Biblical Fellowship and the Importance of Sunday School

For believers the word “fellowship” often conjures up images and memories of pot-luck meals or maybe the church softball team. Hanging out with other believers and sharing a meal together is fun, but it often falls short of true biblical fellowship. The intentionality that is necessary for true biblical fellowship to take place is most often lacking.

The kind of biblical fellowship envisioned in Scripture will involve the sharing of our lives. Take Hebrews 3:12-13 for example: Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. It’s clear that this kind of “care” and exhorting of one another cannot take place unless you are with other believers. That’s why you should not forsake church attendance (Hebrews 10:24-25). But it’s also true that one can be present at a worship service and yet not be involved in the lives of other believers as we see taught in Scripture. It’s very possible to attend the worship service faithfully every Sunday and yet never feel connected to anyone.

Sunday School provides a more effective context for biblical fellowship to take place. In Sunday School our time is centered around the Word with a smaller group of people. There is time for questions to be asked about the Word and its implications for our lives. Prayer requests are offered which allow us to see how others are seeking to endure in the midst of difficult trials and heavy burdens. Close relationships are often formed through such regular times together.Sunday

School is not the “fix-it” solution. It has holes. It only lasts an hour. Clicks and “holy-huddles” can unintentionally form. You might even come to Sunday School and feel lost in the discussion which may assume you know all the biblical lingo. Where there are sinners – even saved ones – there will always be potential shortcomings. Making disciples is not going to happen in an hour each week during Sunday School where the focus of the time is primarily on teaching – that’s going to happen in one-one or small-group discipleship settings.

Sunday School is still a great place to begin to engage in biblical fellowship. Believers need time where they can interact over the Word together – seeking to understand the meaning of Scripture and applying it to their lives. When this type of intentional interaction over the Word of God takes place, biblical fellowship will begin to take place.

Biblical fellowship continues outside of Sunday School. This means we have to be intentional about spending time with one another outside that one hour on Sunday morning. It means checking on the person who shared a heavy burden last Sunday during class. It entails inviting the new or reserved couple or single adult to lunch after church or to your home later in the week. Biblical fellowship will flourish when a class plans to be on mission together - ministering to others.

So, commit to a Sunday School class. If you are not attending Sunday School, start right away. Also, keep in mind, for six Sundays – October 4 thru November 8 –our regular adult Sunday School classes will take a 6-week break so that members can attend one of six topical classes being taught by some of FBC’s gifted teachers – see this link for a list of classes and to sign-up on-line http://www.fbcmtc.org/topical-classes.

A couple of reasons we are doing this:
1) To encourage more families to attend Sunday School. We are hoping that the classes being
offered will spark interest and lead to members being exposed to the value of attending a
Sunday School class on a regular basis once they resume later in November.
2) To integrate members with others they may not normally interact with. Since our
members will not be attending their regular class for those 6-weeks, it is our hope that they
will attend one of these short-term topical classes where they will learn about a specific topic
from God’s Word and also be able to meet and talk with folks they normally just see in
passing. We believe such interaction will strengthen our unity and love for one another.

In Christ,

Pastor Steve