#1 - Fellowship
Simon and Garfunkel, in 1965, agonizing with heartache from a broken relationship, sang the words “I am a rock, I am an island.” With hyperbole in their harmonies they proclaim their disdain for love and laughter. “I touch no one and no one touches me,” is their solution for the danger of love. It is one of the most desperate songs that has ever been written. Some people use this mantra as a guide to life. Isolation equals safety.
This is obviously not the way the New Testament commands followers of Christ to live. In fact, I think one of the disservices the contemporary western church has done to the New Testament has been the isolation of the individual. We talk about having a “personal relationship” with Christ as being the end all-be all of the gospel message. Protestantism has thrown the “baby” of accountability out with the “bathwater” of Catholic confession. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was the question that Cain not so rhetorically asked God after he had murdered his own brother. In the evangelical emphasis on personal quiet times, individual spiritual gifts, and consumerist church attendance (we Americans even take our capitalism to church with us on Sunday mornings as we choose the church that gives us what we want, and when we don’t like it anymore, we find a new one with better customer service), we seem to be asking God the same question that Cain posed to Him.
While I don’t believe one can get to heaven on someone else’s coattails, it is a dangerous thing to undervalue the necessity of community. In the Old Testament, when someone sinned, the entire nation of Israel paid the penalty. When they repented, they repented on a national level. When they were victorious, there was national celebration. While I believe it is an exegetical fallacy to compare America to Old Testament Israel, or even to compare the New Testament church to Israel, there are many things we can learn about community from the Hebrew Scriptures.
In all of Paul’s commendation of individuals or chastisement of individuals, he only praises or rebukes as their actions have affected the church. When Paul speaks about the virtue of a church, he praises the body. When he lectures a church for their wrongdoing, such as the Corinthians, his words are for the entire congregation. He holds them all responsible for selfishness, immorality, etc. In the giving of individual spiritual gifts it is only as they help the body that they have any value. When we fast-forward to the wedding feast talked about in Revelation, it is not you (individual) who is the bride of Christ, it is the church (universal and communal) who is the bride of Christ.
When we first signed up to come to China we were not sure about what access we would have to English speaking fellowship. We knew one family that would be here in Beijing also, and we knew there was an international church, but we didn’t know how much access we would have to it either. When we got to Beijing we were amazed to see what a network of like-minded people we would have. The Beijing International Christian Fellowship has been an essential blessing in our lives every Sunday morning. It takes us an hour and a half on the bus/taxi to get there yet our kids complain when we don’t go to church some week. Our kids are also part of a homeschool co-op which includes around 20 families and meets weekly. There are 2 foreign co-workers that work at the orphanage also who an essential part of our success. There is a team of English teachers in our small town which includes 2 other couples and Chyloe and I meet weekly with them for prayer and accountability.
Most importantly, we are a part of a team. Our team meets together regularly for fellowship. Our team is our family this side of the ocean. When we first arrived in Beijing we could not even count to 10 in Chinese. You can imagine the difficulties we faced multiple times every hour while we were still linguistic infants. It is only because of the aid of our teammates that we survived that first year. And now that we are the seasoned veterans and linguistic experts, we have been able to return the blessing to new team members who have arrived in the last 2 years. Now that we don’t need our hands held every step of the way, we don’t see our team as often as we used to. However, whenever needs do arise (and they always will), I know that we have a group of people, both at church and on our team, who would do anything to help us.
I will go so far as to say that if we did not have this fellowship that we would not have survived in China. Whether we leave tomorrow, or stay here the rest of our lives, we will forever be indebted to these people who have been our community. Our success is intertwined with theirs. Our failures affect them, and theirs affect us. When they mourn, we mourn with them. When they rejoice, we rejoice alongside them. If we would have been forced by our circumstances to live on a relational island, we would have failed. If we would have chosen isolation, so that we touched no one, and no one touched us, it would not have led to safety but rather to misery.
All of the other things on my Top Ten list we could survive without. I know there have been people in history who have done it by themselves, but we are not those people. And, if I were to be honest, I don’t think those people should have done it either – they should have done it with a team. Had they had a team also, then perhaps we would not have read about their destroyed marriages, alienated kids, and crippling depressions. More than anything else in Beijing I am thankful for fellowship, and it is the only item on the list that is indispensable.
This is obviously not the way the New Testament commands followers of Christ to live. In fact, I think one of the disservices the contemporary western church has done to the New Testament has been the isolation of the individual. We talk about having a “personal relationship” with Christ as being the end all-be all of the gospel message. Protestantism has thrown the “baby” of accountability out with the “bathwater” of Catholic confession. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was the question that Cain not so rhetorically asked God after he had murdered his own brother. In the evangelical emphasis on personal quiet times, individual spiritual gifts, and consumerist church attendance (we Americans even take our capitalism to church with us on Sunday mornings as we choose the church that gives us what we want, and when we don’t like it anymore, we find a new one with better customer service), we seem to be asking God the same question that Cain posed to Him.
While I don’t believe one can get to heaven on someone else’s coattails, it is a dangerous thing to undervalue the necessity of community. In the Old Testament, when someone sinned, the entire nation of Israel paid the penalty. When they repented, they repented on a national level. When they were victorious, there was national celebration. While I believe it is an exegetical fallacy to compare America to Old Testament Israel, or even to compare the New Testament church to Israel, there are many things we can learn about community from the Hebrew Scriptures.
In all of Paul’s commendation of individuals or chastisement of individuals, he only praises or rebukes as their actions have affected the church. When Paul speaks about the virtue of a church, he praises the body. When he lectures a church for their wrongdoing, such as the Corinthians, his words are for the entire congregation. He holds them all responsible for selfishness, immorality, etc. In the giving of individual spiritual gifts it is only as they help the body that they have any value. When we fast-forward to the wedding feast talked about in Revelation, it is not you (individual) who is the bride of Christ, it is the church (universal and communal) who is the bride of Christ.
When we first signed up to come to China we were not sure about what access we would have to English speaking fellowship. We knew one family that would be here in Beijing also, and we knew there was an international church, but we didn’t know how much access we would have to it either. When we got to Beijing we were amazed to see what a network of like-minded people we would have. The Beijing International Christian Fellowship has been an essential blessing in our lives every Sunday morning. It takes us an hour and a half on the bus/taxi to get there yet our kids complain when we don’t go to church some week. Our kids are also part of a homeschool co-op which includes around 20 families and meets weekly. There are 2 foreign co-workers that work at the orphanage also who an essential part of our success. There is a team of English teachers in our small town which includes 2 other couples and Chyloe and I meet weekly with them for prayer and accountability.
Most importantly, we are a part of a team. Our team meets together regularly for fellowship. Our team is our family this side of the ocean. When we first arrived in Beijing we could not even count to 10 in Chinese. You can imagine the difficulties we faced multiple times every hour while we were still linguistic infants. It is only because of the aid of our teammates that we survived that first year. And now that we are the seasoned veterans and linguistic experts, we have been able to return the blessing to new team members who have arrived in the last 2 years. Now that we don’t need our hands held every step of the way, we don’t see our team as often as we used to. However, whenever needs do arise (and they always will), I know that we have a group of people, both at church and on our team, who would do anything to help us.
I will go so far as to say that if we did not have this fellowship that we would not have survived in China. Whether we leave tomorrow, or stay here the rest of our lives, we will forever be indebted to these people who have been our community. Our success is intertwined with theirs. Our failures affect them, and theirs affect us. When they mourn, we mourn with them. When they rejoice, we rejoice alongside them. If we would have been forced by our circumstances to live on a relational island, we would have failed. If we would have chosen isolation, so that we touched no one, and no one touched us, it would not have led to safety but rather to misery.
All of the other things on my Top Ten list we could survive without. I know there have been people in history who have done it by themselves, but we are not those people. And, if I were to be honest, I don’t think those people should have done it either – they should have done it with a team. Had they had a team also, then perhaps we would not have read about their destroyed marriages, alienated kids, and crippling depressions. More than anything else in Beijing I am thankful for fellowship, and it is the only item on the list that is indispensable.
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