Christian Living

---

Each Sunday we go through the same routine. We put on our dress clothes (I never have liked wearing a tie), we gather our families together and go to church where we see familiar faces. After a couple of hours or so, we return home until next week. Each week it’s the same time, same place. How many of us go to church on Sunday morning, take a seat on the pew, repeat a short prayer, sing a few praise and worship choruses, put a dollar in the offering, listen to a sermon and engage in a few trivial conversations before getting in our car and going home? There’s something wrong with this picture. It would appear to me that true fellowship with other believers is missing. Then we wonder why we never have unity or experience a spiritual breakthrough in our church.

Fellowship is so much more than just going to church on Sunday and talking about the weather, sports or the week’s activities with a friend in the lobby of the church for five minutes. In many churches the word fellowship is associated with food but it’s more than conversation over a meal; it involves relationship. A covered dish dinner after church is not fellowship. While we are eating the food, we continue to foster our shallow relationships. We expect to have unity when we don’t speak throughout the week? What’s wrong with us? I am constantly amazed how we classify our relationships with people in the church. People will sometimes go out of their way to avoid someone from church when they are shopping at Wal-mart. What is this? Are we only supposed to associate with church people inside the church building? That isn’t fellowship. To be more to the point, that’s superficial.
Fellowship involves the people of God getting out of their comfort zones and making an effort to pay attention to someone other than themselves. If we are ever going to have true fellowship we have to break out of the “what about me?” mentality. It means taking a few moments to find out how the person sitting next to you are really doing.

Is this a church or a social club? We say and even sing some songs that we are a “family” but we really aren’t.

Remember when Jesus chided Martha for being too busy cooking when she should have been sitting at His feet with Mary? Many of us are guilty of being too busy. We even get too busy doing good things. Fellowship isn’t about things but it’s about people!

Am I saying that we have to be “buddies” with everyone? No, but doesn’t it make more sense that we should have closer relationships with people we worship with than those who don’t? Our churches would not be able to compete with the fellowship of the New Testament church. It was quite different from a Sunday fellowship dinner. They got together and shared with each other and had a common bond. They had more than just a friendship; they had spiritual fellowship with one another. The Christian fellowship we should have is not based upon politics, business, hobbies, food or sports. These are some good things to share but we are to encourage one another. We all should have the same common spiritual purpose.

I have found that it is difficult to share spiritual things with others. Some of it is because others don’t understand my struggles or concerns and another reason is that it’s difficult to express things when the person you are talking to is not listening. There’s not much spiritual fellowship in that. It’s easier to carry on a meaningless conversation about our children while standing in line at a buffet.

So what can we do about it? How can we improve our fellowship? Consider these:

1. Pray about it. Ask God to show you areas you can improve your ability to fellowship better with others. Without His guidance, it won’t succeed. God already has specific people in mind for you.

2. Don’t make people your “project”. This isn’t something that can be programmed or scripted. It must be genuine.

3. Don’t give up. People will generally be unresponsive at first. Press past your feelings of rejection.

4. Give of yourself without expecting something in return. This is one of the hardest things to overcome.

5. Be available. Anyone can make excuses. Put forth the effort and give it a chance.
Avoid being defensive. Defensiveness, pride, and self-justification make true fellowship impossible.

6. Value confidentiality. Nothing will ruin fellowship more than gossip or telling things that are shared in confidence.

If we will allow God’s love to be manifested in our lives and released into the lives of others, people will be drawn to come to our churches. They will be drawn to spend time with us. They will be drawn to hear and respond to the Gospel message. Isn’t that what this is all about?

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE