The excerpt below is from A Meal With Jesus by Tim Chester.

Hospitality involves welcoming, creating space, listening, paying attention, and providing. Meals slow things down. Some of us don’t like that. We like to get things done. But meals force you to be people oriented instead of task oriented. Sharing a meal is not the only way to build relationships, but it is number one on the list.

It’s possible to remain at a distance from someone in public gatherings – even in a Bible study. Meals bring you close. You see people in situ, in life, as they are. You connect and communicate. Novelist Barbara Kingsolver describes dinnertime as “the cornerstone of our family’s mental health.” “If I had to quantify it,” she says, “I’d say 75 percent of my crucial parenting effort has taken place during or surrounding the time our family convenes for our evening meal.” Generous hospitality leads to reconciliation. It expresses forgiveness. Unresolved conflict can’t be ignored when we gather round the meal table; you can’t eat in silence without realizing there’s an issue to address. Paul uses hospitality as a metaphor for reconciliation when he says to the Corinthians: Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one…” (2 Cor. 7:2). Hospitality can be a kind of sacrament of forgiveness.

Marzipan cake. That’s how my friend Chris knew his mother-in-law had finally accepted him into the family. Now every cake she bakes for him is a reaffirmation of that acceptance. It makes the cake doubly sweet. That’s how food so often works. We enjoy food not just because of the taste, but because of the companionship and welcome it expresses. Indeed sometimes we enjoy food despite the taste because of the love in which it’s packaged. “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it” (Prov. 15:17).

Many people love the idea of the church as a community. But when we eat together, we encounter not some theoretical community but real people with all their problems and quirks. The meal table is an opportunity to give up our proud ideals by which we judge others and accept in their place the real community created by the cross of Christ, with all its brokenness. It’s easy to love people in some abstract sense and preach the virtues of love. But we’re called to love the real individuals sitting around the table.

“Those who dream of this idealized community,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns, “demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge one another and even God accordingly.” But, Bonhoeffer says, “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” So “we enter into that life together with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive…. We do not complain about what God does not give us; rather we are thankful for what God does give us daily.” This means that the disillusionment we experience when we encounter real people with their problems is a reminder that we “can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.”

Hospitality will lead to “collateral damage.” Food will be spilled on your carpet. You’ll be left with clearing up. Your pantry may be decimated. But remember that God is welcoming you into his home through the blood of his own Son. The hospitality of God embodied in the table fellowship of Jesus is a celebration and sign of his grace and generosity. And we’re to imitate that generosity.

Meals also have the power to shape and reshape community. A person to whom we may have related in one role becomes a person to whom we relate as friend. Serving another changes the dynamics of a relationship. The leader who serves at table is no longer aloof.

Meals indicate social status, and they thereby allow us to transform social status. They’re a microcosm of social reality that we can manipulate. “Food is a social substance and currency. What one is able (and chooses) to serve expresses one’s own position and helps define one’s relationship to others. What you, the guest, are offered is a measure of your standing in the eyes of society and your host.” This is what Jesus is doing in eating with the marginalızed. The marginalized cease to be marginal when they’re included around a meal table. The lonely cease to be lonely. The alien ceases to be alien. Strangers become friends.

We live in a graceless culture. Not a graceless world: every bird-song, every kindness, and every meal is a sign of God’s ongoing grace toward his creation. But we live in a graceless culture of competition in which we’re all trying to get ahead. It’s a culture of insecurity in which we’re all trying to prove ourselves. We hold grudges, envy success, protect ourselves. In the race to the top you either tread on the competition or they will tread on you. In contrast to the God of Exodus 34:6-7, we’re unforgiving and quick to anger. We measure out our love, hold grudges, and get away with whatever we can. Look into the faces of the people on the subway and see the toll the rat race takes on its victims.

In this culture our shared meals offer a moment of grace. A sign of something different. A pointer to God’s coming world. “Life in the kingdom…demands that we adopt a new set of table manners, and as we observe this etiquette, we become increasingly civilized according to the codes of the city of God.” Around the table we offer friendship and celebrate life. Our meals offer a divine moment, an opportunity for people to be seduced by grace into a better life, a truer life, and a more human existence.

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This excerpt is from a small book entitled The One Thing: Christ in You The Hope of Glory by Milt Rodriguez.

Singular vision is important. In the Song of Songs, it talks about having dove’s eyes. A dove has peculiar eyes; a dove can only focus on one thing at a time. And doves, by the way, mate for life. They have one mate for the rest of their lives. Whenever you see a dove, you’ll always see another dove. They’re always together. And they have singular vision. That’s why in the Song of Songs it talks so much about the dove and the dove’s eyes. Singleness of vision, singleness of focus.

One focus means no distractions. When you’re focused on one thing, it’s easy to focus on it. If I’m looking at one person, then I can’t look anywhere else. If I look anywhere else, I’m distracted, right? And the way our minds work, they can only focus on one thing at a time anyway. Do you realize this? You can try little exercises to test this. Start by counting in your mind. It doesn’t take much effort, it’s almost automatic, right? Then, while you are still counting, have someone ask you a question. See if you can answer their question and still keep counting. You can’t do it. Our minds are made to focus on one thing at a time. God made us that way for a reason, didn’t He?

One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One focus. One vision. The one thing.

Oneness and togetherness are very important in the Lord’s house. All of the parts of the body must depend upon each other in order that Christ would have His suitable expression. These parts flow together in the spirit by something called “agape love.” That is, by laying down their lives for one another. This “one anothering” is one of the pillars of body life. Being the body of Christ is a way of life.

Functioning as the body of Christ is not attending a meeting once per week. It is not going to a building once a week and listening to a sermon, singing a few songs, and then going home until next week. Can you imagine the following scene? Once or twice a week your physical body disassembles, and all the parts of your body go to different buildings in different parts of town. Can you imagine what that would be like? That’s not a real body at all. That’s just body parts scattered all over town trying to be spiritual.

True spirituality is based upon the Spirit of God, and He would never separate and be so dysfunctional. It’s way past time for us to get a powerful revelation and vision of God’s eternal purpose: That He would be expressed through a body of people who are all living and functioning as His body under His direct headship.

“For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free–and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For, in fact, the body is not one member but many” (1 Cor. 12:12-14). From here, Paul goes into describing the other parts of the body and how they all need one another and should care for one another. Then he goes into describing the different giftings and how they complement one another and need one another.

Speaking very clearly and boldly here: How can anyone read Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians 12 and claim that he is describing a bunch of people sitting in pews in a building with one person up front
doing all the functioning? Paul is describing something totally different. He is describing a body made up of humans who have the living Christ inside of them. Each of them is both spiritually and practically the body of the living Christ. Is this glorious or what? Is this awesome or what? Is this really rare on the earth or what?

One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One vision. One focus. One body. The one thing.

The true ekklesia of God that we read about in our New Testament is nothing like what we now see around us in the present religious system. It’s none of the following: a physical building, an organization or business, a “service” or meeting of some kind, a hierarchical system whereby there is some kind of chain-of-command, where you submit to someone and they submit to someone else, hence, an authoritarian system. Let me be clear: There is no such thing as a “church building.” There is no such thing as a “sacred building.” The ekklesia is not anything conceived or constructed by humankind. Unfortunately, the true ekklesia of God that we read about in our New Testament is nothing like what we now see around us in the present religious system.

As I mentioned before, the word ekklesia in the Greek means an assembly or gathering. Of course, in the first century they had many kinds of gatherings for many different purposes. There were assemblies for family gatherings, governmental meetings, political meetings, educational gatherings, business meetings, and on it goes. There were also gatherings of the people of God.

These gatherings, the ekklesia of God, were built and are being built together into one house for the Lord. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the saints [God’s holy people] and are members of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the Chief Cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together, and it continues to increase growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him and in fellowship with one another, you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22).

The ekklesia of God is built together into one house for God. When Jesus and the apostles spoke and wrote about ekklesia, they were referring to a spiritual, Godly, and heavenly type of meeting. Even though these gatherings were happening on earth, there was much more happening in the heavenly realms. That is the kingdom of heaven happening on this earth.

One spirit. One mind. One purpose. One heart. One goal. One vision. One focus. One body. One house. The one thing.

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Excellent textbook on the early church. Rediscovering The New Testament Church by Anthony Jacomb-Hood is a 300 page work with ample footnotes and appendices. Not for the casual reader, this is an in-depth work. The excerpt below is about leadership in the New Testament church.

The most profound teachings about leadership in the New Testament are implicit in the most general commands to all believers as to how we should treat one another. The most important of these is the commandment that Jesus identified as the second greatest commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” (NIV). Jesus also expressed this command in Matthew 7:12 as “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets,” and the parallel passage in Luke 6:31 says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (NIV). Similarly in Philippians 2:3-4 Paul says, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” It is wonderful when Christian leaders live out these commands. Almost all spiritual abuse results from disobedience to these commands.

Another closely related group of commands includes Ephesians 5:21 where Paul commands all believers to move in mutual submission. This means that Christian leaders need to submit to all believers. Similarly in Luke 22:25-27 Jesus says that Christian leaders should be like servants and not “lord it over” their followers. The parallel passages in Matthew and Mark not only say that Christian leaders should not “lord it over” their followers, but also make the point that the path to greatness and being first in the kingdom of God is to first become a servant or slave. Peter uses the same phrase in 1 Peter 5:1-3 “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow-elder,..not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (NIV). In 2 Corinthians 1:24 Paul also uses this phrase to describe his relationship with the Corinthians. The essence of mutual submission in the context of Christian ministry is for groups of individuals working together to make jointly decisions relevant to their joint ministry. In my opinion it is only the individuals who are involved in a particular ministry who participate in the consensus decision-making process for that ministry. Others may of course provide advice.

The link Jesus makes in Matthew 20:25-28 between Christian leadership and service/being a servant is a recurring theme throughout the New Testament. Several passages make clear that Christian leaders are expected to serve other believers. Several other passages teach that Christian leaders (like all believers) are servants of Jesus.

The word “ministry” is often used to translate the Greek word diakonia. It has become so widely used as a word describing the work of Christian leaders that it is easy to forget that the root meaning of the Greek word is serving. Similarly, the modern term “minister” which is often used to translate the Greek word diakonos, is so commonly used as a title for a Christian worker that it is easy to forget that the root meaning of this word is “servant.”

The Greek word doulos (slave or servant) is also widely used of Christian leaders. In several passages this word is used to describe Christian leaders as the slave or servant of other believers. In many passages this word is used to describe Christian leaders as the slave or servant of God. In other passages this word is used to describe all believers as slaves or servants to God. In Philippians 2:7 we are told that Jesus became a slave and that this is an example for all believers to follow.

It is implicit in the command for leaders to “not lord it over” other believers and in the use of the words servant and slave to describe leaders, that Christian leadership is not about organizing and directing ministry. Servants and slaves do not tell others what to do, nor do they have special rights. Leaders are expected to state clearly what the Bible teaches on moral and doctrinal matters. This teaching may include training for ministry.

Paul commands leaders to be gentle when dealing with those who oppose them. For example, in a personal conflict where Paul had been unjustly criticized he chose to “entreat…by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” However, sometimes it is appropriate for a Christian (either a leader or an individual who is not a leader) to rebuke another believer. Paul also expects leaders to lead in humility. Humility and gentleness are key to Christian unity.

Christian leadership is not defined by certain roles and responsibilities that may only be performed by the leader. Believers who do not serve in a formal leadership role are free to contribute and lead in the same ways as identified leaders (e.g., elders). All believers, including leaders, are expected to contribute to church assembly meetings and to participate in other ministry as Jesus leads them. As individuals do this, they often end up providing leadership to a portion of an assembly meeting (e.g., by teaching or by leading the assembly into worship using a particular song) or they may provide leadership to ministry outside of assembly meetings. Being a Christian leader is about watching out for the spiritual community and encouraging and helping individuals to walk closely with Jesus so that they are available to be used by Him.

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The first half of You Are The Church by Steve Lorch covers the fundamentals of how to study the Bible. The second half explores fellowship, communion, prayer, evangelism, baptism and church leadership. The excerpt below focuses on fellowship. This book is an easy read and highly recommended.

There is perhaps no greater statement regarding Christian fellowship than that which was made by Christ Himself: “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” (Matthew 18:20) We are instructed not to “forsake our own assembling together” (Hebrews 10:25) for in some profound, divinely inexplicable way, as we come into the presence of our brethren, we come into the presence of God. However, true Christian fellowship differs greatly from mere social interaction. It is more intentional, genuine, and purposeful. Biblical fellowship is practiced through authentic relationships and service. It is something that must be experienced rather than explained.

Let us be perfectly clear that “going to church on Sunday” is not the Biblical requirement or definition of fellowship. The truth is, fellowship occurs whenever and wherever “two or three have gathered in (His) name.” Size and/or formality have nothing to do with it. When referring to fellowship, the Bible uses the Greek word “koinonia,” meaning “mutual participation, community, and intimacy.” In short, it means sharing life together through mutual encouragement, support, accountability, and service. Consistent fellowship with other believers is a vital and necessary part of our own personal spiritual growth. Fellowship is essential for the building up of the body of Christ and none of us can (nor should) go it alone.

All Christian fellowship should exhibit certain fundamental characteristics if it is to be effective. First, we must be committed to sharing life together in a very real and tangible way. The early Church “who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.” (Acts 2:44-46) We need to ask ourselves the question, “Are these people truly our friends and family?” Do we get together and share meals with each other on a regular basis? Do we share good times, bad times, family moments, or holidays with each other? Would we let each other borrow our money or our most prized possessions? Could we spend a month in each other’s homes if we have to? If any of these questions make us uncomfortable, then we still have some room to grow in our concept of fellowship.

Second, we need to be completely honest with God, with ourselves, and with each other, especially when it comes to our transparent confession of sin. “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:3-9) “Therefore, confess your sins to one another…” (James 5:16) Being open enough to confess our sin to each other requires a great deal of trust. To break that trust is to violate the very body of Christ. There is absolutely no room for gossip of any kind. What is said within the fellowship stays within the fellowship.

Third, Christian fellowship involves sacrificial service to one another. “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11) “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” (Galatians 6:10)

On a final note, there is an appropriate time for us to discontinue fellowship with another believer in the exercise of Church discipline. This is a necessary function within the body of Christ and we cannot afford to be neutral or complacent about it. Church discipline must be conducted Biblically and with a great deal of prayer. Our motivation should always be out of love, and our goal should always be for the reconciliation of the backslider. The Bible lays down very clear guidelines for the exercise of Church discipline. Jesus said, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17) Paul reinforced this teaching by instructing us “not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a swindler – not even to eat with such a one…Do you not judge those who are within the church?…Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” (1 Corinthians 5:11- 13) Church discipline is never comfortable, but it does have positive results. When the backslidden brother or sister shows genuine repentance, then we must show them genuine forgiveness and welcome them back into fellowship. “My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19-20)

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I recently spent some time with David Dyer, author of a book I really enjoyed entitled Let My People Go! You can read an excerpt here. David also completed The Father’s Life, a translation of the New Testament. You can obtain a copy at no cost by requesting it at www.agrainofwheat.com.

(From David Dyer) This version of the New Testament was written to clarify an essential truth of the gospel message. This is the concept of eternal life. Many, if not most believers, think that receiving eternal life means that their human life has now been extended forever. This, however, is not true.

Much misunderstanding about this important truth comes from the inadequate translation of the word “life” in the New Testament. While in English we have one word “life” which encompasses a vast spectrum of meaning, the ancient Greek is much more specific. They used at least three words.

One of their words “BIOS” essentially means biological/physical life. The second word “PSUCHÊ” refers to our soul life or psychological life. The third word “ZOE” was chosen by the writers of the New Testament to refer to the uncreated life of God.

When we believe into Jesus, it is this ever-existing life which is born into us. We are actually “born of God” (John 1:12) and become his sons and daughters. What the new birth is not is our old soul-life receiving permission to live forever. Instead, it is the life of a Divine being (God
himself) being implanted within our human spirit (John 3:6). So we see that gaining “eternal life” is actually getting the life of an eternal being which comes to live within us. It is not our own life living forever.

So this translation of the New Testament was undertaken to try to clarify this truth for the benefit of all believers in Jesus Christ. As you might imagine, this truth has many ramifications and benefits which this translation also attempts to convey in a clear way.

(From John 5) “Furthermore, the Father doesn’t judge anyone, but he has committed all judgment to the Son so that everyone will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t revere the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.

“Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears my word and is believing the One who sent me has the Father’s eternal life and will not receive the sentence of condemnation, but has crossed over from death into the Father’s immortal life.

“Truly, truly I say to you, the hour is coming and, in fact, has now come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who understand it will receive God’s life. For as the Father has his life in himself, even so also he granted to the Son to have this same life in himself.

“Furthermore, he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is a son of man. Don’t be astonished at this because the time is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out: those who have done good to the resurrection of the Father’s life, and those who lived a careless life to the resurrection of judgment. “I am able to do nothing which originates with myself. As I hear from the Father, I judge, and my judgment is righteous because I don’t seek my own will but the will of him who sent me.

(From 1 Corinthians 14) If then the whole group of called-out ones is assembled together and everyone speaks with an unknown language and some people who are uneducated or unbelieving come in, won’t they say that you are crazy? But if everyone prophesies and someone unbelieving or uneducated enters, he is reproved by all and he is judged by all since the secrets of his heart are being revealed. And so he will fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.

What is the proper way to conduct your meetings then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a psalm; has a teaching; has a revelation; has a message in an unknown language; has an interpretation. Let everything be done for building up the others.

If anyone speaks in an unknown language, it should be done by two, or at the most three people, with each taking their turn. And someone should interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep quiet in the gathering of the called-out ones. Let him speak to himself and to God.

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This is the second excerpt from the manuscript of Leland Yialesis.

For more than 1500 years Christians have been taught that the purpose of gathering together as Christians was for the experience of worship, specifically to worship as a group congregational worship. But after 1500 years of a congregational worship-based Christianity we find a Christianity that is listless and dying. It has no dynamic with which to challenge the pervasive secularism of the Western industrialized societies and no strength to challenge and change the non-western world. If Christianity is ever to recapture the dynamism that it had during its early years as recorded in the New Testament, the first thing that must be abandoned is the pursuit of worship as the primary purpose of Christian gatherings. Worship is, and must always remain, a byproduct of the encounter between a person and the Divine. It may be that a person will experience that encounter with the Divine and worship while in the assembly of Christians (note I Cor. 14:23-25), but that is an experience that is incidental to the gathering. As the family gathering at the supper table is not primarily to be a tour de force of haute cuisine, but is there primarily for the purpose of providing necessary nourishment to each of the members that has gathered around the family table. So, the gathering of Christians is for the purpose of providing spiritual nourishment for each of the members that has gathered.

It is exactly this confusion of primary and secondary purposes that has resulted in the insipid Christianity present in the world today. Christians in the New Testament gathered for the express purpose of building one another up in the faith and in the experience of becoming the body of Christ. They saw one another as members of that common body and each of them needed to give and receive to be built up “in the unity of the common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God,” (Eph. 4:13 Phillips) until they arrived at real Christian maturity. They gathered as the community of faith and to be the community of the faithful. Worship is no more the goal of Christian community than patriotism is the goal of a school board meeting, or a townhall meeting. At the end of the school board or townhall meeting one may have a strengthened sense of patriotism because of the experience of the shared responsibility of governance, but the problem of the leaking school roof had better have been solved, or a solution found to the problem of collecting the garbage, or fixing the roads. Otherwise, no matter how strong the patriotic feelings were, the school and the town are in trouble. So, it is with the Christian gathering. Strong spiritual feelings, even the experience of worship, may have been experienced during the gathering, but if each of the members of the body of Christ has not been built up, has not experienced growth in the faith and in the knowledge of Christ, has not had the experience of sharing and of receiving, if there has been no experience of genuine community and the fellowship that community brings, and most importantly of loving and being loved during the process of building one another up in the faith, then Christ has not been honored and the meeting has failed.

Much, if not all, that has gone wrong with Christianity during the last 1500 years can be attributed to the primary emphasis that has been placed on worship as a necessary, ritualized experience for the Christian community. This emphasis on worship, which is primarily an emotional reaction of the individual spiritual experience, has fed and continues to feed the failure of the church to be that dynamic source of Christian strength in the world. The entire emphasis on congregational worship that lies at the very center of the weekly life of the church is built its foundations on the sands of tradition and not on the sound bedrock of New Testament teachings. Nowhere in the New Testament is there even one reference to Christians assembling for the purpose of worshipping, either individually or as a group. Nowhere does Jesus enjoin the experience of worship as a goal of Christian fellowship. Nowhere in Acts or in any of the Epistles, do the Apostles call Christians to gather for the express purpose of worshipping. Congregational worship, as the express purpose for gathering, was not a part of the life of the Christian church in the New Testament. Tradition has overthrown the primary purpose of the Christian community, which is to build up one another and reach out to others through God’s ‘agape’ love. As D. Bonhoeffer says in ‘ The cost of discipleship’, “The real trouble is that the pure word of Jesus has been overlaid with so much human ballast – burdensome rules and regulations, false hopes and consolations – that it has become extremely difficult to make a genuine decision for Christ.” Christianity is profoundly simple yet we have made it abjectly complicated.

You can find our more about Leland here.https://substack.com/home/post/p-161586461

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The excerpt below is from a manuscript by Leland Yialelsis. It is one of the best works on relational gatherings I have read and it is highly recommended. If you are interested in understanding the heart of why gatherings are so important, you should put this one on the top of your list. This hasn’t been published and Leland is offering his manuscript free. The link is at the bottom.

The local ekleesia, as the community of Christ, becomes the place where each member finds the friendship and fellowship each human so longs for. In this community there are no lonely people. In this community there are no empty hearts. In this community there are none longing for the human touch. In this community the fellowship creates the friendship. The community is strong enough to recognize that there will be struggles and there will be times when conflicts arise. But in this community the commitment of the members is first rooted in their commitment to their Lord Jesus and then to one another. So, when a conflict arises it is worked through and becomes a building block of that genuine fellowship rather than an element that divides and destroys. This is a true community because fellowship exists because each individual is uniquely important and is considered so by the others. The fellowship is strong because each is an equal with the others. Real fellowship exists because none feels superior and none feels inferior. Real fellowship exists because each has had the opportunity to give something to the community, to the others, and each has received something. The fellowship exists because the fellowship itself is understood to be central to the very life of the community. There is nothing that takes precedence over the creation of true and genuine fellowship. There are no rituals that are more important than the interaction of the members. There is no physical thing, whether it is a building, the furnishings, the land, or the architecture that is more important than the fellowship itself. The fellowship experienced within, and because of, the wider context of the community exists as a center of hope. There is the shared belief that not only has the good news of Christ’s redeeming grace touched each of their lives but that He will take the next grand step in the great plan of God and bring the Kingdom of God into living reality on this earth. The fellowship celebrates their faith in the Power that has restored them as individuals and has made them members of the Kingdom of Heaven. They celebrate their faith that Christ will one day vanquish the present Prince of Darkness now bringing suffering to this world and the Kingdom of Heaven will exist in reality and not only as the “blessed hope”. But the fellowship exists, the community exists, because here in this circle each finds an experience that exists nowhere else on earth. Here each member gives and receives love like it is given and experienced nowhere else. Here, because this is the community of grace, it is the community of Love! Love is the ultimate expression of the experience of community. It is the power that makes this community unique. It is the reality that makes this community radical. Love is the force that makes this community a threat to the world about it. It is the love that makes this community totally and truly Christian.

The local ekleesia can function as a community, as the very body of Christ because it has accepted and follows His same material values. It, like Him, has no place to lay its head. It is focussed on the Kingdom to come and not on the pursuit of earthly riches. Because it is a truly spiritual community it expends no energy on things. All of its energy is expended on its members and on others within its circle of influence who have real need. It is a community that does not “talk” love. It is a community that lives love and puts its “money” where its mouth is. The resources of the community are used for people, for service, to build the fellowship. This community understands the words of Jesus to Pilate that His kingdom was not (and still is not) of this world. The local ekleesia is the community of Christ because it loves as He loved. The local ekleesia gathers for the primary purpose of giving each member an opportunity to share with the other members and to receive from the other members.

One very significant difference between the church and the ekleesia is, when, and, for what purpose, the members are expected to use the gifts of the Spirit. In the church the members are expected to use their spiritual gifts during the times when the members are scattered in their homes and away from the church. They are expected to use their spiritual gifts for the purpose of evangelization, “soul winning”. It is amazing that such a strange idea would persist for so long. Why would anyone think that the members of the body would function best when the members are all scattered and then function least when they are all gathered in the church? Yet this is the odd teaching that exists within the theology of the church today. In the ekleesia it is exactly the reverse. Each member of the community of the ekleesia understands that the gifts given to each by the Spirit are most helpful to the “body of Christ” when that “body” is gathered together. It is when all the “members”, each with their special gift, come together that the exercise of the gifts becomes most important. The gifts are there to help the community be the body of Christ and are intended for the building up of the body. Notice Paul’s advice to the Corinthians, “When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” 14:26 and “For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted;” V. 31. In the ekleesia it is understood that the exercise of the gifts given by the Spirit when the members of the community gather is what makes them all a “body”. “Each of you” (the literal translation of the Greek) has something to share, be it a song, a story, an experience, a lesson drawn from life, with the others that are there. There are no silent, inactive, passive, observers in the community of the ekleesia. It is the unique blending of each of the gifts at the time of the gathering of the members that contributes to the “edification” of all. Note again Paul’s advice to the Ephesians, “… Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:15,16. The essence and the purpose of the gatherings of the community is the opportunity for “Every joint” and “the proper working of each individual part” to function so that the “body” can “build” itself in love.

You can find out more about Leland here.

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