“Where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:20 NLT
“Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” Colossians 3.12-13 NLT
“Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.” Exodus 3:5 NLT
Day 18 of 40: Our earliest human family is our first experience of “life together.”
For some of us, our birth families have helped us reach the “stars;” for others, our first experience with family has left us with deep “scars.”
No family is perfect, but there are huge differences in our early family experiences. And these differences shape our inclinations for/against trying out “life together” in the church.
Robert Schuller said: “God wants to turn our scars into stars.” That’s true… and small fellowship groups with Jesus at the center are one of the primary vehicles that God uses.
In the Bible, the word fellowship refers to sharing common life with others… “Communion” (The Lord’s Supper) is its deepest expression. It sometimes refers to sharing our material resources with others. It’s where the idea of a “Christian community” comes from… at its core, fellowship is a commitment to a group of people with whom you are willing to make sacrifices to benefit others in the group. As Warren points out… that’s a far cry from punch and cookies in the Women’s Parlor.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote the classic book on Biblical fellowship – “Life Together.” It explores the ideal of Christian Community in great depth. But for most of us the best way to understand “life together” is to live it out with a small group of believers.
Warren notes four marks of Biblical fellowship –
- Authenticity – honestly sharing what’s going on in our lives
- Mutuality – reciprocal giving and receiving
- Sympathy – kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
- Mercy – forgiveness, grace
I would add a fifth – Trust. Warren refers to it… but I need to emphasize it. Over the years, most people have been trustworthy… they have shared confidences at appropriate levels within the group and those confidences have stayed within the group… people have been honest and worked out differences. But when a person lies or betrays a person’s trust outside of the group… the group is never the same… and rarely recovers. Lying, and gossip kill groups!
Here’s one example – a small, charismatic group within a church (before I got there) imploded when the group leader (whom everyone trusted) had an affair, over an extended period of time, with the wife of one of the couples in the group. That was the end of that group… and the people in it were never the same.
Here’s another example – I was counseling a couple whose marriage was in trouble… I knew all the gory details (far more than I wanted to know). At the same time, I attended a Christian retreat in the community in which we lived during which the wife shared “her story”… her husband was not there. Her “story” was a total, self-serving fabrication during which she “trashed” her husband to make herself look good and gain sympathy. Needless to say, that was the end of the marriage counseling. And it was all downhill in their marriage from there.
When Moses approached the “burning bush” out of curiosity, God warned him not to get any closer – to take off his shoes – because he was treading on “holy ground.” When a person honestly, openly shares a confidence from his/her heart with a small group, that person has invited the group into their “holy space.”
God’s warning to Moses is a warning to us: “take off your shoes… you are standing on holy ground.”
The Peanut Gallery 