigger, but we want to grow deeper, it is no exaggeration that small groups, house groups, fellowship groups are indispensable for our spiritual maturity. People who hide in church or only do church on a Sunday truly miss out in belonging to the people of Christ and perhaps Christ himself
- Historical warrant, many famous movements of the Spirit of God have come from small groups, the revival in the western isles beginning with 2 elderly ladies, Methodism where John Wesley met with just a few, the fellowship meetings of the east African revival, from the small great movements have sprung up and spread. Prayer triplets!!!
- Pastoral warrant, in every church the pastoral ministry, has to concentrate on nurturing the new convert, visiting the sick, meeting with those in need of baptism, funerals or marriages, counselling, training, but they cannot hope to see all the members of the church, nor indeed should they!!!! Pastoral oversight is not the burden of the minister alone!
- The bible indicates that we are our brother’s keeper, there is a hint that each of us is a bishop, because there is an oversight entrusted to each of us to each other, Hebrews 12:15, that no one fails to obtain the grace of God (episkopountes). So realistically it is in the fellowship groups that the ideal can become a reality, it needs the minister to delegate to the lay leaders and all of us learnt to care for each other. John Wesley, Dr Dale
- Cell church, home group house church movement has been growing and growing, often it is the innovation of the Holy Spirit, there is a hunger for being real, a hunger for life that the world doesn’t give us, but what we have spoken of is far short of the Koinonia mentioned in the New Testament
- At the heart of this word (fellowship), is the adjective Koinos meaning “common”, Koinonia is what we bear together in common, it expresses what we share in together, share out together and what we share with each other, our common inheritance, common service, and our common responsibility
- Our common inheritance too often fellowship is this subjective woolly kind of word, where we have security and warmth with one another, we had good “fellowship together”, but in the bible, Koinonia is not a subjective feeling it is an objective fact, expressing what we share in together.
- Paul writes how we share in God’s grace with him, that John could say “that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the father and the son, paul spoke of the fellowship of the HS, in other words real fellowship is Trinitarian, we have a common share in the grace of God the father son and HS
- Is this not what makes us one? We come from so many different places, we have different temperaments, gifts and interests, yet we have this in common, the same God as our loving father, the same Jesus Christ as our lord and saviour, the same holy spirit as our indwelling comforter.
- It is our common Koinonia, (participation) in God which unites us together, that is why the Lord’s supper is so vital because we share together in the body and blood of Jesus we are united in him, and we can find that nowhere else in the world.
- Our common service Koinonia not only express what we have received together, but also what we give out together, our common service, in acts ch 2 we see they devoted themselves to the fellowship, first use of Koinonia in the NT, it only can come after the HS has come, Luke is speaking of the common life the church had together.
- We are called to love one another, to care for our brothers and sisters who are struggling in poverty, but Koinonia challenges us not to simply share our material wealth, but also our spiritual wealth, our knowledge of the gospel
- To give you an example Andrew, Peter, James and John were partners (koinonoi) in their fishing business, Jesus then calls them to be partners in fishing for human beings, catching them for the kingdom of God
- Yet we have a strange reluctance to share the wealth, to spread the love, how often have we sung oh for a thousand tongues to sing the great redeemers praise? What a useless wish, for one thing we will never have a thousand tongues, and for another if did we wouldn’t know what to do with them, with the one tongue we do have we share the irrelevant and hurtful and when we should speak of the hope in us we stay stubbornly quiet.
- Our mutual responsibility in the first two aspects of Koinonia we are all facing the same way, receiving or giving out, but in the third aspect of Koinonia, what we share with each other, we are not all facing in one direction, we are gathered in a circle facing each other. We are neither all recipients or givers we are in partnership with each other receiving and giving, Paul says to the Philippians since he shared the gift of the gospel they shared a gift with him
- Same with the collection he was organizing from the Greek churches for the Judean churches, was a symbol of unity, the jews had shared the spiritual blessings, the gentiles were sharing the material blessings
- Another example is romans 1, where Paul longs to visit to impart a spiritual gift and also that they all might be encouraged by each other’s faith.
- Throughout the NT there are many “one another” words, the speak of the mutuality of Christian fellowship, the most common one is of course from Jesus “love one another as I have loved you”, this isn’t romantic or idealistic, to love each other is to have very practical consequences, negative and positive
- Negative, if we love one another, we will not judge others, or speak evil against each other, we will not bite and devour each other (sheep bite), we will not provoke or envy or life to each other
- Positively if we love each other we will be kind and compassionate, we will forbear and forgive each other, we will submit to each other and build each other up, we will practice hospitality without reluctance, we will encourage admonish and comfort one another, pray for each other and bear one another’s burdens
- The place to do this is not a Sunday morning, although it comes through there, it is in fellowship found in small groups, try it!
Practical illustrations
- fellowship groups can take many different forms, our house groups, our prayer groups, the youth bible study, the guild, Yorkie, but they need key elements, of prayer and feeding on Christ, we share in together to share out, we need to also be outward looking, to look for opportunities of service, inviting neighbours to church or a special meeting, visiting the sick and the elderly, volunteering in the church, praying for the world and the church.
- Fellowship groups should also share with each other, every time they meet an opportunity should be given to members to share their joys and sorrows, doubts, fears and needs. Leaders of our groups are like mini ministers, and pastoral oversight is shared among many.
- Our groups are full of human beings and as every human is different I have no intention of dictating what our groups should be like, but I do believe that Koinonia should be allowed to unfold, to rejoice in our common inheritance, our common service and our mutual responsibility, I don’t want groups just concentrating on themselves, or only concentrating on others, we need a balance.
- So first of all, if you do not go to a group, you need to if you want to grow, take your pick we have loads, or start one! And keep asking yourselves are we growing in Christian maturity together? Are we serving the Lord, the church and the world together? Are we increasing in love and care for one another?
- Then we can say with confidence and joy, “we had good fellowship together!”
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