“Fellowship Means Relationship” – J. Hampton Keathley, III , Th.M.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)

On a scale of 1-10, how engaged are you with a small group of fellow members of the body of Christ?

Today we continue with our theme for this week, “Fully Engaged With My Friends,” that we started on September 23. When Pastor Matt Gregory spoke about “five actions to engage my friends,” the first one he mentioned was “Position myself to have and be a friend.” Matt shared there are 29 “one another” commands in the New Testament and these are meant to be applied in a small group setting, not the Body of Christ at large.

The scripture above (Acts 2:46-47) is packed with wisdom and powerful messages. Notice how Jesus’ disciples met daily, both in the temple and in small groups in their homes. Naturally they were in “one accord” (unity) because of their close fellowship and relationships. They had “simplicity of heart” and praised God together (daily). Doesn’t that sound pretty attractive to you, especially in our hurry-sick culture? It’s tough nowadays to get people together once a week, let alone daily.

What was the end result of their unity? These disciples had favor with “all the people.” That sounds like a good place to be. “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Herein lies the secret to a healthy church and healthy growth in the Body of Christ – healthy fellowship.

J. Hampton Kethley, III wrote, “Repeatedly the New Testament exhorts us to care for one another as fellow members of the body of Christ… This One Another care is to be an outworking of our fellowship with other believers, but we seem to have lost sight of what the Bible means when it speaks of fellowship. Too often when Christians think of fellowship they think in terms of what goes on in that room in the church called “fellowship hall.” Since fellowship is a very important part of caring for one another this study will begin by answering the question—what is meant by fellowship in the New Testament?”

According to today’s Link of the Day:
Fellowship Means Relationship
Fellowship Means Partnership
Fellowship Means Companionship, Communion
Fellowship Means Stewardship

Prayer Power
Heavenly Father, thank You for Keatherly’s powerful message. I’d love to meet daily with a small group of Your disciples daily in our homes to break bread together and praise You. Will You show me how to get that started? In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Link of the Day
‘One Another’ Commands of Scripture – By: J. Hampton Keathley, III , Th.M
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=339

Blessings to position yourself to be a friend!

Announcement
Social Marketing is often referred to as “Relationship Marketing” because it’s about relationships first, business second. Last night, Dr. Jerry Graham, Georgia Willis Fauber, and I hosted Week #4 of our UNCOMMON Social Marketing course. Not only has this been very enlightening for each of the participants, but for each of the panelists as well.

Since I started using Facebook regularly in early September, Mari Smith (“the pied piper of Facebook), the Blog Squad (leading experts in blogging for business), and Greg Troxell (founder of Worldwide Interfaith Association) have all agreed to be lead panelists for our next course in October. In addition, Greg told me yesterday that he will ask his good friend Tony Ferraro, the founder of 360 Hubs, to be the chief panelist for Week #5 (October 30).