To be a Christian is to be part of a community. The Bible teaches that Jesus died to make a people for himself - to bring sinners into relationship with himself and one another. Whilst coming to know Jesus is something an individual must do, continuing in the faith is far from an individual thing. Being a Christian is a hard task: people think we are mad, bad or just out of touch. If we are to keep following Jesus, then we need to help one another. Being devoted to fellowship therefore means being devoted to those in our local church, being devoted to our Christian brothers and sisters - not just on Sunday but all through the week.
We need to ask ourselves the question: do we spend time with others from Wellfield - not just our personal friends, but with all of our church? Wellfield is small enough that we ought to be able to spend time with everyone from our church within a fairly short space of time. We can do this through organised activities like Growth Group, Prayer Meeting and Sunday meetings; these are a great way to encourage people to follow Jesus as we look at the Bible and pray together. But if we only do this, I don't think that this counts as being devoted to fellowship. Socialising with each other, spending time just doing the ordinary things of life, shopping, chatting, eating, watching the game, whatever you do as part of your individual life can be done together with someone else. And it's often more fun that way.
This isn't about creating a separate community; far from it. It's rather about creating a strong community where Christian brothers and sisters can grow together, share their lives with one another, talk about the hard things, the private things and the things we're shy about; a community where we don't just talk politely but meaningfully so that we all go from strength to strength together. When we build such a community with the help of God, we find something which is very attractive to most of the world which is so often starved of such friendship and love. Then we can more effectively reach out to those around us, as we invite them to get to know us, and through that to get to know Jesus' community. Evangelism is made easier, as involving people in your life will naturally lead to them meeting others from Wellfield, a place where those gifted in answering questions or talking about Jesus can use their gifts, so those of us who aren't can concentrate on our own gifts. So lets pray and then start using our diaries to meaningfully plan people in to our lives, as this is the only way it will ever happen.(By Mike)
