perhaps unoriginal, but hopefully still noteworthy.

First ever blog post! =) yay!

Well this is about something which I'm sure we've all noticed/thought of/tried to do something about, but I think it's rather important, and I have definitely been a little lax of late myself regarding this.

The point in question here is an aspect of fellowship.

DC said this a few nights ago, at Sherman's house after the NTE talk, and it wouldn't be a new thought to most of us - that we throw the term 'fellowship' around very loosely.

We use it to describe, and sometimes maybe even justify, basically anything we do together, whether it be a meal, a movie, sport, or just hanging out in general.

Of course all of these are great - we're having fun, building up friendships, etc.

I don't think anyone would suggest that we stop doing any of these things.

But there is one thing that I certainly tend to forget,

that at the heart of all Christian fellowship is God.

Perhaps the word forget is a little strong here, and overlook might be more accurate.

When we meet outside of church, (e.g. crashing Seb's house... heh)

How often do we stop and thank God that we are able to be there?

How often do we pray to Him together before/during/after?

Personally, I think that I'm falling down rather badly here.

When we're at church, there is the constant reminder of the presence of God.

But elsewhere, I struggle a lot to keep Him in my thoughts all the time. It's just so easy to get carried away in the things of this world, to accidentally lose our focus.

But God is our God at all times and in all places.

Whether our activity is Bible study or soccer, whether it's Mawson outreach or watching a movie,

surely acknowledging Him, keeping Him in mind, giving thanks and praying are equally important for each.

For Christians, fellowship gives us the opportunity to build each other up in our faith, to reaffirm and strengthen each other in Christ.

Well that's about all I can think of at the moment... zzzzzzzz...

The main reason I wanted to write this was just to get us thinking a bit, and so that there is one more mention of it than there was before =)

At the (free) talk the other night, there was something about people not being able to recall everything they hear, but remembering best the things which are brought up most often.

Also, it's holidays!! Which means we will probably have a lot more time to spend in various forms of fellowship! =]

So perhaps this could be a little challenge for this long holiday - to always keep God right at the heart of our fellowship.

As Sherman said last week: Emmanuel - God is with us.

p.s. I just found this, and started reading through it, it seems pretty good, although a lot of it we would have already heard in sermons - http://bible.org/article/christian-fellowship

the old saying might apply here - patience is a virtue. ><>