THEME:   UNDERSTANDING CHURCH LIFE 

LESSON: FIVE 

TEXT:     1 Cor 5:1-5; 14:26-40, Eph 5:18-21 

INTRODUCTION 

The word ‘fellowship’ is the Greek word for ‘koinonia’, meaning ‘to share, unite, close association, partnership, participation, society, communion, the brotherhood’. Koinonia cements believers to the Lord and to each other. Our koinonia are in two ways, (i.) our fellowship with the Lord through the Spirit. It is both personal, i.e., between the Lord and an individual saint. It is also corporate, i.e., between the Lord and His Church, more than one person. ii) the second aspect of our koinonia is the fellowship between one another. 

The two aspects of our koinonia are very important and must be maintained, breaking either of them will affect the other. We see it clearly in Acts 2 that when the church began, they literally devoted themselves to these two aspects of fellowship. In fellowship with the Lord, they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine (speaking of the word and prayer), and in fellowship with one another. They were devoted to breaking bread from house to house. Today, we are going to be looking at the first aspect of our fellowship. 

The Focus of our Fellowship: Our meeting, our coming together is not to be taken lightly. It has a very strong spiritual significance and meaning. To a carnal man, it is just a meeting but to one who has understanding of spiritual things, it is both our own need and the need of the Lord that we gather together. 

  1. Meeting with Heaven (Heb 12:22-25): Our meeting is not ordinary. It is a meeting with heaven. When we gather together, heaven opens over us. We receive visitation from the Lord and even ministering spirits come to our meeting with blessings. But being ignorant of this, the church hardly takes that advantage they have. One major reason we do not get to use this spiritual platform properly is when:  
  1. We don’t allow the Spirit to direct the flow of the meeting. 
  2. We gather, and what our hearts are seeking are not in agreement with the Lord. 
  1. Gathering in the Name of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:1, Matt 18:20): What makes our meeting unique is the gathering unto the Lord. There is no other group or meeting on the face of the earth that has this kind of privilege; it is exclusive to the church. The Lord said, ‘I will be there in their midst’. 
  1. Meeting of fellows of the same species (Jn 10:4, 14, Psalm 100:3, Psalm 95:7): We are the sheep of His pasture. He is our Shepherd; we are His flock. Flocks flock together. Our meetings are meetings of those who have been made Christ in their spirits, and whose souls have been washed by the Blood of the Lamb to be able to respond to the Shepherd. It is the meeting of the living and not the dead. 

DIFFERENT KINDS OF CHURCH FELLOWSHIP MEETING 

These meetings are called fellowship meeting because there we meet together as a church to express and experience our corporate koinonia with the Lord. In other words, the Lord must be the focus of these meetings. If we do not make the Lord the focus of these meetings, then there would be no reason to gather in the first place because the meeting will not meet our need or that of the Lord. Most of this meeting, life has been lost in the church because of wrong focus, but the Spirit of the Lord will help us recover them. 

  1. Believers’ Meeting (1 Cor 14:26): Why is it called believers’ meeting? Our meetings carry different spiritual flavors. Each meeting has its own kind of flavor and direction and it is meant to achieve our need and the Lord’s need. It is called believers’ meeting because there we see the diverse giftings and graces that is in the Body where brethren come with psalms (poems), hymns and spiritual songs; some come with a doctrine, tongue, revelations, interpretations, etc. Everyone gets blessed by that which the Spirit of the Lord is showing through individual believers. This is one meeting that needs to be recovered. 
  1. Teaching Meeting or Word Meetings (1 Cor 2:1-2, 2 Tim 4:1-8, 1 Tim 4:13): Important place must be given to the ministration of the Word either through doctrine (teaching), exhortation (preaching), and reading of the Scripture. This meeting is different from the first because it is not brethren bringing words by the Spirit but those who are called into the ministry of preaching and teaching, speaking of the fivefold ministry. These are men equipped by the Lord with grace to equip the saints with the light of the knowledge of God. 
  2. Prayer Meeting (Eph 6:18, Acts 12:5): We should pray in all our meetings, and of course, individually we should live a prayerful life. But here, Paul encouraged the Ephesian church to pray. It is the coming together to lift up our voices in one accord to the Lord in intercession, supplication and in watching in prayer with perseverance. Because we have an adversary who would not want God’s will to be done. The Church must hold faith together in prayers. 
  1. Outreach Meeting (Matt 10:1, Mk 16:15): This is a meeting for the purpose of winning new converts to the Lord. It is a co-operated outreach by the church because we own that duty to the world. The Lord also commanded us to go into the world and preach the gospel. This kind of outreach meeting includes crusades, evangelism and mission work. 
  1. Communion Meeting (1 Cor 11:20-34): This is a gathering for the purpose of the Lord’s Supper or the Lord’s Table. We are commanded to do this often in remembrance of the Lord. This meeting is special because it is to show the Lord’s death which is a testimony of His victory and triumph over Satan and all the powers of darkness. It also declares our escape from death to life. 
  1. Welfare Meeting (Acts 6:1): The Church is made up of human beings with some very practical problems like family life, job needs, brethren displaced of shelter by reason of faith, those persecuted, widows, orphans, etc. The church is not to overlook these issues. It is part of our gathering both to commit it unto the Lord’s hand and to deliberate over it to proffer solution. Meetings like these can be done together as a church or Christian men meeting together to deliberate on issues that concern men and the church, or Christian women meeting to discuss issues that affect them, their homes and church. 

CONCLUSION 

Everything has to be done in love. Fellowship will not be sweet without love for one another. Our fellowship meetings must be properly understood and recovered for us to enjoy the privileges we have as a Church.