Day Nineteen: Cultivating Community Point: 1. Community requires commitment. 2. Only the Holy Spirit can create real fellowship between believers, but He cultivates it with the choices and commitments we make. 3. Cultivating community takes HONESTY, HUMILITY, COURTESY, CONFIDENTIALITY, and FREQUENCY. 4. When conflict is handled correctly, we grow closer to each other. 5. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less and thinking more of others. 6. The truth is, we all have quirks and annoying traits. But community has nothing to do with compatibility. The basis for our fellowship is our relationship to God. Members of various groups or class are urged to make a group convenant that includes the nine characteristics of biblical fellowship: Share your true feelings(authenticity), encourage each other(mutuality), support each other(sympathy), forgive each other(mercy), speak the truth in love(honesty), admit your weaknesses(humility), respect your differences(courtesy), not gossip(confidentiality), and make a group priority(frequency). This is obvious why genuine fellowship is so rare. It means giving up our self centeredness and independence in order to become interdependent. But the benefits of sharing life together far outweigh the costs, and it prepares us for Heaven. 1John 3:16, James 3:18 & Acts 2:42.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 08:14:06 +0000
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