Fellowship and Communion: What is the Connection?


Before we can Christ-centered meaningful relationships, we must understand that Christianity is two dimensional.

Christian fellowship is two-dimensional, and it has to be vertical before it can be horizontal. We must know the reality of fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ before we can know the reality of fellowship with each other in our common relationship to God (1 John 1:3). The person who is not in fellowship with the Father and the Son is no Christian at all, and so cannot share with Christians the realities of their fellowship.

And so every time we have it reminds us of the two dimensions of Christian Fellowship:

Communion reminds us of Christ’s death for our place. It calls us to put our sin to death in light of the fact that Jesus died for our sins and compels us to examine ourselves and repent of sin before partaking. It also shows the unity of God’s people around the person and work of Jesus and the anticipation of the marriage supper of the Lamb when his kingdom comes in its fullness.

Practically speaking, communion is to be considered as participation in a family around a table rather than as a sacrifice upon an altar. It should be an occasion when God’s loving grace impacts us deeply so that the gospel takes deeper and deeper root in our lives.

– taken from Mark Driscoll, Vintage Church

That thing you do (Fellowship / Shared life) is possible because of that thing He did.

Relationships that are not based on my performance but on what Christ has done are the most fulfilling relationships that I have.

Ephesians 2:13-16 New International Version (NIV)

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought nearby the blood of Christ.14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.  His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.