Fellowship in Depth – Part 1
1 John 1:5-7 “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
In regards to relationships so far, we have talked about what relationships are and what they are not; we have talked about conflicts and why we have conflicts as well as how to resolve them, and reconciliation.
In developing as well as maintaining relationships a very important part is fellowship in depth. So much of our fellowship is in what I call a superficial level. We might talk about the weather, the situation in the world, etc., but never go deeper than that.
What I mean by fellowship in depth is when we can get beyond the superficialities into some of the things that we are faced with, some of the problems and hurts that we really have.
Let me explain by way of an illustration. Many years ago my wife and I were leading a team for the summer months with Operation Mobilization in Spain. On that small team we had about nine different nationalities.
One of the things that we wanted to do was to have a fellowship among ourselves that would bring us into a deeper relationship with one another as well as help meet needs.
In the mornings we would gather for our group devotions before the day’s activities. After meeting together for several days our love for one another began to grow and we started putting a little more pressure on the group to share a little deeper than usual, to have more depth in our fellowship.
On the team was one particular young lady who was very out-going, bubbly and enthusiastic. All of her sharing was superficial and not getting down into some of the real needs in her life.
One day I had to pick up the mail (this is before the internet). For people who are away from home letters are very important and something they look forward to receiving. When I picked up the post I saw that this particular young lady did not have any letters and I knew that it would hit her hard.
When I got back to the place where we were staying I gave the letters to another brother to hand out. All the team gathered with expectancy waiting for their name to be called. This young lady was there with the rest. When the brother handed out all of the letters and her name was not called she immediately put on her ‘mask’ and we could hear her say: “Well, praise the Lord! I did not receive any letters so I do not need to answer any.” It was a brave front but deep inside she was hurt.
While the others were reading their letters, she, unnoticed by the team, slipped outside where she sat down and cried and cried. My wife went out to find and comfort her. She opened up to my wife and began to share at a deeper level about how she felt and some of the things that she had faced in her life as a child, etc. What it all boiled down to was that she did not sense that anyone loved her.
The next morning when we all gathered together for our morning devotions she was very quiet. Some pressure was put on her to encourage her to share some of her hurt feelings with the people around her. At first she was a little reluctant, but then she began to share. It seemed that once started it became easier. She shared how she felt that no one really loved her or accepted her, and that she had felt ‘used’ all of her life.
The team came to her, not with advice, but with love and shared how they appreciated her openness to share, and then the team was able to express their love to her. Her openness in sharing opened the door for others to share as well. At the end she shared how when she first came to the devotions – she was carrying a heavy burden by herself, but after sharing she only had one twelfth of the burden. I did not understand at first what she was referring to, but then realized that there were twelve of us on the team and each one of us had taken one twelfth of her burden. Cast your cares upon Christ, says the Word of God. So, how do we do this? It’s done through His body: the Church.
God did something unique in that team. He not only gave us a tremendous unity, but used us in reaching the lost like never before.
When I talk about fellowship in depth I am talking about being able to share with at least a few people some of the deeper things in our life: our hurts, disappointments, temptations, etc. and to go beyond the shallow things that we so often talk about.
It is a shame that our churches are so structured that this type of fellowship is hardly attained. There are many hurting people in the church but those hurts are never addressed because we have missed what real fellowship is.
To get into real fellowship is a scary thing at first and people will want to escape deep fellowship. After we talk about fellowship in depth in the next few chapters we will be discussing escapism.
Might God bless you with His true fellowship.
