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29 October 2012
17 October 2012
16 October 2012
Hopes & Dreams For Gilead: The Fellowship Of Fellow Workers
“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus …”
Romans 16.3
Growing up, my family rarely took family vacations. In fact, I can only remember two times when my family took to the road with the sole intention of leaving everything behind for a week of rest and relaxation. Consequently, I have few family memories of beaches, shopping trips, and theme parks. To some, this would imply that our family probably suffered a lack of connection or fellowship. With the benefit of hindsight, I can honestly say that we did not. My brothers, my Dad, and I spent more time together than most families that I knew; it was just that the time we spent together was spent working. Whether it was getting up early to make doughnuts, framing a house in the summer heat, or chopping firewood for the winter, we got to spend a fair amount of time together. I realize now that those times were really quality times. When you work with someone, you get to know them in a different way. Common work brings people together. It is a form of fellowship. You could say that "the family that works together stays together."
The last chapter of Romans is packed with expressions of Paul’s appreciation for people to whom he had grown close as a result of working with them: “Mary has worked hard for you”; “Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ”; “Greet those workers in the Lord”; “Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord”. These were obviously people who were close to Paul’s heart, and that closeness was the result of laboring together shoulder to shoulder in the service of Jesus. His fellowship with them was a working fellowship. They had shared the joys, hopes, challenges, and triumphs of striving to share the gospel … and it had brought them together.
As I watched our church family gather for our Gilead Outreach (G.O.) night, I saw brothers and sisters working together in the Lord: strengthening, encouraging and even challenging one another with our presence. Similar scenes are commonly repeated in our fellowship through work such as Good News Club, Java For Jesus, mission trips, VBS, small group outreach, worship ministry, nursery, and Sunday school. It is time to labor for our Lord because 1) the night is coming when no man can work and 2) we know that nothing we give to Jesus will ever go to waste. Besides … our Father has a family vacation in store for us after all of our work here together is done.
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