Now to new and wonderful trials, that make me weak, but strong in Him.

My prayer is that you will see the Light through what Chip is saying. And it really is true…once you ONLY have Jesus, Jesus will be all you need. While God is very mindful of us, and our human nature needs, He first and foremost wants our natural need for relationships to be centered on Him. When His need is met, then ours will be too.

Your SISTER-in-Christ,

Kris
(I’m going to have to start dotting the “i” in Kris with a heart or a flower or something! With much love to you Sharon.)

Thanks for sharing your comments. I understand your frustration. Although our primary goal is to address the spiritual needs of God’s people, we recognize the need for face-to-face interaction and we are working on ways to bring people together in the “real world”. This has been close to our heart now since our inception 13 years ago. So we are not insensitive to what you and many others like you are feeling. But God must be the one who does this; otherwise, we will go the way of so many groups, fellowships, and churches who just become yet another religious expression – meeting social needs, yes – but failing to meet God’s Need, serving no higher Kingdom purpose. I believe He wants more than another “home group” or fellowship. I’m willing to wait for what He wants and not push for my own agenda.

In the meantime, the best encouragement we can offer is that God desires to use periods of aloneness and isolation to draw you more deeply into Himself. I hope that doesn’t sound like a “pat answer” because I really believe it speaks to why it is so difficult for people to “find fellowship” once they have come out of Organized Religion. They can’t find it because God doesn’t want them to have it. We went through the same thing. We learned that He wants us for Himself for awhile, to learn the things one cannot learn in a crowd of like-minded but spiritually immature churchgoers. He wants your desire for fellowship to be centered on Him, first and foremost. I do believe once this is established there is a natural desire to seek out others, but not for the meeting of our own needs; we seek them in order to serve, love, care for, help, and share Life with them. But this takes WORK. It is HARD. It is not passively sitting together in someone’s living room sipping a glass of tea. This is quite different from the old Sunday-morning-religion habit; it is a learning to BE what the Body of Christ is supposed to be, and that goes beyond “mere” fellowship towards a higher calling. Although I realize many are content with “mere” fellowship and would be tickled to have it regularly, I am not satisfied with anything less than God’s Full Thought, His Full Purpose, concerning our gathering together. But I am convinced that we will get there, He will have what He wants, and we will all benefit from doing it His Way, in His time.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this but this audio teaching may be helpful:
http://theschoolofchrist.org/listen/the-spiritual-desert.html

You can order it from this page, or if you can’t afford it, email me your mailing address to info@TheSchoolOfChrist.Org and I’ll send it to you as a gift.

I can’t speak for Chip, but my personal opinion is that he has never discouraged gathering, fellowship, etc. As with almost anything, (for our own good); there’s an appropriate way to accomplish what we seek, and then there’s a way that defeats the purpose and proves to be not at all beneficial for us. (This is not meant at all in a legalistic sense.) And I feel that is what Chip stresses. As for myself, I’ve been involved in mega churches, small churches, life groups, and in no church at all. It wasn’t until I was committed ONLY to the Lord that I could embrace my solitude. It’s funny how you can be in a room full of hundreds of people and still feel abandoned, but yet one quiet moment with the Lord can dispel the loneliness of the world. It’s difficult at best to comprehend. Beyond me just sharing my own personal experiences, I want to tell you that I feel your pain through your post. I hear you crying out and my heart aches for you. My prayers are lifted up to the One who sees your tears and knows your loneliness. With much love to you Sharon.