Building Loving Relationships in Your Church Family

Our lives as Christians in this fallen world are a battle (Ephesians 6:10-20). The devil doesn’t want to see our churches thrive with loving relationships that are filled with godliness, grace, encouragement and forgiveness. He desires to see us torn apart, battling, and waging war against each other because if we’re so caught up in our own sinful issues our focus will not be on Christ. Sometimes it seems easier to sit at home and listen to our favorite online pastor or watch Sunday morning worship on our televisions. Church can be messy and difficult. Building relationships takes effort and sacrifice. We live in a self centered culture and sadly this has crept into our churches. God didn’t design us to be loners in our Christian walk (Hebrews 10:24-25) but desires us to be in a local body where “love and good deeds” can be lived out among family.

I have been blessed to be part of church body where love and good deeds has been lived out among the members. The Lord has and continues to teach me much about the importance of the fellowship of the saints and I wanted to share some of the areas I have been learning and continuing to grow in with you.

Do you look at those in your church and see them as your family? If you are in Christ then your brothers and sisters in the faith are your family. Sometimes because they are family we can treat them like our own immediate family members. We can hold a grudge because they said something we didn’t appreciate. We can judge them by their words or actions. We can speak poorly of them to others. We so often forget they – just like us – our sinners saved by grace who don’t always look or act like their heavenly Father but look and act more like their old selves before new life in Christ.

Caring for each other in the body of Christ is each of our responsibility. It isn’t just to be put on the church leadership. We are all responsible to see and the meet the needs of the body of Christ.

We are not only to meet their physical needs when we can but also to address when we see them falling into a sinful situations. We are to look out for each other’s spiritual needs. Do you see your fellow brother or sister being drawn into a false teaching? Warn them. Can you provide help for them when they are in financial need? Meet the need. Can you encourage them when they are going through a valley? Encourage and pray with them.

Fellowship of Believers 

There is so much in this text but I want to pull out what it looks like to have true Christian fellowship within our local churches. One of the first criteria I want to address is that Christian fellowship can only happen between people who are saved. This means those that have been born again, those that have repented and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. True Christian fellowship begins among believers who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (see The Gospel).

Devotion to the Lord’s People
The believers in the early church were devoted to one another, in verse 42 above the text reads literally, “They were continually devoting themselves to the fellowship.” We can’t devote ourselves to Christ (the Head of the body) without being devoted to the church (His body). It is too easy to become offended and cut ourselves off from fellowship. Hebrew 10:25 commands us not to forsake the assembly of the saints and verses like Colossians 3:13 encourage us to forgive each other and bear with one another.

Being Together

Fellowship cannot happen if you are not part of a local church. Even within our local bodies some of our congregations can be large and it may be hard to have close fellowships with other believers so we need to be intentional. We can only have deep fellowship if we are spending time with each other and getting involved in each others lives.

This may mean taking the time to attend small group bible studies or prayer meetings. It means being intentional in planning times to get together with those in your church body. Take the time to open your home to others and invite them for dinner or coffee. (see What is Biblical Hospitality?)

“We are all called to initiate involvement in each other’s lives… We covenant together to work and pray for unity, to walk together in love, to exercise care and watchfulness over each other, to faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require, to assemble together, to pray for each other, to rejoice and to bear with each other, and to pray for God’s help in all this.”~ Mark Dever

“Don’t just share your struggles, and above all, don’t just commiserate with one another. Remember, we are to be ministers of grace to each other. We are to seek to be avenues of the Holy Spirit to help the other person appropriate the grace of God. Praying with and for one another, sharing applicable portions of Scripture, and helping each other submit to God’s providential dealings with us, must characterize our times together.”~ Jerry Bridges