By Bobby Coverston

I have always struggled with some of the terms we throw around in the church. Terms like “fellowship,, “member,” and “spiritual family.”  I struggle with them because they imply commitment that makes me a little uncomfortable. But I also struggle with them because of what I have seen the church do with these terms. They became marketing terms. We even market specific rooms as “fellowship halls.”  I grew up having bad pot luck meals in the “fellowship hall” that had ugly cracked tile floors that they tried to use for youth game nights and smelled like a dirty mop mixed with sulfur. I cringe a little at the thought of that being the picture of “fellowship.” Even beyond that, events, picnics, retreats and services all get marketed with “fellowship” being one of the incentivizing takeaways. No wonder we have a raging consumer mentality problem in the church. We reap what we sow!

I’ll never forget when Derek Webb came to our church and performed one song. When asked about his music, Webb said, “If you place the word Christian on anything other than a human, it’s marketing.”  My heart leapt in my chest when he said that and I nearly jumped out of my seat and shouted, “YES, thank you! You are validating the tension I have felt for a long time.” Christian music, Christian radio, Christian books, Christian TV, Christian schools, Christian retreat centers, Christian campgrounds, Christian conferences. What’s next? Christian cars, Christian food, Christian appliances? 

Now before you write me off as a heretic that doesn’t believe in anything Christian, hold on. I understand that many of these things are pointing to the human element that drives these entities and organizations, but we as believers often give these entities and organizations more credit and validity because of their marketing as, you guessed it, Christian. 

Rick Warren’s reading on this day stirred up and drove home many of the feelings that I have about this idea of fellowship and belonging moving from marketing to relationship. Our identity as believers that belong to God’s big C church and the specific local church should never, ever be dictated or predicated on patronage. “Johnny attends the Christian college, and listens to Christian music on the Christian radio station and buys Christian things from stores that claim to be Christian, therefore he is a believer that belongs to the body of Christ,” said no one, ever. 

The only thing on earth that can validate, strengthen, grow and foster our relationship with Christ is community. The only thing I need more than community is Christ. The two are intentionally, by God’s design, inseparable. 

Spiritual growth is most often measured by the scriptural depiction known as “the fruits of the spirit”.  Remember the Sunday school lesson? “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control.” We were taught that as kids, reminded often as adults, but we cannot validate those traits in isolation. 

I loved what Warren said: “We are called to love real people, not ideal people.” I need others to point out both my shortcomings, and my growth. I can’t declare “I am now humble!” and then expect the world to just accept it, especially if I am living as pridefully as that statement is. More specifically I need the church, with Christ at the head, and we as the body, to be the voice that calls me to change as well as validates the change Christ has done in me. And I need to lovingly be that voice for others. 

Let’s make Green Bay Community Church an active, vibrant, verb-not-marketing-noun of fellowship and belonging in our community that radically loves imperfect people like me and you into deeper relationship with Christ and each other.

Bobby Coverston is music pastor at Green Bay Community Church