Fellowship Is Good For Teamwork, & It’s Biblical!
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(24) And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, (25) not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ (Hebrews 10:24-25); ‘Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.’ (James 5:16); ‘Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.’ (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
On a recent Saturday, I was watching two ‘top-5’ college football teams square off on the gridiron. The two teams are perennially ranked among the best teams year after year with some rare exceptions, going back into the 1970’s or even earlier. Giving thought to why this was so, why there are teams that just seem to be always on top – this is also true in other sports, both professional and collegiate. Other teams may win ‘bigly’ once in a great while, but will have streaks of great losing for years before winning again. Still others never seem to win or experience the thrill of competing for a title of any level at any time in their history. A few teams had experienced decades-long stretches of success, but now are in throes of ‘average’ if not mediocrity.
I’ve concluded that the perennially successful teams have learned what it takes to be winners and are organized to maintain that success. They built their organizations to be strong, redundant and ready to respond to any needs that may crop up; they emphasize the importance of individual talents within the framing of teamwork. Outside of the team, there are those who seek to join it, recognizing their talents would be amplified and their accomplishments more widely seen, and their contributions would be better served for the purposes of the team as a whole.
Teams that are not ‘winners’ often are not teams but only a group of individuals. They may have the same goals but they are not using their talents together and unified to make the team better. The individuals cannot succeed when a team is needed. Paul understood this concept in the early church. The first church, right after the Ascension of Jesus, was approximately 120 people in number (Acts 1:15). It was understood that for strength they need to be together, as there were many obstacles to them sticking together, and the odds, in the secular mindset, were stacked against them.
The Jewish religious leaders were against them as were the Romans. It was likely family members who were not in the group of 120 were pressuring individuals within to give up this foolish notion of being a Christian and come back home. Some may have had financial troubles, as following Jesus for three years left them little time to focus on their former occupations. As it is today, an illness or injury who leave an individual need of help, and to get it under normal conditions may require a person to go back home to family members. Fortunately, ‘normal conditions’ is not where the Christian should be living in, but the Spiritual conditions set in living a life for Christ.
Being together, they as a Fellowship experienced the Spiritual Indwelling on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). After this, the numbers grew to 3,000, working to help, care, and encourage each other to grow in both their Faithfulness and dependency on Christ (2:42-47). They shared their possessions and food, and in the tasks necessary to meet the needs of everyone in the group. One (Barnabas) sold a property to raise the money, to buy food and supplies to support those who, like Peter and John, were evangelizing and engaging to keep the authorities at bay, and he was not alone in this act (Acts 4:32-37). It was never a ‘you have to’ be a member of the Fellowship, everyone who was in the Fellowship wanted to be in it, to be with like-minded people wanting to bring Christ to those who needed to hear the Gospel message of Salvation.
As we see Paul joining the Christians, he soon depended on the Fellowship of Believers to help him on missions throughout Asia Minor and Greece. Being someone who was at first an outsider looking in, Paul needed the encouragement and the teaching of the Word the Fellowship gave him, to prepare him to become the missionary to the Gentiles. Later, in prison, he would need the Fellowship, to help him deliver the Epistles or letters to the churches he helped found – those letters being a big part of the New Testament of our Bible. The Fellowship of 120 allowed the growth to exponentially expand from Jerusalem to the area of Asia Minor, then using the Roman transportation system of roads and ships to cover all of Europe, northern Africa, and as far east as India.
There are power in numbers, especially when the team works together. The team focuses inward to care for the individuals and when internal needs are met, focuses outward to sharing the Gospel. A football team works to score touchdowns, the Christian Fellowship works to share the Word in order to bring more to Salvation through the Gospel message, and to strengthen the Fellowship by adding the time, treasures and talents of new members to the collective strength of the Faithful.
Can you be a standalone Christian? To be a standalone Christian is to withhold one’s self from the blessings of giving and receiving the shared resources of the Fellowship as a whole. It is also something opposite to being Christian; our desire in the Spirit is to (and should be to) share and interact with others in the Faith. It is part of the ‘triad’ to stay strong in Christ; we need to pray, study the Scriptures, and to Fellowship. In Fellowship with other Christians, we can share our needs, our excesses, and our findings in His Word, in order to learn from each other. We can discuss and debate the Word together, as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17) so when it is time to go out we are in unison with ourselves and the Word.
The Christian team as a whole is a winning team working together for our needs and the needs of those who we encounter. The strength to stand firm is better with numbers who are in unison stacked together. As individuals, we are like bowling pins that tumble when trouble rolls through. Be unified in Fellowship, unified in Faith and unified in Christ with your local team of Believers! Pray together, learn the Word together, and help each other in Christ.
