Whether you like it or not you can’t undo a relationship. I mean seriously, your parents will always be your parents. Your children will always be your children. You don’t generally get to choose your family members and those strong relationships while sometimes strained, don’t break.
That’s the same with our relationship with God. Whether you believe it or not, God is the source of your life. Believing it won’t make it true. Not believing it won’t make it untrue. Relationships don’t rely on proximity or belief. They are about position. Your relationship is an outcome of your position to someone else.
The bible talks about two things with great depth. One is relationships and we pretty much get how that works. But the other we get a little confused about. It’s called fellowship. The long and short of fellowship is about our proximity to someone not our position before them.
Fellowship is what happens when we share life with someone else. The bible uses the idea of fellowship to refer to a shared life in Christ. The proximity we share with one another isn’t based on agreeing on everything. Rather it’s based on the closeness we experience when we each draw near to Christ.
You see I am my parents’ son. And nothing including distance can change that fact at all. But what can change is how I share life with them. If I live close, I can be there on weekends and we can enjoy time together in a variety of ways. But if I were to move farther away and live hours away or across the country, I would still be their son without question. What does change though is how we communicate and how we share life. We can’t share life face to face but we do through phone and email and text and FaceTime and all those cool technological marvels.
The same is true with one another and with Christ. We are to draw near to Christ and inso doing we will draw near to one another. The focal point of our relationship isn’t our wants or theirs it’s who is Christ and who am I in light of his grace. When we see ourselves and one another through the focal point of the cross, then we can draw near to those and fellowship with those far away from us regardless of space and time.
Check out the talk I gave on the difference between relationship and fellowship below.
About a year ago we introduced the concept of Christian Neighboring to the congregation I serve. It was a lot of fun, and we were able to make impact in people’s lives as a result. The goal of Christian Neighboring is not to add numbers to the local church. As a matter of fact we don’t really talk all that much about church attendance or membership. The focus is on Jesus and knowing him.