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It is in fellowship that we engage in common activities of worship, study, prayer, celebration, and service with other disciples.
In doing this we may assemble in large groups, or with only a few. Personalities united can contain more of God and sustain
the force of his grater presence much better than scattered individuals.
Fellowship is simply the believers coming together to practice the disciplines.
We individually are the bride of Christ, yes; but so is the Church. Not the man-made church, but the God-indwelt and God-worshipping
and God-fearing and God-loving Church – the “Big C”! The real Church – the one we’re talking
about – is made up of flesh and blood, its arms and legs and eyes and ears comprised of the men and women and children
who are passionate and zealous for God, saved by God’s redeeming Son! It is in fellowship that the Church unites and
makes a presence in the world. The Church functions much better as a whole than Christians do running around independently.
Why is this so? Because it is designed this way. We are relational creatures to the core. Also, each of us, in fellowship,
has a spiritual gift that we bestow on other believers. The Phillips translation of 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 puts it well:
“Each man is given his gift by the Spirit that he may use it for the common good. One man’s gift by the Spirit
is to speak with wisdom, another’s to speak with knowledge. The same Spirit gives to another man faith, to another the
ability to heal, to another the power to do great deeds. The same Spirit gives to another man the gift of preaching the word
of God, to another the ability to discriminate in spiritual matters, to another speech in different tongues and to yet another
the power to interpret the tongues. Behind all these gifts is the operation of the same Spirit, who distributes to each individual
as he wills.”
Fellowship leads us into the last two disciplines of engagement: confession and submission.
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