As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
As this year began I started a series on spiritual growth, which I called “On Building Spiritual Muscle.” The series focused on the key spiritual exercises that the Bible prescribes for spiritual health, exercises that Christians have generally called “the means of grace”: Scripture, prayer, and fellowship. The next series, “On Devotions,” focused on the first two of those means of grace, and particularly on our private practice of them.
“Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of a growing cooperation of churches in China that faces lower-level persecution. By ‘lower-level’ persecution, I mean that the authorities have…relaxed their hold on churches in comparison to a previous era.” - 9 Marks
“I’d like to try and bring light rather than heat to the question of cooperation between churches in these polarized times. How do we decide when and to what extent to cooperate with churches that are more or less like-minded?” - 9 Marks
“The Internet leads to ‘context collapse.’ It places into a space that is intrinsically faceless and lacks geographic borders. That space generalizes language and thought, ignores the very real differences between people and places, and pushes us toward highly generic ways of speaking and thinking.” - 9 Marks
“Fellowship is…the gathering of God’s people for the task of provoking each other to good works (Heb 10:24). If we miss this point, however, we too often reduce fellowship to a self-centered focus. That’s lonely.” - Chuck Lawless
“While the reasons for the above breaks in fellowship vary, what is common among them is a mutual love and respect for the other, even after the separation occurs. Let this instruct us as Christians today who are often trigger happy to assign blame, take sides, and form coalitions against one another.” - P&D
“… the members know one another. … I know every member. I’ve learned where he grew up, her vocation, his joys and sorrows, which of her kids has wandered from the Lord. So when we break for a time of fellowship, we’re actually having fellowship.” - TGC
“I’m a thirty-year-old assistant pastor, so why did I become an FBFI member? Several factors persuaded me to become a member.” - P&D
“We enjoyed tremendous services and other sessions at our recent annual meeting….You can find audio and video for our sessions here (not all sessions recorded in video). One of our afternoon panel discussions featured a worthy question for our panelists, ‘Why join the FBFI?’” - P&D
Discussion