A Letter from our Chairman
Dear Friends,
I was recently teaching on a verse in Acts 2, which shows the essential basis of Christian life as the Church of Jesus is born. It is verse 42. As well as the apostolic teaching, prayer and agape, which included the early Eucharist, it also includes as essential "fellowship".
This word, like so many others in the New Testament, has been de-valued, and can mean almost anything today. In this letter I want to make a plea that we restore it to its true meaning.
In the early days of the "Charismatic" movement there was a restoration of fellowship at all levels. The movement arose because relationships were not the generally accepted necessity, provided by the Church, for average churchgoers. Some have always seen fellowship as a threat to their privacy, and many in our churches still do because they have not yet tasted much reality. Of course, some confuse fellowship with the activity of unwelcome intrusion of busy bodies.
But the earliest fact is a shared life - there in the "Acts" and ever since where Christian life and the Lord's rule is real, and not pretence. How can we share one loaf in the Holy Communion (fellowship) and drink from a common cup, and not have much in common? By this act we realise we have our Lord's Body and Life in common. We may have been wrongly taught that we received at the Communion rail for our own individualistic need, usually regarded as future, but the truth is we receive in order to share a divine common life which is for now, and has to do with Jesus' Kingdom coming now in us and through us.
John Wesley wrote in 1739 in the Preface to "Hymns and Sacred Poems", 'The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness'. Roger Forster reminds us in an article, that John Wesley was not referring to caring for the poor and other social issues. Instead he was attacking the mystical emphasis on the solitary life, and advocating instead the necessity of Christians being together for worship, fellowship and service. He (Wesley) added "Holy Solitaries is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. Faith working by love is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection"
We really need to hear this in this age of individualism, post-modernism, and New Age philosophies, with all their input from Eastern and mystical religions.
The life of Jesus is not given to an individual, it is shared with all those who are true believers and lovers of Jesus, and is experienced as belonging and existing in all, for all. Christ in me is for you. Christ's life, growth and development in you is for my sake. My relationship with my fellow believers is all important. Jesus won't accept our worship if we do not seek to put our relationship right with our brother or sister. (Matthew 5:23-24)
As I end, may I ask you to read again 1 Peter 3 verses 8-12. That's how the kingdom of Jesus is coming now and growing amongst us.
Phil