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About Jesus Steve Sweetman My Journey Through The Ecclesiastical Maze Part - 12 Koinonia In my last chapter I
mentioned the Greek word “koinonia”.
Many people involved in the Charismatic Movement of the 1970’s
probably remember this word. When
thinking in terms of “koinonia” from a New Testament perspective,
the idea is to have fellowship with one another based on our common or
shared life in Jesus. The
word has several variations of usage in the New Testament, but all have
the underlying thought of people participating in each other’s lives
in one way or another. In Acts 2:44 Luke tells
us that “all the believers were together and had everything in
common”. The word
“common” is the Greek word “koinos”.
In Acts 4:32 Luke also says that in the first generation church
“no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they
shared everything they had”. The
word “shared” is the Greek word “koinos” as well.
As I understand these two verses, I see these Christians having
an openness to their lives. They
were willing to share, to give, to hold in common, and to participate in
each other’s lives, especially when it came to material possessions as
stated in Acts 4:32, even though they shared more important things than
their material possessions. They shared the abundance of spiritual
wealth found in Jesus. There were some obvious
exceptions to what these people shared, which provides a needed balance
to this thinking. For
example, Christian men didn’t share their wives.
Yet with some groups and cults in the 1970’s “koinonia”
included sharing of wives. The
“Children of God”, the cult now known as “the Family” was one
such group that shared wives. With
a defense of ignorance on our part, the “Children of God” entered In and around 1972 those
to whom I was joined in Jesus began listening to a four tape series by
Graham Pulkingham, an Episcopal Bible teacher and pastor of The fundamental reason
why task orientated churches exist is to perform certain tasks or
ministries, or adhere to certain teachings.
Pulkingham suggested that tasks or ministries shouldn’t be the
reason why Christian groups exist. He
also noted that the majority of North American churches are task
orientated. The other approach to
church that Pulkingham thought was New Testament based was
“relational”. He thought this
should be the reason for a church’s existence.
This is where “koinonia” comes in.
He taught that church should revolve around people properly
relating to each other in Christian community, with an openness to share
their lives with each other. Tasks,
or ministries are secondary to relationships and should evolve from
these relationships. As I
write these words, it has just occurred to me that Pulkingham’s
teaching pretty well explains what I call “functional
relationships”. In short, task orientated
churches exist to perform tasks or to adhere to certain doctrines.
Relational orientated churches exist to have close and sincere
fellowship with those in the church.
Pulkingham believed that
simply spending time with one another in what we might call
non-religious activity was important and fundamental to good Christian
relationships. As Jim Covert, a pastor friend of mine used to say, “we
need to waste time with one another”.
Although that phrase still bothers me a bit, I do understand what
he meant. It was simple.
Just spending time together, no matter how unreligious it may be, will
build relationships. So in the early 1970’s those to whom I was joined
began to walk the path of “koinonia”.
We wanted to be a community of Christians that valued each other
as we walked with Jesus and did what we felt He wanted us to do. If I had any concerns
with emphasizing the relational approach over the task approach it would
be the de-emphasis of tasks. Simply
wasting time together, and building relationships is not the end of the
matter. Productive activity
in the service of Jesus must be a product of “koinonia”.
In Matthew 28: 19 Jesus told the Twelve to “go and disciple all
nations”. My street level
paraphrase of Jesus’ words might be, “get out of here guys, and help
people to give their lives to me. Don’t
just sit around and entertain each other with your good looks and
talents. Do what I’ve
asked you to do ”. So as
relationships are being established, work is being done in the service
of our Lord. Once again,
this is “functional relationships”.
This is church. I think my friends and I
had a pretty good balance in the early 1970’s between relationships
and tasks. We did many things that were a pure product of our
relationships. I’ll talk
about some of these things later. I’ll
just mention one thing now. We
held a Wednesday night meeting for new and young Christians that
provided a place for worship and teaching. We squeezed, and I do mean
squeezed, sixty plus teens into a living-room.
I’d play my guitar while sitting on the floor and lead worship
with my friend Gerald Williams. We’d
get lost in the spirit of worship. One
worshipful song would seamlessly flow into the next.
It was a taste of Heaven in a living-room.
What I saw in the Tuesday night gathering in Talking about
“living-rooms” reminds me of what Emmy Lou Harris says on the Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band’s CD entitled “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”,
volume 2. She
says that in the making of records, things have gotten so technical and
precise that we’ve lost the “living-room experience” in music,
where it all began for her and most other musicians. What she meant was
that in the process of making records, with the technical precision,
with striving for excellence, and with the desire to make money,
musicians lost the joy and simplicity they once experienced in music as
they played and sang as friends in their living-rooms.
That strikes me as being exactly what happens to church life once
we professionalize it to make it marketable to the general public.
We lose the “living-room experience”
where many churches were born, and exchanged it for the
“ecclesiastical maze”. I’d
dare say that Jesus’ most important relationships while on earth were
“living-room relationships”. They
certainly weren’t “synagogue relationships”. That
should be true with us today.
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