The Power of Togetherness

 

We need people. There, I said it. It seems like that truth has been the elephant in the room for the last couple of years! One of the things that we just simply have forgotten about in our fast-paced society is that we need other people, not just for help in times of trouble, but for companionship, for fellowship, and for encouragement.

If you look back throughout our history, all the great social movements have begun with people engaging with other people. Whether it’s a movement of God throughout the culture or a civil movement to expose injustice, it requires people coming together in unity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., minister and leader of the civil rights movement brilliantly noted that, "There is power in numbers and there is power in unity." The writer of Ecclesiastes puts is like this, “threefold cord is not quickly broken”; meaning that the three strands that make up a rope, add to its strength.

One of the biggest lies that Satan has convinced people of today is that we are self-sufficient, that we don’t need other people, and that we can handle life on our own. Our culture has so adapted to this kind of mindset that it almost seems normal. During the pandemic, we faced mandated separation from other people. There was good reason for that because we didn’t know exactly what we were facing with Covid. But there was an unintended result that came from our isolation time, the complacency of being alone. Just think of the things that have been geared toward helping us stay apart: curbside pickup, contactless delivery, livestream services, grocery pickup, online ordering, etc.; the list could go on and on! And don’t let all your internet platforms fool you, there’s nothing social in social media. All social media has done is to embolden millions of keyboard warriors who spew their hate and opinions over every little topic. We have created a world in which we literally would not have to interact with any person for substantial amounts of time. I recently renewed my driver’s license and I was able to do that online as well! (Thankfully they used the picture from my old license, which has far less gray hair.)

Being together is vital for our mental and physical health. There is research that dates all the way back to the 1970s that shows that people who have fewer social interactions, on average, die younger than people who are more socially active. Virginia Satir, a world-renowned family therapist, is famous for saying “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” According to those statistics, some people aren’t surviving so well!!

The early church knew the importance of being together. Acts 2:42 says that the early believers, “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The Greek word for “fellowship” is “koinōnia”, it gives the idea of participation in the common good of each other. The early believers had such a profound sense of togetherness and unity that they pooled their possessions together and used them to help other believers who were in need. The dominant characteristic of this early Christian fellowship was love for one another that is founded upon their love for Christ.

This is a characteristic that the church must be known for! Too often we stray away from the idea of fellowship because it seems that there is something more important to do. But being together is one of the things that made the early church so attractive to a lost world! This is a concept that we can’t afford to let slip away from us! If we lose our fellowship, we lose our identity. We must be quick to protect and defend our fellowship or we will wind up being an easy target for the enemy to prey upon.

        What does it look like for different families within the church to eat together, to worship together, and to do life together? It looks like family, and that’s who God has called us to be.