Growing Together
Life is meant to be shared. God intends for us to experience life together. The Bible calls this shared experience fellowship. Real fellowship is so much more than just showing up at services. It is experiencing life together. It includes unselfish loving, honest sharing, practical serving, sacrificial giving, sympathetic comforting, and all the other “one another” commands found in the New Testament.
The Body of Christ, like your own body is really a collection of many small cells. The life of the Body of Christ, like your body, is contained in the cells. For this reason, every Christian needs to be involved in a small group within the church, whether it is a home fellowship, a Sunday school class, or a Bible study. This is where real community takes place, not in the big gatherings. If you think of your church as a ship, the small groups are the lifeboats attached to it.
In real fellowship people experience authenticity. Authentic fellowship is not superficial, surface-level chit-chat. It is genuine, heart-to-heart, sometimes gut-level, sharing. It happens when people get hones about who they are and what is happening in their lives. They share their hurts, reveal their feelings, confess their failures, disclose their doubts, admit their fears, acknowledge their weaknesses, and ask for help and prayer. Of course, being authentic requires both courage and humility. It means facing our fear of exposure, rejection, and being hurt again. Why would anyone take such a risk? Because it is the only way to grow spiritually and emotionally healthy.
In real fellowship people experience mutuality. Mutuality is the art of giving and receiving. It’s depending on each other. The Bible says, “The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part” (1 Corinthians 12:25). Mutuality is the heart of fellowship: building reciprocal relationships, sharing responsibilities, and helping each other. All of us are more consistent in our faith when others walk with us and encourage us. The Bible commands mutual accountability, mutual encouragement, mutual serving, and mutual honoring (Romans 12:10).
There are many other benefits you will experience in being a part of a small group committed to real fellowship. It is an essential part of your Christian life that you cannot overlook. For over 2,000 years Christians have regularly gathered in small groups for fellowship. If you’ve never been a part of a group or class like this, you really don’t know what you’re missing.
-Excerpt from Purpose-Driven Life,
Purpose #2: You Were Formed for God’s Family