Fellowship - a better word?

This weekend saw our first ‘Together’ event for all the Newfrontiers’ churches in the east of England. Around 1400 attended the weekend at Pontins, Lowestoft,

Now I have to say that I’m not a huge fan of Hi di Hi holidays – that TV series just brings back too may painful images – but this was different! Getting together with friends & families to enjoy fellowship (that strangely Christian word!) and identify with one another in our mission together, was great. David Stroud who heads up the Newfrontiers UK Team, and leads Christchurch London (check out their impressive website: www.christchurchlondon.org ) was the main speaker, along with Mike Betts. But let me go back to that strangely Christian word, ‘fellowship’.

Sometimes I wish there was a better substitute word that is more familiar. If you know of one, please contact me via the website! It just sounds so old fashioned, and smacks of naff Sunday afternoon tea at the vicarage with quiche and cucumber sandwiches! I’m sorry, maybe that’s just my damaged background speaking!
Some have tried to find a deeper meaning by going for the Greek word behind it – ‘koinonia’, but that, to me, is equally unknown and is a bit super-spiritual. Not many of my neighbours speak New Testament Greek.

So please help me on this one and help me find a better English word. Now our starting point is the New Testament word (koinonia) which means a sharer, partaker, partner. Then, the best meaning I can find to our old English word ‘fellowship’, is ‘going together as partners’. So the two ideas involved are 1) relationship, friendship, and 2) a common purpose, objective. Friends-on-a-Mission sort of thing, the kind of thing that is beautifully expressed in the daily life of the church in the book of Acts where believers prayed, worshipped, opened their homes and their lives with great generosity to one another because they were caught up in a common passion to make the Good News of the Living Jesus known. That’s what it means to fellowship together, and it’s not cliquey (or quiche), it’s life-changing to anyone who gets near to it – as evidenced by the thousands that were added to that church daily.

I’m reminded of a great quote in the book ‘Courageous Leadership’ by Bill Hybels. It’s too long to quote in full, but here’s a bit: There was once a community of believers who were so totally devoted to God that their life together was charged with the Spirit’s power. In that band of Christ-followers, believers loved each other with a radical kind of love. They took off their masks and shared their lives with one another. They laughed and cried and prayed and sang and served together in authentic Christian fellowship… Acts 2 tells us that this community of believers, this church, offered unbelievers a vision of life that was so beautiful it took their breath away. It was so bold, so creative, so dynamic that they couldn’t resist it.’ go read the whole quote, on page 18! That’s ‘fellowship’ and that’s how I want to King’s to be known, and that’s something of what we enjoyed this weekend!

Goff