Mere Fellowship
John Fischer

I’ve been enjoying many of your responses to the February 21 devotional about church at St. Arbucks. Terry from Austria wrote that on several occasions their group has made St. Arbucks “the site of their spiritual huddle.” Betty from Penang, Malaysia meets with three others at the local McDonald’s. “We even have our own favorite table. We bless the owners, the workers, and sometimes we even pray for certain customers when we feel lead.” So it doesn’t have to be St. Arbucks. St. Mac will do fine. Someone even wrote me about their coffee group they call HeBrews. And I already suggested St. Peets. See, there are lots of possibilities here!

My favorite story, however, is about the group that moved out of the home they had been meeting in for only a month and formed a St.Arbucks after passing around the devotional and discussing its ramifications. “If we can reach one person just by being a presence, then we have completed a mission,” one of them said. “So I would say to other groups, get out of that home and get into the public. Hide your light under a bushel? NO!”

All of this brings back memories for me of the Jesus movement of the early 1970s when we made sure our baptisms were in public places instead of in a church building or someone’s private pool. We wanted to make a statement, and from reading Acts, that seems to be what the early church would do. They merely found the nearest body of water and started baptizing. Because it was at the beach or a lake, we would always gather a crowd of the curious, and before each person went under, they would share their own story of how they became a Christian. Inevitably, strangers would come forward from the crowd and want to be saved right then and there, so we prayed for them and baptized them on the spot. All of this was accompanied by lots of joy and laughter, singing and an ample amount of wet hugs. (People who weren’t baptized got just as wet as those who were.)

Jesus said that the world would know we were His followers by how much we loved each other (John 13:35). Forgiveness, acceptance, grace and mercy are powerful forces that break down natural barriers and allow us to express our love for each other, and that _expression becomes visual, tangible.

Every Thursday night during the summer, we move our church outdoors to a grassy area on the beach. We set up a stage and do church—what we always do—praise, preach, pray. We just do it in public, and watch what happens. Sometimes our mere fellowship is our most powerful witness.

PDL