Leadership & Mentoring

1 John 1:1-10 Fellowship is a Christian buzz word, but what does it mean? I heard one definition: "Fellowship is fellows in the same ship on the sea of life." This is not a bad definition, because we usually fellowship with people who are going on the same journey we are. There is nothing sweeter than Christian fellowship. If we miss fellowship with those in the body of Christ, we are risking falling away from the faith. As we learned in Hebrews, we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. So often when people leave a Christian fellowship or church, they do not attach themselves to another. When asked where they are going to church now, too often the response is, "I'm having church at home now." If we cut ourselves off from the body of Christ, our Lord soon has nothing to direct in our lives. Jesus is the head of the body and if we detach ourselves from the body, we will be cut off from the wisdom and the mind of Christ. We will not be able to see how the body can function together under the headship of Jesus.

2 Timothy 2:1-21 It was 1996, and Atlanta was hosting the summer Olympics. Runners carried the Olympic torch from the West Coast to Atlanta. Different runners were chosen for the major cities to run several miles with the torch, and then it was passed to the next runner. Our neighborhood was excited because the runners were going to pass the torch just a couple of blocks from our neighborhood. We all turned out en masse to see this meaningful event. It was thrilling to see one runner hand the torch to another.

Proverbs 24:3-4 We have only built one house in our lifetime, and it was interesting to watch the structure being formed day by day. First, the foundation was laid carefully. Some of the plumbing even went into the foundation area before the cement was poured on top. Then the wood frame went up, and the rooms in the house were carefully measured and framed. Finally the roof trusses were placed, and the roof was laid. Perhaps you have never built a house to live in, but we all are building spiritual houses. This Proverbs reading talks about how we should build our spiritual house: "Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches."

Proverbs 14:1-2 This proverb says every wise woman builds her house, but the foolish plucks it down with her hands. The building blocks a woman uses to build her house are her words. Proverbs tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Every day a woman has the choice to build her house with her words or to tear her house down with her words.