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I was walking back to my Sunday School Class at the end of the "Sunday School Wing" of our Church building to teach my youth class. I wasn't much older than the teens I was teaching. On the way, I passed a fellow teacher who was already "warming up" her children's class, even though it was about 10 minutes before Sunday School "started".
Judy was standing at a blackboard with a piece of chalk in her hand, and I saw her draw a wavy line across the middle of the board, obviously representing the horizon of the ocean or lake or some body of water.
Then she drew a boat - a very simple "stick boat" - and she turned to the class of 1st and 2nd graders and asked, "who can tell me what fellowship is?" Several children called out, as if they'd rehearsed it a hundred times before, "TWO FELLOWS IN A SHIP".
I smiled. "Fellowship". "Two fellows in a ship". How simple. How.... descriptive. How REAL! How TRUE!
Judy drew two stick figures in the boat, and said, "yes, fellowship is two fellows in a ship", and forever cemented in my mind that fellowship really is two (or more) fellows in a ship.
"We're all in the same boat". "We're all in this together". Many times I have shared that little story, and many times I have considered and reconsidered its message.
When I read Paul in KJV, I note that many times he takes two words and smooshes them together like "fellowcitizen", and "fellowlaborer" and "fellowsoldier".... (OK, Paul doesn't do that - the KJV guys did that, but they must have had a reason
) I can't help but feel that there was something in the original language that made them think it was more than just "citizens" who were friends, or "laborers" who worked for the same company, or "soldiers" who were in the same army.
It was because they shared so much in common - a sense of loyalty, community, dependence on one another...
Then there's the "fellowship of sufferings".
We sang it at Promise Keepers years ago:
All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing you, Jesus
Knowing you, there is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you, Lord
Now my heart's desire is to know you more
To be found in you and known as yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Oh, to know the power of your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like you in your death, my Lord
So with you to live and never die
And I think of some of my closest friends, and what it really is that made us close. My buddies in the Navy when I was a kid - particularly those who shared my "SE Asia experience", and suffered great loss. My fellow officers on the department when we experienced the tragic death of one of our own. When we "stood the blue line" at the funeral of a fallen officer, or when I officiated at the funeral of my Deputy Sheriff son-in-law and saw wall to wall first responders in "standing room only" auditorium of the Church where I spoke of his life and his death.
I think of the day my wife came home from the doctor and stunned me with the words, "I have cancer". There was another lady at Church, and a man, who had just recently found out they had cancer, too. These three would become best friends, praying for one another, comparing notes on surgery, treatment, fears, concerns..... There was a beautiful bond of fellowship between them brought about by that horrible awful terrible "C" word. They were in their own "fellowship of suffering".
When we come through a tragedy or crisis together, and love and support one another, there is often a bond that is unbreakable, unshakeable, indescribable.
So many times, we think of "fellowship" as eating a meal together, or praise and worship together, or laughing and having a good time with one another.
How many of us really think of a "fellowship of suffering".
And, when I suffer - I mean really suffer, not just am "uncomfortable" - I think about the fact that I have the privilege - in a VERY SMALL WAY - to experience the "fellowship of His sufferings", unworthy though I am.
When I shared some experiences of being treated badly by a Church I served, and experienced rejection... I think "He came to His own, and His own received Him not".... I think there's not a single bad feeling or loss or hurt or sorrow that I could experience that Jesus didn't suffer to a greater degree.
And as I mature - not there yet, and it's taken lots of years - and I experience a disappointment, it's getting much easier to smile and think "the fellowship of His sufferings"..... just one way for me to know Jesus a little better.
So, my fellowtwebber, if you're going through hurt, rejection, crisis, challenges..... you are not in this boat all by yourself. For fellowship really is "two (or more) fellows in a ship".
Judy was standing at a blackboard with a piece of chalk in her hand, and I saw her draw a wavy line across the middle of the board, obviously representing the horizon of the ocean or lake or some body of water.
Then she drew a boat - a very simple "stick boat" - and she turned to the class of 1st and 2nd graders and asked, "who can tell me what fellowship is?" Several children called out, as if they'd rehearsed it a hundred times before, "TWO FELLOWS IN A SHIP".
I smiled. "Fellowship". "Two fellows in a ship". How simple. How.... descriptive. How REAL! How TRUE!
Judy drew two stick figures in the boat, and said, "yes, fellowship is two fellows in a ship", and forever cemented in my mind that fellowship really is two (or more) fellows in a ship.
"We're all in the same boat". "We're all in this together". Many times I have shared that little story, and many times I have considered and reconsidered its message.
When I read Paul in KJV, I note that many times he takes two words and smooshes them together like "fellowcitizen", and "fellowlaborer" and "fellowsoldier".... (OK, Paul doesn't do that - the KJV guys did that, but they must have had a reason
) I can't help but feel that there was something in the original language that made them think it was more than just "citizens" who were friends, or "laborers" who worked for the same company, or "soldiers" who were in the same army.It was because they shared so much in common - a sense of loyalty, community, dependence on one another...
Then there's the "fellowship of sufferings".
Phil 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
We sang it at Promise Keepers years ago:
All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing you, Jesus
Knowing you, there is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you, Lord
Now my heart's desire is to know you more
To be found in you and known as yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Oh, to know the power of your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like you in your death, my Lord
So with you to live and never die
And I think of some of my closest friends, and what it really is that made us close. My buddies in the Navy when I was a kid - particularly those who shared my "SE Asia experience", and suffered great loss. My fellow officers on the department when we experienced the tragic death of one of our own. When we "stood the blue line" at the funeral of a fallen officer, or when I officiated at the funeral of my Deputy Sheriff son-in-law and saw wall to wall first responders in "standing room only" auditorium of the Church where I spoke of his life and his death.
I think of the day my wife came home from the doctor and stunned me with the words, "I have cancer". There was another lady at Church, and a man, who had just recently found out they had cancer, too. These three would become best friends, praying for one another, comparing notes on surgery, treatment, fears, concerns..... There was a beautiful bond of fellowship between them brought about by that horrible awful terrible "C" word. They were in their own "fellowship of suffering".
When we come through a tragedy or crisis together, and love and support one another, there is often a bond that is unbreakable, unshakeable, indescribable.
So many times, we think of "fellowship" as eating a meal together, or praise and worship together, or laughing and having a good time with one another.
How many of us really think of a "fellowship of suffering".
And, when I suffer - I mean really suffer, not just am "uncomfortable" - I think about the fact that I have the privilege - in a VERY SMALL WAY - to experience the "fellowship of His sufferings", unworthy though I am.
When I shared some experiences of being treated badly by a Church I served, and experienced rejection... I think "He came to His own, and His own received Him not".... I think there's not a single bad feeling or loss or hurt or sorrow that I could experience that Jesus didn't suffer to a greater degree.
And as I mature - not there yet, and it's taken lots of years - and I experience a disappointment, it's getting much easier to smile and think "the fellowship of His sufferings"..... just one way for me to know Jesus a little better.
So, my fellowtwebber, if you're going through hurt, rejection, crisis, challenges..... you are not in this boat all by yourself. For fellowship really is "two (or more) fellows in a ship".
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