Fellowship Groups

Purpose of Fellowship Groups

Exhorting and encouraging one another in our fight for faith.

What is the purpose of Fellowship Groups?

The primary goal for the Fellowship Group is to exhort and encourage one another in our fight for faith. The book of Hebrews emphasizes that to neglect fellowship with other believers in the context of the local church is to risk being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin and to in turn fall away from the faith. Fellowship Groups are the primary means and place where such exhortation and encouragement takes place. This means that sanctification, that process of becoming dead to sin and alive to righteousness through the power of the Spirit, provides an overarching agenda for our Fellowship Groups. We desire for godly change to be taking place in the lives of believers. Consider these verses from Hebrews and how they bring together these ideas of sanctification and meeting together:

In order for this to be a reality, Fellowship Groups seek to experience Christ Jesus in our midst in his presence and power. We want him to be at work by His Spirit ministering to us and through us to one another to the end that people are cared for and encouraged to lead God pleasing lives. We desire Christ to transform and change our lives as individuals, as small communities, and through us, the larger communities of which we are a part. These purposes of having Fellowship Groups can be further broken down into three distinctives.

Fellowship

What is fellowship as defined in the New Testament? Just this: participating together in the life and truth made possible by the Holy Spirit through our union with Christ. Fellowship is sharing something in common on the deepest possible level of human relationship - our experience of God himself." (Mahaney, p. 19).

Thus, fellowship can be further understood as seeking to share with others what God has made known to you while letting them share with you what they know of him as a means of finding strength, refreshment and instruction for one's own soul. The Scriptures give us numerous commands concerning how we should interact in fellowship with one another. We are told to encourage one another, serve one another, rejoice and weep with one another, correct, instruct, sing to, build up, accept and love one another. Consider these verses which contain the word koinonia or fellowship (community, communion, sharing, participating):

There is no better way to put yourself in a position to fulfill these commands than by becoming part of a Fellowship Group. These groups also serve as a key way to integrate people who join our community and as a way to keep the leadership aware of the concerns and troubles which face the members of our congregation which might otherwise remain hidden.

A Place Where Gifts Are Exercised and Care is Provided

The church is sometimes compared to a football stadium where you find 22 people who desperately need a rest and thousands of people who desperately need exercise. God has given spiritual gifts to every Christian (I Cor. 12: 1-7). He fully expects us to use them. But in a church of any size at all, it's simply not feasible for every member to use these gifts on a Sunday morning. They can be in a Fellowship Group, though. In this smaller and more personal context, each one can serve according to the gifting of the Holy Spirit. A Fellowship Groups is a place where spiritual gifts are discovered and exercised within the group itself, within the larger church, and to the world. They are a place where a vision for ministry and service are developed.

It is through the exercise of believers' spiritual gifts, then, that individual members can receive and give care. Christians have always been characterized by their sacrificial love for each other. We are commanded to care for each other unselfishly, without favoritism, and this more easily happens in a Fellowship Group context than on Sunday morning during worship. Consider as well these New Testament verses which discuss serving and caring for one another:

A Place To Discover Christianity

Fellowship Groups are a place where individuals who are seeking truth can be invited and encouraged to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. In addition, they serve as a place where we can remind one another of our call to share the gospel and pray for those with whom we are sharing good news that God has reconciled himself to us in Jesus Christ. The claim is sometimes made that small groups can either be used for evangelism or for discipleship, but that they can not do both at the same time. It is true that if you aim at edification you will probably lose the attention of the non-believers in your midst. It is also true that if you aim at evangelism, you will eventually bore the believers in your midst. But those are not our only options. If we aim at experiencing Christ in our midst, we will find that we are both building up believers and challenging non-believers. Consider the following passages:

Because these groups are expected to be reaching out to seekers and inviting newcomers in the church to join them, they must have a vision for multiplying new groups and developing new leadership.