The balance between worship, service and fellowship

Posted on December 3, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre 2 Comments

The Balance

For a church to be healthy, each believer must have opportunity to participate in worship, service and fellowship.

Some definitions are in order. First, when I refer to worship, I am speaking of the activities of the congregation when we come together on Sunday morning. We worship through singing and the teaching of Scripture. Both are important. Yet, a good worship experience cannot be the only aspect of church life. A great teacher and worship band may draw a crowd, but it is the addition of service and fellowship that make it a church.

Service is the acts that are done within and outside the church body to minister to specific needs. An example of service within the body would be teaching Sunday school or working on a cleaning team. Service outside the body would be typified by short term missions, or providing meals or clothing to people having physical needs. Service alone makes for a charitable organization but not a true church.

Fellowship is when members of the body share life together. When the church group starts to feel like family, then we are nibbling at the fringes of true fellowship. Yet fellowship without worship and service makes for a clique, not a church.

When one side is atrophied

If we are not coming together for singing, praise and teaching, then the church body will be fragmented and struggle to find unity. Fellowship may happen, but it will not be centered around a common vision for what God is doing in that church body.

If the acts of service are minimized, the church will become ingrown and proud in it’s attitude toward the community in general and newcomers in particular. This is a Christianity that is self serving and smug.

If we are worshipping and serving without real fellowship, then the saints will advance from feeling unappreciated to feeling abused. People will come and then drift away when they do not find the interaction that they feel should typify the true church.

In my experience of evangelical Christianity, it is the fellowship leg of the triangle that seems to suffer the most. Evangelical, Bible centered churches understand the need for good teaching and worship on Sundays. Even a cursory reading of Scripture prescribes the need for service, so opportunities to serve abound. Fellowship is a different story.

Home group Bible studies, home fellowship groups, adult fellowships, koinonia groups, etc. may be the beginning of fellowship, but they cannot be the total solution. Fellowship is not something that can be arranged with a program.

Toward Deeper Fellowship

If we are in need of deeper fellowship, how do we go about finding that depth? Here are some thoughts:

In John 13:35 Jesus tells us that love is to be the defining mark of the Christian. If there is resentment or division in the church, those who are participating in that behavior need to repent and be restored to the opponent.
Keep in mind that while there may be different roles in the Church, there are no differences in value. (Galatians 3:28) Everyone is to be valued, not for their giftings or accomplishments, but for the fact that Jesus sacrificed himself on their behalf.
In Matthew 25:41 Jesus tells us that by responding to the needs of those who have no resources, it is as if we ministered directly to Jesus. By seeking to support, encourage and meet the emotional and spiritual needs of or church mates, we are ministering to Jesus.
Each of us, no matter how strong we seem now, will come to a place where we will be needy. Since Christmas is upon us, the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” comes to mind. George Baily came to the point where he needed the community into which he had invested so much of his energy. It was there for him. So should the church be.

This certainly is not an exhaustive list. Any other ideas out there? Feel free to chime in with comments.

Francis Chan on the Holy Spirit

Posted on November 27, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

I would like to share the following quotation from Forgotten God, by Francis Chan:

“I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit. I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through. That if He doesn’t come through, I am screwed.”

Convicted? Encouraged? Challenged? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Book Review: The Heart of the Story by Randy Frazee

Posted on November 25, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

I was given an opportunity to obtain a review copy of The Heart of the Story, by Randy Frazee. The title and description of the book interested me so I took advantage of the offer.

The author nearly lost me right from the get-go when he tried to provide perspective on how large the universe is:

“Think about this for a moment, If our solar system was reduced in size by a factor of a billion, the earth would be the size of a grape. The moon would be slightly larger than a basketball.” (p. 26)

I’m not an astrophysicist, but the last time I studied the solar system, the Earth was larger than our Moon. If that has changed, then I missed the press release. Perhaps the author lives in an area of the country where grapes are larger than basketballs?

I’m glad, however, that I pressed on and continued reading. I found the book worth while and the author does a good job of summarizing the movement of God behind the stories in the Bible.

Throughout the book, Mr. Frazee compares the lower story (what we see) with the upper story (the view from God’s perspective). The author reinforces the idea that God is the mover behind all the activities that are recorded in Scripture.

To illustrate the way Randy Frazee uses the upper/lower story idea, I quote from the book where the author discusses the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac:

As we will see later, God was also foreshadowing, in the Lower Story of Abraham and Isaac, the big climax of his Upper Story – the sacrifice of his own Son. As a matter of fact, the hill of Moriah just happens to be the hill of Jerusalem where Jesus will be crucified nearly two thousand years later.” (p. 39)

The book follows the order of the stories in the Bible so someone who is not familiar with the Bible can get a feel for the flow of Biblical history.

This book would be especially helpful to a new believer or someone who is interested in obtaining an overview of the Bible. Mr. Frazee does an excellent job of summarizing some of the major stories / themes in Scripture and setting them in context.

This would be an excellent resource for a discipleship class, the way Mr. Frazee presents the material stimulates thought and would be a good catalyst for discussion. An adult fellowship or small group Bible study would also benefit from working through this book. To work through the chapters in this book in parallel with the Scripture on which each chapter is based would be a profitable study.

The publisher was kind enough to provide a copy of this book for me to give away. Please leave a comment below indicating why you would like to win the copy and I will select a winner at random.

What Joseph teaches me about Thanksgiving

Posted on November 24, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Genesis 41 records the story of how how Joseph responded when he was presented to Pharaoh. Even though Joseph was sold out by his brothers and falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, even though he spent years in slavery and prison, even though he had good reason to think that God had abandoned him, Joseph wastes no breath in self pity or bitterness.

In Genesis 37 we read that Joseph was 17 when he had his first dream. We are not told how much time goes by before he was sold into slavery, but it seems to be a fairly short time. In Genesis 41, we read that Joseph was 30 when he stood before Pharaoh. From this we can conclude that Joseph spent at least 10 years in slavery and prison. Ten years is a long time to suffer for no good reason.

Joseph emerges from prison confident in his God and in position to be God’s man in that situation. I wonder how Joseph could have endured the hardship of slavery and prison with such a good attitude.

As a slave, he was given responsibility for Potiphar’s household. As a prisoner, Joseph was given responsibility for the the other prisoners. Responsibility is not given to people who have a negative outlook on life. Responsibility is not given to people who are bitter and revengeful. Responsibility is given to those whose attitude is such that it lifts up the attitudes of the people around them.

Joseph was the kind that lifted up those around him. This is evidence that something was going on in Joseph’s thinking that allowed him to avoid self-pity and bitterness.

While the text does not specifically say so, I think that the answer has something to do with gratitude. It is hard to be thankful and whiny at the same time. It is hard to display gratitude and bitterness at the same time. Gratitude displaces bitterness and whining.

At the end of Genesis, following the death of Israel, Joseph sums up his experience at the hand of his brothers by saying, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Genesis 50:20) I get the sense that this is not something that Joseph learned in the palace. This is a lesson that Joseph had to have learned in the prison in order to maintain such a positive outlook on life.

The knowledge that God was in control and that God meant it for good could be the only explanation as to why Joseph was not bitter when he became elevated. While in prison, he did not have a full understanding of what God was doing, but he must have had some sense of God’s presence and love.

My take-away is that while I have nothing in my life which compares to the hardship that Joseph endured, the petty trials that I endure often reveal me as a little bit whiny and prone to frustration and bitterness.

Since today is the day of Thanksgiving, what better time is there to start practicing thankfulness? I have much for which I should be thankful. If Joseph could go through his trials without bitterness or complaint, surely my petty issues are not insurmountable. I choose to be thankful.