“In hard times what do we prefer? A good speech or a good friend? The early church endured a lot, and they need good preaching… but they also needed deep relationships…
Part of our reaching forward as a church is found in Community…
This is a summery description of what the early church looked like… Acts 2:41-47
This first church was focused on relationships…
• Fellowship = koinōnía (fellowship, association, community, communion, joint participation)
• We see here fellowship, fun, friendship, accountability… Community marked the early church…
There is a difference between an audience and a church… Christian relationships build and shape spiritual lives…
• Jesus walked ‘with’ the disciples… the fact Jesus filled His life with the lives of the disciples is what shaped them into a group of believers that would change the world…
Community cannot simply be top-down ministry, cannot be program driven… It must also be bottom up… Community must be personally driven… Initiative must be taken… we cannot simply wait for the church or someone else to plan something…
The first Church grew from 120 to 3120 in a day… the majority usually shapes the minority, but here it didn’t, why…
• They were so grounded by their fellowship with Christ that they would shape the majority… (12 to 70s)
Along with that…
• To choose Christ and Christianity means the nature of our relationships change… it was that way in the first century for many of the first believers, it meant the loss of their ‘Jewish’ community…
• It was the only community that they had ever known… so today… Addiction, Same Sex Attraction, Islam, Mormonism, drinking buddies…
• We as a church must rally around new believers and those that are coming home from years of running…
Matthew 10:34-39
• Our response to those that have lost all must not be to say ‘good luck,’ but we must receive them into our lives… we must invite each other into our lives… we must minister to their needs, those of our brothers and sisters…
• Within the church this Fellowship (koinōnía) doesn’t just happen, we must be devoted to it…
• This fellowship is more than just meals… but spiritual conversations that stimulate us to greater depths with the Lord… Spiritual gifts are active here…
• This breaking of bread wasn’t rushed… but time was spent getting deeper into one another’s lives…
Community by its very nature means some level of transparency…
• If Christ is our mark and aim… and He desires us to get there together with true, deep, meaningful, relationship…
Hebrews 10:23-25
• When we invite people into our lives and they move from courteous stranger to family… we’re going to see that they are human… we’re going to stumble along the way ourselves…
• and when this happens we have choices to make;
• to hide our sin, to be transparent,
• to judge, to be merciful,
• to ignore/ cover up, to ‘in love’ be willing to biblically deal with it…
When we do things the right way God rewards it, it’s hard in the process, but it’s worth it… it’s so easy to just play church and be friendly strangers.
Now let me get to some balance here:
First… this doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time, it’s a process, and it takes patience…
Second… Who/what is the church again? The people… Put more clearly, it’s those who are serving the Lord… Just because I sit in a garage don’t make me a car…
• We must be wise in who we allow to speak into our lives…
Proverbs 1:7,10,15-16,32-33
• “Walk”ing is talking about fellowship, sharing your life with, hanging out… outreach v. confidante…
• Who we allow to influence our lives matters… Who we DON’T allow to influence our lives matters as well…
• The point is not that we make an Island and disappear in some cult where only certain people are allowed in…
• The point is how closely do you hold those people that are in love with sin as opposed to those that are in love with God…
There are so many good things that come from Godly fellowship, Godly conversation (So why does it seem so hard at times to broach subject on God?)…
Hebrews 10:23-25
Philippians 4:8
• This should be what our godly relationships should look like, if they don’t, then do something about it…
Here’s the whole point of this, our Christian walk was not meant to be lived on an island. We must have a community of believers, not just people that we go to church with and then go home… to become all that God wants us to become we need to develop and have community and fellowship…
God is calling us as a church to have greater community… that will continue to be our aim as a church body…
• I want to apologize for how we’ve missed it in the past…
• Please pray for us as a church body for both vision and logistics in growing into a better community…
• Please engage in the different opportunities of our church body…
So let us plug into those things that already exist… Don’t languish on your island and refuse the lifeboats, complaining there not cruise ships…
• Bowling… please come even if you don’t bowl…
• Fun committee
• Men’s and Women’s Ministry
• The hope is a seed of relationship… further personal investment… we’re adults here, we understand that we don’t connect with everybody, but…
In order to minister in others lives, we need to be in other people’s lives… and we need to let others into our lives… lonely spirals… we must have a community outside of a Sunday morning…
How are we known as followers of Christ?
John 13:34-35
Matthew 10:40-42”