We Value Fellowship - First Baptist Church Hattiesburg

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Introduction

In August 2007 the First Baptist Church Strategic

Leadership Team was formed. This team was tasked

with articulating the mission, vision, and strategy of

First Baptist Church. Why was this necessary?

Because like most organizations, churches are

vulnerable to mission drift. It is easy for us to lose

sight of what God has called us and gifted us to do

and to be. It had also become apparent that while

many good things were happening in our ministries,

there was not an overarching goal which drew our

ministries, or, for that matter, our church family,

together. The most effective churches are those

where all of the church family, the ministers, and theministries are on the same page. The task of the

SLT was to articulate a common goal for our church

family.

The team consisted of two dozen folks. Seven

members were our senior staff; the other 17 were lay

people. The team mirrored the demographics of our

church. Some were under 30 years old, some were

over 50 years old, and the greatest number were in

their 30s and 40s. Some were long-time members

of FBC, and some were relatively new members.

The process was led by Dr. Aubrey Malphurs.

Aubrey is Professor of Pastoral Ministries at Dallas

Theological Seminary. He is a nationally recognized

expert of church leadership issues, and has authored

more than 15 books. He is president of the

Malphurs Group, a church training and consulting

organization.

The process began with the discovery of FBCs

core values. Your core values are your deeply held

convictions. They shape who you are, what you do,

what you dont do, what you care about. They are

the internal map that directs your life. Individuals

have core values honesty, belief in God, frugality,

etc. Organizations have core values, also. (Customer

service, maximizing profit, worker safety,environmental issues, etc) So do churches. Heres

how the SLT discovered ours.

A list of several dozen core values for churches

was handed out, and the team was asked to pick out

those which are most true for our church. The group

did not decide which values our church should have.

Nor did they choose their own personal favorites.

They sought to identify those which are most true of

our church right now. These were then narrowed

down to the top six.

Looking at the list, it was decided that there

were some things missing that are vital for a church

to function biblically. So three aspirational values

were added Fellowship, Service, and Biblical

Instruction. As a church we practice all three, but

the team felt like they were not valued by our church

body as highly as they should be.

Finally, during staff meeting several days later,

our own Charles Welch asked about prayer. How

can prayer not be a core value of our church? So we

added it as an aspirational value, to form our top

ten. (Again, it was felt that while we do pray, our

church as a whole does not value prayer as highly as

it should. I have added the entire list at the end of

the lesson.)As we studied the values more closely, they

seemed to easily divide into two groups. Five of the

values refer to core practices of any biblical church.

They are non-negotiables. We refer to them as the

foundational five.

The next five refer to our core personality. They

are what make us unique, what set us apart from

other churches. They refer to our particular DNA.

The task before us now is to communicate the

findings of the SLT to the church family. The next

several weeks are committed to that task. Jeff Clark

will be preaching through the values on Sunday

mornings, and we will be teaching through them inSunday School. So, lets get started!

Talk to the Hand

Youll notice that the next several Sunday

School lessons are entitled Talk to the Hand.

Thats because the first five values we study together

can be easily remembered by glancing at your own

hand five fingers, five values.

Thumb Fellowship (January 6)

Index Finger Biblical Instruction (January13)

Middle Finger Service (January 20 Serviceand evangelism will be combined into one lesson,taught 1/20)

Ring Finger Evangelism Pinkie/Whole Hand Worship (January 27)

Four thoughts:

1. Do these sound familiar? Where have you

heard those five values/practices before? We have

used the baseball diamond logo to teach them for

Talk to the HandfellowshipBy Jeff Powell

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the past several years. So the foundational five is

nothing new to most of us. Same values, different

visual (hand instead of baseball diamond).

2. These values are all foundational. Ask,

When a home is being constructed, why is the

foundation so important? (Because everything rests

on it. If it is not solid, then everything built on it will

eventually fall.) The foundation for our worship

center at Lincoln Road is being prepared right now.

Dozens of concrete footings are being poured, eachup to 5x 5 wide, and up to 8 deep. Thats a lot of

concrete! But it is necessary to provide a stable base

for our worship center. The foundational five are

the foundation of what we do at FBC. They are the

five core practices which we are bound to by Gods

Word. They are non-negotiables. To ignore them is

to cease to be a biblical church.

3. These values are universal. They are not just

for FBC they are true for every church. They are

true for Main Street, Temple, 1st Pres, Parkway

Heights,

4. These values are personal. They are

foundational for the church, and they are alsofoundational for individual believers. It is the

responsibility of every church to provide

opportunities for growth in these areas, and it is the

responsibility of every believer to pursue

opportunities for growth in these areas.

Lets begin with your thumb

Since your thumb is the closest finger to the rest

of your body, let it remind you to let others get close

to you. Our first core value is fellowship, and it isextremely important!

As an upstanding member of a Baptist church,

how would you define or describe fellowship?

What is it? What do you do at a fellowship?

Most of us think of fellowship in terms of a get-

together, a partythat usually involves eating

chicken. It involves visiting together, enjoying each

others company, sharing a meal/snack together.

Those things are certainly one aspect of

fellowship, but it involves much more.

Webster defines fellowship as:

1. companionship; friendly association

2. a mutual sharing.

3. a group of people with the same interests,

company; brotherhood

The original sense was a partner, and the source

of this meaning was the Old English word feolaga,

borrowed from the Scandanavian felog, partner,

which was made up of fe, money and lag, a

person who lays something down, the idea being

to lay down money for a common cause or

undertaking, to pool your resources. One Hebrew

word for fellowship is chabar, meaning to be

joined. Perhaps the best known biblical word for

fellowship is the Greek word koinonia, found in the

New Testament. It means fellowship, communion,

to become a partaker, to have all things in

common.

Some of you are old enough to remember when

hippies roamed the earth. Ask, What do you

remember about hippies? (Long hair, drugs,

Woodstock, a disturbing lack of bathing, etc) One

thing you may remember is their tendency to live incommunes. They would live together, eat together,

pool their resources they shared everything. There

is something of the idea of fellowship there. It is the

idea that I was created to live in community with

others. I am now to do life on my own. I need

others around me. As Rick Warren, pastor of

Saddleback Community Church says, We are

better together.

This is a foundational truth. Think of the words

the Bible uses to describe the Church. We are a

Body, one Body with many members. We are the

family of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are the Bride of Christ. All of these images pointtowards strong, deep relationships with others.

So what would those relationships look like in

real life?

Real Fellowship is Practical

Read Acts 2:44, 45 and Acts 4:32-35. What do

you notice about the love and fellowship that these

early Christians shared? What characterized their

fellowship? It was very practical! They were busy

helping each other. They were committed to Biblestudy and prayer, but they were also committed to

helping each other with practical matters. Are you

hungry? Let me bring you some food. Need a place

to stay? You can stay at my house. Cold? Let me give

you my extra coat. These early Christians didnt just

sit around and sing Kum Ba Yah (sp?) they got

their hands dirty helping each other.

What do you think that kind of fellowship

would look like today, here at FBC, Hattiesburg?

What would it look like in this Sunday School class?

Have you seen it or experienced it before?

That kind of fellowship has got to be one of our

foundational values. But it isnt. At least the SLTdidnt think it was. At least not yet. So it has become

one of the values we aspire to, a value that the

majority of our church holds.

Ask, Why do you think we (our church) is

lacking in this area? (Too busy, didnt understand

its importance, selfish, Ive got my own problems,

etc) What could our Sunday School class do to

make that a reality among ourselves? (Openly share

needs, set aside times for your class to do fellowship

projects together, etc)

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Real Fellowship is Personal

Describe an average day in your life, from the

time you get up until the time you go to bed.

Chances are it will be incredibly busy, with very

little, if any, down time.

Ask, In a daily schedule like that, what usually

suffers? (The answer: personal relationships)

Personal relationships are one of the maincasualties of the speed at which we live. Our

busyness precludes the time necessary to develop

deep fellowship with others, with the result being a

collection of acquaintances characterized by surface

relationships. But this has not always been so. When

I (Jeff Powell) teach about fellowship I often refer to

the coffee ladies. These were my mothers very

best friends. There were five of them, and they

gathered together for coffee (and gossip) at least once

a day, often twice. They laughed together, shared

together, planned events together, ate together, cried

together they did life together. When my mother

died of cancer, I was in Montana on a mission trip.When I arrived at my home, the coffee ladies were

there ministering to my family, just as they had

done through my mothers illness. (Teacher, please

feel free to use this illustration, or to substitute your

own.)

Now if you are an older adult, the chances are

you have these kinds of relationships. Fellowship is a

part of the world you grew up in. But if you are

younger, the chances of having this level of

fellowship are much smaller. If may even be a

foreign concept to you.

The Greek word used in the New Testament forknow is ginosko. It means more than I know

2+2=4 or I know George Bush. Its not just

head knowledge, or merely recognizing a person.

It means to come to know, understand, or

understand completely. It also carries the idea of

becoming known completely by another, and

appreciated by that one. The verb conveys the

thought of a connection.

That is often what we fear the most, but also

what we crave the most. Ask, What do we fear

about being completely known by someone

else? (In a word, rejection. If you really know me,

you may not like me.) Ask, So how do we hidefrom each other? (We avoid anything but surface

relationships; we stay busy; we never open up; etc)

Ask, Whats the result of this? (Isolation, even in a

group of people.)

The paradox is that we also crave being

completely known. Deep down (or maybe not so

deep down) we want to experience life with others;

we want to do life with genuine friends; we crave

relationships, fellowship, community.

Ask, Why do you think Starbucks now owns

the world? Is it because of a $5 cup of coffee? Its

because the Starbucks strategy is to create a third

place, a place other than work or home, a place

where folks could sit and relax and enjoy each

others company and talk about their problems and

be cared about and accepted and Its a place of

fellowship! And we crave it so much that were

willing to pay $5 for a .50 cent cup of coffee. (By the

way, there were 12,240 Starbucks at the beginning o2007, with plans to add another 2400 by the end of

2007!)

Ask, Have you seen the advertising for

Bellegrasse, the new development going up out west

on Highway 589? Its designed around common

playgrounds, ballfields, school, church. Houses are

being built with front porches near sidewalks so folks

walking through the neighborhood can visit with

folks sitting on the front porch. Its all designed to

promote fellowship, community.

We shouldnt be surprised. God designed us this

way from the beginning. Look at Genesis 2:18 It

is not good for man to be alone. That refers tomore than just marriage. It is a blanket statement

about all of us. We are made for community.

So what will it take for us to foster this type of

community among ourselves? In his book The

Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren mentions several

things for us to think about and put into practice. As

I mention these areas, grade yourself. Where are you

doing well? Which areas could use some work?

Authenticity Authentic fellowship is not

superficial, surface-level chit-chat. It is genuine,

heart-to-heart, sometimes gut level, sharing. The

world thinks intimacy happens in the dark, but itreally happens in the light! See I John 1: 7,8.

Mutuality Mutuality is the heart of

fellowship. It is depending on each other. It is

building reciprocal relationships, sharing

responsibilities, and helping each other. Paul said, I

want us to help each other with the faith we have.

Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you.

I Corinthians 12:25 (The Message)

Sympathy Sympathy is not giving quick

advice; it is entering in and sharing the pain of

others. As holy peoplebe sympathetic, kind,

humble, gentle, and patient. Col. 3:12

Mercy Fellowship is a place of grace, where

mistakes arent rubbed in but rubbed out. Fellowship

happens when mercy wins over justice. Never hold

grudges. Col. 3:13 (LB)

Honesty You have to care enough to

lovingly speak the truth, even when you would gloss

over a problem or ignore an issue. Speak the

truth in love. Eph. 4:15

Humility Self-importance, smugness, and

stubborn pride destroy fellowship faster than

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anything else. Clothe yourselves with humility

toward one another. I Peter 5:5b

Courtesy Courtesy is respecting our

differences, being considerate of each others

feelings, and being patient with people who irritate

us. Gods people should be bighearted and

courteous. Titus 3:2 (The Message)

Frequency You must have frequent, regular

contact with a specific group of people to build

genuine fellowship. Let us not give up the habit ofmeeting together Heb. 10:25

Real Fellowship is aPartnership

As was described earlier, the word fellowship

is derived from an Old English business term which

meant partner. Think about partners in a

business. Name some attitudes and actions they have

to take in order for the business to be successful?

(They must each perform their jobs; talk up thebusiness; have the same goals; be positive; be

realistic; support each other; help each other;

compromise with each other when necessary; etc.

You might want to write these on the board.)

After you have written these on the board, point

to them one at a time and ask, What would happen

if each partner did not perform his job? What would

happen if one partner constantly spoke negatively

about the business? What if the partners held

different goals for the business?

Which of these are also true regarding

church?

Then ask, What happens when churchpartners (members) do not each perform their

job? What happens when church partners speak

negatively about the church? What happens when

church partners have different goals for the

ministry?

If we want our business (leading others to

know, love, and follow Jesus) to be successful, then we

must partner together, or it will not happen. We

must have a common goal, and must be willing to

subordinate some of our own likes and dislikes for

the sake of the fellowship. We must be willing to do

our part, to serve in the area of our giftedness. We

must be willing to support and encourage each other.

Again, Rick Warren gives us several practical

ideas for partnering together. Again, grade yourself

in each of these areas.

Focus on what we have in common, not our

differences. Paul wrote, Let us concentrate on the

things which make for harmony, and the growth of

one anothers character. Romans 14:19

Be realistic in your expectations. Dietrich

Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was martyred

for resisting Nazis, wrote a classic book on

fellowship, Life Together. In it he suggests that the

sooner we give up the illusion that a church must be

perfect in order to love it, the sooner we quit

pretending and start admitting were all imperfect

and need grace. This is the beginning of real

community. Be patient with each other, making

allowance for each others faults because of your

love. Eph. 4:2

Choose to encourage rather than criticize. It is

always easier to stand on the sidelines and take shotsat those who are serving than it is to get involved and

make a contribution. Why, then, criticize your

brothers actions, why try to make him look small?

We shall all be judged one day, not by each others

standards or even our own, but by the standard of

Christ. Romans 14:10 (Ph)

Refuse to listen to gossip. Have the courage to

say, Please stop. I dont need to know this. Have you

talked directly to that person? Troublemakers

listen to troublemakers. Proverbs 17:4; These are

the ones who split churches, thinking only of

themselves. Jude 1:19 (The Message)

Practice Gods method for conflict resolution.During conflict, it is tempting to complain to a third

party rather than courageously speak the truth in

love to the person you are upset with. This makes

the matter worse. Instead, you should go directly to

the person involved. See Matthew 18:15-17.

Support your pastor and leaders. (I knowthi

sounds a little self-serving, but it is biblical!) Be

responsive to your pastoral leaders. Listen to their

counsel. They are alert to the condition of your lives

and work under the strict supervision of God.

Contribute to the joy of their leadership, not its

drudgery. Why would you want to make thingsharder for them? Hebrews 13:17 (The Message)

Again, how are you doing in each of these

areas? Where are you doing well? Which areas need

some work?

Closing

Lets close by beginning to put some plans in

place. Weve talked this morning about three

characteristics of fellowship. It is practical, it is

personal, and it is about partnering together. Lets

make a goal for our class for 2008 in each of thoseareas.

What is our goal for becoming more practical

in our fellowship? What will we do first? When will

we do it?

What is our goal for developing a more

personal fellowship among our class members is

2008? What will we do first? When will we do it?

What is our goal for partnering together with

the rest of the church body in 2008 so that our

business (ministry) will be successful?

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Documents

We Value Fellowship - First Baptist Church Hattiesburg