The Other F-Bomb

Fellowship. (Cue dramatic music.)

A word I've come to dread.

What is Christan fellowship? I feel like a lot of the time its used to merely fill up space on a line when there isn't another word. "Food, friends and fellowship" is always a nice alliteration to put on the flyer, right? Don't get me wrong, because I know I misname it myself, but what is true Christian fellowship?



We have youth fellowship time at church. I like hanging out with my friends, eating some food and occasionally starting a game of Ninja or Death Hack. I enjoy working with the junior high to show them how to play Concentration or watch my peers stuff marshmallows in their mouths during "chubby bunny." Even though I enjoy all of those things, this is not why I come to youth. This "fellowship" we have, I can get anywhere else. What difference can we see during this time of fellowship and at the FCCLA meeting at school?


Take the Laity Banquet for example. For those of you who haven't experienced this, let me sum it up for you. Every year all the churches in our area get together and celebrate the lay persons (everyone but the preachers) in the church. Now I imagine, quite some years ago, this was a great event. Some Methodork that was on fire with enthusiasm and the Holy Spirit probably said something like "you know, we should have a big get together for all the people in our district that we don't get to see very often, and we can recognize all the church has accomplished this year." And because we live in Texas, they said it in a hick accent, and soon decided that we would be serving barbecue at the event.

There are quite a few people who feel obligated to go, or go because someone invited them not knowing really what it was. Now I can find just about anything to be fun and worthwhile, but at the same time the Laity Banquet is pretty dull. We eat, we sit through a few speeches, we all go to Braum's afterwards. While I bet the intentions for the Laity Banquet were good, we are not unified as Christians because we are not working towards a common goal as much as we had hoped.

I think most exciting part of the banquet was putting up the chairs and tables. We all pitched in to get the job done so we could get out of there and get ice cream! In that short 10 minutes I met with new people and recollected with friends. I laughed, I worked, and I felt like I did something useful. It's kind of silly but I feel like the relationships start when we are heading down the path together and not sitting idle. We engaged together therefore grew together. Christian fellowship.


Another example of true Christian fellowship is what I see on mission trip. When I see my friends cheerfully hack away at poison ivy, sweating in the sun because they chose to. I see it there because we aren't playing games (which I love, don't get me wrong,) but because we are striving together to reach a common goal in the name of our Lord. This is true fellowship! And what is better yet, when we engage in this kind of fellowship we are also living out our call as Christians!

It seems to me like we've masked the real meaning of fellowship, turning it into a word that is thrown out like nothing. We use this important practice so that it covers up devotion, worship and mission. This kind of fellowship leads to nowhere, but the real fellowship is one of the best things we've been given.



This is my rant. Is it dumb? Tell me.


Pineapple Tidbit; While I've been getting my Jesus tidbits working at GLC this summer, I've also made sure I am actually eating pineapples also, just so I stay true to this ridiculous name.