Theology for Women

I’ve recently found myself in a number of situations in which preachers and Christians speakers were conveying what, I would call, “half of the Gospel.” By this I mean that they teach parts of the Gospel perfectly, even brilliantly, but also fail to mention key parts of the Gospel. It’s not that these teachers were saying anything wrong, but they were not conveying the whole truth either.

Now this has always bothered me, but I was willing to look past it. After all, God IS love, so it’s great to hear a sermon on loving the poor and caring for the needy. And God IS a God of holiness and judgment, so it’s important to learn about the severe implications that His character has for our lives. Because God is infinite, it would be impossible to encapsulate all that He is into one sermon. And so I rationalized that these messages about “half the Gospel” were ultimately ok. Hearing half the Gospel is better than hearing none of it at all, right?

But recently I’ve started to reconsider this position. In fact, I began to wonder if “half” the Gospel is really even the Gospel at all. Is the Gospel kind of like Math?–I may not know all about Math and its abstracts concepts of calculus and algebra, but I know how to add and subtract, so I can definitively say that I know Math. In the same way, if I only learn one part of the Gospel, can I then claim that I know the Gospel? Or if I preach just one part of the Gospel, can I say that I have actually preached the Gospel?

The answer to this question is a resounding “no.” The Gospel is not like Math at all in that sense. The Gospel, in fact, is more like a cake. As a friend of mine so cleverly put it, if you only have half the ingredients of a cake, you don’t have a cake at all. If you have a couple eggs and some salt, that’s not a cake–that’s scrambled eggs.

And that is what we get when we only preach half the Gospel–we get a scrambled eggs theology that ultimately looks nothing like the Gospel at all.

Some of you may be thinking this is a bit harsh. After all, if God is love, and we preach love, are we not still teaching the heart of God? I would argue no, because preaching God’s love without God’s judgment is to fundamentally misunderstand God’s love in the first place. God’s love is so radical because of the judgment that we deserve. He is a righteous, holy God who has every right to condemn us, yet He does not. Thus to preach a Gospel of love without judgment is to domesticate God into some sort of warm and fuzzy deity in the sky who is devoid of wonder and fear-inspiring awe. It is also to make the cross utterly incoherent. Why would God let His Son endure such a gruesome death if not for his sense of justice?

What’s more, you have to look at the implications of “half the Gospel.” Yes, Jesus cared about the poor, but if our ultimate goal is to feed the poor and clothe the hungry without ever addressing people’s spiritual needs, then what are we left with? Say that we were able to clothe everyone, feed everyone, and heal everyone, would that change eternity one bit? No. Scripture tells us that life on earth is but an instant compared to eternity, so we would be laboring to make one instant better, while ignoring the glaring blind spot of peoples’ eternal needs. As Derek Webb puts it, we would ultimately be clothing corpses.

In this way, half the Gospel is not the Gospel at all–it is either secular social activism, or Pharisaic religiosity, but it is not the Gospel. For that reason, keep your eyes and ears open for these speakers of half-truth. And more importantly, make sure your life preaches the whole truth, because half the truth is actually little more than a dressed up lie.

One of the things that is hardest for me about being a minister, particularly a women’s minister, is that you always have to be “on.” If you forget to say hello to someone at church, or if you aren’t friendly enough or you don’t initiate conversation with someone, then you can wind up with a bunch of women thinking you’re mad at them. In fact, I’ve thought the same thing about other women at church who didn’t speak to me. I assumed they were snobby or cliquish or that I had done something to offend them. And when this happens, relationships can deteriorate rather quickly. You stop speaking to them, and then they wonder why you’re being weird so they stop speaking to you, and the next thing you know there’s an unspoken rift between the two of you for no reason at all!

For awhile I was frustrated with myself since I’m not a naturally extroverted person, and I frequently found myself in these socially awkward situations. There are some women who are easily outgoing and always seem excited to see everyone. I wish I was one of them. But it is not my nature to run up and squeeze everyone I see. I am often guarded or insecure, which causes me to wait for the other person to initiate friendliness, especially when I don’t know them well. This insecurity has not only inhibited me in my ministry, but in my Christian fellowship as well.

So the question is whether or not I have to be just like those cute and chipper girls I see at church every week. Do I really have to be “on” all the time? Is that what God requires of me? Not necessarily. Some people are inherently extroverted but others are not, so we are not called to be someone that God did not create us to be.

However, what often holds me back is not my introverted nature, but my fears and my guardedness. I am unwilling to put myself out there because of my pride. I don’t want to be rejected, and I want people to acknowledge me first. I don’t want to look or feel stupid, so I opt to be prideful instead of hospitable.

What is the solution to this problem? I believe it is found in the story of the Prodigal Son. I only made this connection after recently hearing a song that recapped this classic Scriptural tale, but with a fresh perspective.In particular, it highlights the viewpoint of the father, a viewpoint I’d never before considered. The lyrics describe a father who deeply misses his son, but who also prays for the strength to take his son back if he ever returns.

The idea that the father might have needed strength to reconcile with his son had never dawned on me before. In all my readings of the Prodigal Son, I had just assumed the father missed his son so much that nothing else mattered–it didn’t matter that the son had spurned his father’s love, taken his inheritance, squandered it on hedonistic pursuits and brought shame to his family’s name–I assumed that the father shrugged it off and never looked back.

Yet this blind love is not likely the response that most parents would have. Some parents would be tempted to turn their backs on such a rebellious child. Less harsh parents may take their child back, yet still struggle greatly with the pain of being rejected by a child they had raised and cared for. Not even God Himself takes rejection lightly. When we bring shame upon His name, it stirs up His wrath and He desires to vindicate Himself.

With all of that in mind, the story of the Prodigal Son is more than a story of blind love–it is about a kind of love that swallows its pride, humbles itself, perseveres through rejection and loves anyway. It is a foolish kind of love–after all, the father had been burned once, so how did he know he wouldn’t be burned again? How did he know the Prodigal Son wouldn’t betray his trust once more? He didn’t, but he loved his son anyway and welcomed him with open arms. Such a love would almost seem foolish and naive, yet that is the love he bestows.

What, then, does this story have to do with female friendships? Well it is the love of the father, the love that has been shown to you and me, that empowers me to overcome my insecurities and my hesitancies, and to love radically, even foolishly, like the father of the Prodigal Son. Even when I walk up to a group of college girls who look at me like I am the biggest goober in the world, the story of God’s seemingly foolish, self-sacrificing love gives me the strength to stand there and smile. Sometimes I feel like a total idiot, but I suppose it is nothing compared to what Christ felt on the cross, knowing full well that while his love would change the world, we would still continue to betray him. Christ was a fool for us, which is why Paul tells us to be a “fool for Christ,” (1 Cor. 4:10) and it is comforting to know that even when my ministry leads me to feel like a socially awkward weirdo, all for the sake of love, I am in good company.

In women’s ministry there is a great temptation to which many ministers, including myself, fall prey. Because so many women need healing and freedom from bondage, ministers spend a lot of time empowering women with the truth of their salvation. And there is a danger here.

When a person spends all their time focusing on the problems of the self–self-image, self-esteem, etc.–this focus will inevitably shape the way you see the world. By talking about these issues incessantly, the “self” will become the center of your entire outlook in life. You are, in a sense, training your brain to think only about one thing, and if your conception of reality is dominated by one theme alone, that theme will eventually become the center of your entire world view.

That being said, the trap of women’s ministry is self-centeredness. In the quest to free ourselves, we often ensnare ourselves all the more. And this is not merely a trend in women’s ministry alone. A popular Christian preacher recently released his second book about getting a “better you,” and it was essentially secular self-help wisdom clothed in Christian jargon.

Yes, many people need healing, but not for the sake of our own personal happiness. We need healing so that we can stop obsessing over ourselves and instead be blessedly free to think about and worship God. Low self-esteem deters us from this end because we cannot stop thinking about our own lives and what we wish was different or better. Healthy self-esteem frees us from such thoughts so that we can instead focus on God.

With all of that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone, myself again included, that there is a world outside of ourselves. I get so caught up thinking about my problems and pains, which boy likes me, how I look in such and such outfit, and on and on, that I forget there are other people in this world who are suffering. Just turn on the news–peaceful demonstrators are being slaughtered in Myanmar, innocent Iraqis are killed by car bombings every day, children are enslaved in sex trafficking all over the world, and the list goes on….

A couple years ago I read about a pastor in China who had been imprisoned about a dozen times for preaching the Gospel. During his most recent imprisonment he was placed in a labor camp where he was forced to put light bulbs on strings of Christmas lights. If he did not fulfill his daily quota, he would be brutally punished, if not tortured. And the kicker of the story? These Christmas lights were to be sold in the United States. I may have even hung them on my house.

Yet I’m not thinking about that pastor at Christmas time. I am instead thinking about all the presents I have to buy, or how annoying it is to go to the mall. When I wait in line at Target and get frustrated by the person who brought 11 items into the “10 Items or Less” express lane, I don’t think about the daily fear that our Iraqi sisters endure when they make simple trip to buy groceries. And as I relax in my air conditioned house worrying about all that I have to do that day, I don’t think about how blessed I am to have AC and clean, running water when others do not have such luxuries.

This is not about guilt–this is about right perspective. We need to constantly be correcting our brains so that our view of the world does not become dominated by the “self” alone, because such a perspective not only excludes others, but also excludes God. It is therefore important to stay aware of what’s going on in the world around us. Pick up a newspaper, turn on the news, listen to NPR on the radio–do something to stay aware of what’s going on in the world. This is not merely about educating yourself or being well-rounded; it is about disciplining your mind to think about the world and God’s perspective on it. It is an exercise in taking the mind off of the self. It is also a means for maintaining a correct perspective of the world–namely, that you are not the center of it.

Eve is a unique character in the Bible. She is unique in that she is frequently referenced as a prototype for ALL women. The rest of the women in the Bible are used to highlight certain attributes of women (with the exception of the Proverbs 31 woman, perhaps), but Eve embodies them all. She is the source of all womanhood, so Scripture and Church tradition alike have looked to her as a model for what women should, and should not, do. For this reason, Christian women throughout the Church’s history have looked at Eve for direction and identity. She was the first woman, and is therefore the definitive woman.

With all of that in mind, I was deeply dismayed when I came to a startling realization: Eve was never single. Eve was the prototype for all women who followed her, yet her life was defined by only two key phases: marriage and motherhood. She was created into marriage, therefore by-passing singleness, so the only way we ever really talk about Eve is in relation to Adam. In fact, her first sin was in being independent from Adam.

So if Eve is the definitive woman, and her entire life is articulated in light of her relationship to Adam, how are we single gals to relate? Does this mean we are only fully women once we get married and start having babies? Surely that can’t be true since God does not ordain that all women get married. That being said, what does Eve’s life have to say about singleness? How are we to understand Eve’s life in a way that embodies ALL women, no matter their stage in life?

The answer to this question can be found by shifting the way in which we look at Eve’s life. Instead of dividing her life into the two stages of marriage and motherhood, we must divide her life between the stages of obedience and disobedience, faithfulness and unfaithfulness, Paradise and Fallenness. There was the period of time in which she lived in perfect bliss with Adam, and the time in which she lived in sin outside the Garden. It is these two stages, rather than marriage and motherhood, that are the most important stages in Eve’s life, and the two stages that we women need to note.

Why is such a shift in perspective necesssary? Because communion with God will always and forever be more important than marriage and motherhood. Marriage and motherhood are gifts, as well as a means for serving God, but they do not make us who we are. God alone determines that. Our identity as women comes first and foremost from our relationship with God, not a husband or any other man, and that is the bridge with which all women can connect with Eve.

With that in mind, Eve is the definitive woman in that her life illustrates two types of womanhood: a woman in pursuit of God, or a woman in disobedience to God. In the Garden of Eden, Eve’s happiness was primarily connected to her relationship with God. After the Fall, her unhappiness was a direct result of her alienation from God. In a sense, Adam’s presence was merely circumstantial. Yes, the way in which she related to Adam was a way of honoring God, but ultimately it was all about God, Adam or not.

This, then, is what women are to learn from Eve: No matter where you are in life, single, or married, your primary concern is God. Ultimately, nothing else defines you as a woman except your discipleship. You are the fullest embodiment of a woman when you are submitting yourself to God in all that you do. You will also be most content when you are obedient to Him. We see what this kind of womanhood looks like in the Garden, and we see what fallen womanhood looks like after the Garden. And in addition to that, we are reminded that there is a danger in defining yourself any other way. If you think Christ-centered womanhood only comes with marriage and motherhood, then you commit the same sin as Eve: finding your identity in something other than God.

Thus Eve’s life is a reminder to us all, regardless of where we are in life. It is comforting for us singles, reassuring us that we are just as much women as anyone else, but it is also a form of accountability for wives and mothers, for whom it is easy to get swept up in the commitments of those roles. Neither singleness, marriage or motherhood make us women. God alone can make us into the women He created us to be, so it is a waste to seek for our identities in anything else.

If you ever come to my house, you will see pictures everywhere. I take pictures at every significant occasion in my life, and then I put them all over my room, living room, bathroom, kitchen, hallway, etc. Interestingly, I hate scrapbooking. Not only because of the effort involved, but also because you have to go out of your way to look at them. Instead, I like to be reminded of those happy times every time I walk around my house.

And apparently I’m not alone in this. Couples pay photographers insane amounts of money to capture the *perfect* shots of their wedding day, shots that make them look the most in love and the most romantic…like something you might see in an ad for diamonds. In addition to the wedding photo industry, photo shops make a nice living by photographing children at every landmark event possible–6 months old, one year old, first Christmas, first Easter, first tooth, first day of school, and on and on. Those same shops can also put those pictures on every item imaginable–mugs, ties, Christmas ornaments, t-shirts, etc. And let’s not forget all those cute costumes in which we can photograph our kiddos. Most recently I saw a picture of a baby dressed like a pod of peas. Adorable.

Now obviously I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pictures. They are a great way to remember our favorite times in life. However, as I stood in the mall looking through the glass at that baby who’d been sqeezed into a green pea pod, I began to wonder if we’ve taken things too far. Why is it that we are obsessed with taking the *perfect* shot? Couples don’t just take one picture when they get engaged, they take TONS–”This is Bobby down on one knee. This is Susie kissing Bobby on the cheek. This is the ring. This is the ring next to a flower. This is the ring with a sunset in the background. This is Bobby and Susie staring into one anothers’ eyes. This is Bobby and Susie looking pensively into the distance…” And parents don’t just take one picture of their baby, they take TONS–”This is Emma in a pink dress. This is Emma in a field of flowers. This is Emma with a pile of teddy bears. This is Emma dressed like a sunflower. This is Emma lying on a bed of feathers….” Seriously, does anyone else find this a little weird?

Speaking from my own motives, this trend partially stems from vanity. It’s nice to see yourself or your family looking nice and put together, dressed well and smiling as if life is perfect. However, what strikes me about this trend is that it is somewhat inauthentic. Many of these pictures don’t reflect the lives we have, the lives we lead every day.

You see, there are two kinds of pictures–”real life” pictures and “fake life” pictures. There are some pictures that authentically reflect your life and what is going on at the time. These are pictures that you take in the moment. They don’t involve moving heaven and earth to take them, and you don’t take 10 rolls to get the perfect one. You just snap a photo and get what you get. Then there are “fake life” pictures. I think the pea pod picture is a good example. As a general rule, babies don’t wear pea pods. Nor are they normally that clean, or that happy. Those pictures therefore capture a staged moment, not a real life moment. A “fake life” moment.

In the last couple days I’ve found myself thinking a lot about these “fake life” pictures. Why do we take them? What image are we trying to achieve with the perfect wedding-dance-dip pose or the baby dressed like a bumble bee?

In all honesty, I think these pictures reflect the kind of life we desire, but don’t have. We see those magazine ads of the flawless brides or the giggling babies and we think, “That is the life I am supposed to have,” and so we mimic it. We take pictures that look just like perfume advertisments or diaper commercials. We imitate the lifestyle that marketers are selling us. And in so doing, we buy the lie that our lives aren’t pretty enough, clean enough, picture-perfect enough.

Now the moral of this blog is not that pictures of babies dressed like bunnies or tulips are inherently evil. Nor is it wrong to want that perfect shot on those special occasions. But, the prevalence of this trend is one of many symptoms that indicate how greatly we’ve been influenced by our culture. Commercials are designed to make you feel dissatisfied with your life and instead strive for the life they are selling you. We must therefore be on guard as to how much we’re buying it.

Let us not forget the beauty that God has written into the less glamorous parts of our lives. Maybe your baby just pooped all over creation, but that just means you have a healthy child whose body is doing what it’s supposed to to help your baby grow, and that is a cause for rejoicing! And maybe you and your husband got into an argument, but that is also an opportunity to be humbled, to learn more about your husband, and to forgive, so it is also a cause for rejoicing. If we only seek to remember the picture perfect moments, the photos that capture the kind of life we want, as opposed to the one we actually have, then we miss out on the opportunity to rejoice in God every day. The solution is not to stop taking cutesy pictures, but to start enjoying God even now. My dog just threw up all over the carpet, and I probably won’t take a picture of it, but I’m still pretty glad that God created her, and that, too, is a cause for rejoicing.

(I’m taking a brief break from my “Mark of the Church” series to write about something that has been on my mind lately…)

Don’t worry, what follows is not a scathing diatribe about the evils of Christian sororities. Christian sororities are just fine. Instead, the title of this post is an analogy for what, I believe, our fellowships and churches have often become.

The other day I was thinking about the way in which campus ministries are often distinguished from one another–you’ve got the fellowship with all the good-looking social people, the fellowship with the students who like to party a little harder than the other Christians, the fellowship with the athletes, the fellowship with the nerdy kids in it (and don’t think I’m hatin–I was/am a nerd!), and then there are the fellowships distinguished by race or ethnicity. You have the fellowships that are largely composed of Black students, Asian students, etc. Every person has her niche, so she attends the fellowship of people who are most like her.

What concerns me about this trend is that the same pattern is observable in sororities. You have the sorority with the pretty girls, the party girls, the more down-to-earth girls. You have historically black sororities and you have sororities that are largely hispanic. You also have sororities for the less social girls, the girls who like to study, or the girls who simply couldn’t get into any of the sororities.

Christians fellowships are strikingly similar to the sorority system in this way, and to some extent this is normal. We obviously can’t be best friends with everyone, so it’s normal to gravitate towards those people who share similar interests. However, the distinctions between these fellowships do not always come about in a healthy way.

In particular, there are some fellowships that draw the people who simply weren’t accepted by the other ministries…a trend that makes since in the darwinistic Greek system, but shouldn’t necessarily be taking place in the Christian world. Surely there shouldn’t be such a category as “Christian rejects,” should there?

Yet listening to some students recount their search for a fellowship sounds just like the story of a freshman in the sorority bid process. It usually goes something like this: “I went to the fellowship a lot my first semester, but no one really seemed interested in talking to me. I would try to engage people in conversation, or find friends to hang out with, but no one ever called. It felt like a clique that I couldn’t get into, so I finally just left.”

In hearing these stories, I can usually tell right away why each student had so much trouble engaging those ministries–it was because they weren’t wearing Rainbow flip-flops, or they were a little overweight, or they had acne, or they didn’t shop at the right stores. There was something about them that didn’t fit the mold, so they weren’t allowed to fit in at all.

So over the past week I have been pondering why Christian fellowships mirror sororities so closely in this way, and I think it’s because they ultimately serve the same purpose: they’re both a social outlet. A lot of Christians join particular fellowships based upon the social life it can provide them. Where are you most likely to meet cute guys? Who has the coolest parties each semester?

And while it’s ok to have these thoughts from time to time (after all, there’s nothing inherently evil about attractive men or fun social events) but your motives become distorted when your thinking ends there. Is your social life the MAIN reason you’re there? Are you using Christ to mask your real reasons for involvement?

The answer to this question can usually be revealed by the mindset you’re in at your large group meetings. Are you mostly there to socialize, or are you there to serve, to keep your eyes peeled for new people and make sure they feel welcome? Contrary to popular belief, serving and welcoming is not the job of the ministry leaders alone–that is your job as a *Christian.*

The primary reason you should be involved in a fellowship or church is not because it’s a great social outlet, but because it is a means for serving God’s Kingdom more effectively. You need to be active and intentional about using your fellowship as a vehicle for pursuing God harder and better than you were before. This doesn’t mean that you should only be friends with people who are different than you, but at the very least, it means that no one should EVER come to your ministry and feel unwelcome. Regardless of the natural distinctions that cause sororities to be so different, all Christians have one thing in common that surpasses any superficial differences, and that is Christ. If for no other reason than that, the make-up of our communities should look somewhat different from secular groups.

So if you think it over and realize that you are in a “Christian sorority” (figuratively speaking), then you have two options: One, change it. Take responsibility for the problem–just because you’re not a leader doesn’t mean you don’t have a call as a Christian to welcome people and serve. A church or fellowship should be God-focused and others-focused before being self-focused, so set an example to others by living your life that way. Hopefully the people around you will be encouraged to do the same.

Your second option is to get out. Any fellowship or church that is that exclusive does more harm than good, because it’s basically using Christ’s name for an agenda that is not Christ. So if you think there’s no chance of it ever changing, then there’s no reason to stick around that kind of temptation. It will likely suck you in to thinking it’s ok, and you’ll end up justifying the behavior rather than seeing it for the exclusivity that it is.

Christ’s death and resurrection was a radical act of love that we are now free to share with others. It has freed us from the rat race that is popularity contests and cliques. So while it’s ok to have fun with people who have similar personalities and interests, building a community based on those commonalities alone will not reflect the whole truth that’s been earned for us at the cross. We are free from superficial distinctions, and the world needs to see that. It will never see Christ in us if we look more like the Greek system than God’s Church.

Looking back on my chiildhood, there are only a handful of incidents that really stick out in my memory, or are seared into my brain. Let me tell you about one of them…

It happened one Sunday morning in church. My brother and I were trailing behind my dad as we scanned the pews for empty seats, and my eye caught a glimmer of the silver Communion trays sitting at the front of the church. Every time my church observed Communion, they set up a long table at the front of the sanctuary that served as a kind of focal point for worship. In doing so, the members of the congregation knew it was coming and were therefore able to prepare their hearts for it. At my young age, however, the presence of the Communion table meant only one thing: freshmade bread and grape juice! And this was the exact sentiment that I expressed upon noticing the table. I exclaimed, “Oh good, we get to eat! I am sooo hungry!”

Yes, I was a reverent little child.

Well as soon as this thought escaped my lips, my dad did something I will never forget (though he claims my memory has greatly exaggerated the scenario). He stopped dead in his tracks, wheeled around, grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and then spoke to me in a voice that chilled my bones: “Don’t you EVER talk about Communion that way again! Do you hear me?”

I think I mustered up a slight nod, so he stood up, turned around, and kept walking. I, however, was left feeling slightly dumbfounded, and more than a little scared. But, it was at that moment that I realized there was something special about Communion, something I’d never realized before. And obviously I never forgot it, though it took me a long time before I fully understood it.

Fast forward to college. When I was in undergrad I was extremely involved with my campus fellowship, leading in almost every capacity. And as a result of my involvement, I thought of that community as my church. Yes, I went to church Sunday mornings, but that was the extent of my participation there. My para-church was my real church, and I didn’t really see the difference between the two. Apparently I still had a lot to learn from my dad’s words.

This all leads me to the third mark of the church that we find in Acts 2: Communion (or Eucharist, depending on your tradition). Acts describes the Early Church as engaging in “the breaking of bread,” but this doesn’t refer to the act of merely dining together. Instead it is a direct reference to the partaking of bread and wine in remembrance of Christ. This act is not only a key mark of the Church, but it is also something that distinguishes it from para-churches, who generally do not practice Communion together.

Now as a college student, I didn’t really understand the importance of Communion. Sure, I thought it was a great practice, but a key marker of the Church? Not really. So of course I was shocked when I came to seminary and learned that throughout the Church’s History, theologian after theologian, and preacher after preacher, had all named Communion as one of THE main distinctives of the Church. Clearly they knew something that I didn’t. So what’s the big deal?

Well for starters, this practice comes from the last command that Jesus gave us before he died. Given that the last thing a person says before they die is probably going to be the most important, we can assume this command is top priority. But why was it so important to Jesus? What was it about this practice that he found so crucial?

The answer is fairly simple, an answer that should begin to sound pretty familiar since it is virtually the same as the other marks of the Church: It centers our identity on Christ. In practicing Communion we come together to profess the source of our unity and the foundation of our identity, which is Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Our unity is not in our denomination, our prefered style of worship, our Calvinism, or our passion for social justice. None of those things define us as a body. It is Christ alone that distinguishes us and sets us apart.

In this way, Communion not only serves as a reminder of why we live and what we are about, but it is a kind of community glue. We may have disagreements with one another over petty differences, but when we come together to the Lord’s Table we are reminded that there is a unity that is stronger than our divisions. If we can still profess faith in Christ alone, together, then that profession is what defines us and unites us.

And as I said, this mark of the Church is one of the key distinctions between the Church and the para-church. There are other distinctions, but Communion is perhaps the most pressing. If you are not involved in a body of believers that *frequently* practices Communion together, then that is cause for concern, not only because it is a primary way in which we acknowledge our faith and unity with one another, but because Jesus commanded it. There is no doubt that Jesus meant this to be a central mark of His Body, so we cannot profess faith in him and then ignore his teaching on this. The practice of Communion is a tangible, public way of professing your faith, as well as acknowledging the reason for your unity with Christ’s body, and that right there is why it is such an important pillar of the Church’s identity.

For the last 8 years of my life, I have been involved in a Baptist church. I was actually raised Presbyterian, but I somehow wound up in the Baptist church, and over the years I have learned a lot about Baptists that I never knew before. One thing in particular that I have learned is that they NEVER gather together without food. Potluck dinners, barbecues, dessert parties–these have all served as the central component of fellowship events that I’ve attended with other Baptists. We like to eat, and we like to eat together.

Well this brings me to the next mark of the Church that we find in Acts 2:42-47–Fellowship. For a lot of Christians, the word “fellowship” means fun time with friends, or gatherings and get togethers with other Christians. For Baptists, it often means homemade food, and lots of it! And while that is a component of fellowship, it is not what makes fellowship a central mark of the Church.

True Christian fellowship, fellowship that builds up the Church and defines its basic character, is not simply friendship between Christians. True Christian fellowship occurs when Christ is *actively* placed at the center of a friendship, group of people, event, or time together. Just because a bunch of Christians hang out together does not mean fellowship is occuring. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. The people who have pulled me down the most in my life have often been other Christians, because I trusted their judgment more and didn’t challenge them when they made poor decisions. Christ was anything BUT the center of our interactions.

You can see this phenomenon of mutual tearing-down play out in a variety of ways. I remember one time when I hung out at a guy friend’s apartment, and when I walked through the door I saw that a group of my friends were watching an R rated movie that had an explicit sex scene in it. The situation was very uncomfortable for me because all the guys were watching the sex scene transpire, yet none of them were objecting to it. If one person had just stood up and said something, the guys would have probably flipped it off immediately, but no one did. So they all watched it together, and they all pulled one another down with their passivity.

Other examples of this non-fellowshipping fellowship include the music we listen to together, how much we drink together (I know a LOT of Christians who push the limits of sobriety in the name of Christian liberty), the way we dance together (fyi, it’s not cool to grind up on a guy no matter where you are or how godly he is!), the way we gossip with one another, and so on. In all of these situations, we are by no means fellowshipping with one another, because we have placed some other idol at the center of the relationship, rather than Christ.

With all of that in mind, true fellowship requires a great degree of intention–you can’t just approach it passively. You cannot assume that because you’re all Christians, your time together will be edifying. You have to *actively* place Christ at the center.

And that is the very definition of the Church. The Church, being the Body of Christ, derives its very identity from Christ. It does not exist apart from Christ. We can go in a building and sing songs and eat food, but if Christ is not the core of it, then that is not the Church. In this way, fellowship is a mark of the Church because it describes a group of Christians who are coming together, actively acknolwedging the source of their identity and their relationship with one another–Jesus Christ.

So take a look at your friendships, and ask yourself what is at the center of them. What kinds of things do you talk about on a regular basis? No, you don’t always have to be discussing theological abstractions and spiritual insights, but if you can’t remember the last time you asked one of your friends how they’re doing spiritually, then that’s a problem. If Christ is truly at the center of our lives, then he should always be on the tips of our tongues, an easy source of conversation and thought. We all need fellowship, but it does not come naturally no matter how many Christians you hang around. We need to work together. That work is fellowship.