Thought for the week: How important it is to be in lasting fellowship with others

The second comment was that to feel isolated in Christian ministry is really quite common, and we then spent some time teasing out some of the reasons for that.

Recent conversations have once again highlighted for me just how isolated so many Christian men and women feel. For some, their workplace is almost a Christian no-go area; others find family quite unsupportive - sometimes even hostile; others find it really difficult when their Christian convictions are shared by almost no one else; and still others are battling with big issues in their lives and have nobody to turn to for help, support and guidance.

And this is happening in a society which has less and less time for God and the values set out so clearly throughout the Bible. For example, the principles set out in the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in St Matthew’s gospel are widely unknown or ignored.

All of these factors have highlighted for me yet again how important it is for every Christian to be in deep and lasting fellowship with other Christians. For me this was so well captured by the Apostle Paul when he wrote: "Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well". (First Thessalonians 2.8)

From my own experience I am very aware how easy it is to pretend that all is well when it is not; how easy it is to be private and keep others a safe distance, yet wishing that you could share what is going on in your life and through your mind; and how vulnerable you feel when you are open and others don’t respond as you would have wished.

Let me end this message by saying that almost every time I let others know how things are with me, they respond by saying how things are with them too. Recently, friends have told me some painful stories that I was totally unaware of, and that has opened up more rich seams of friendship, mutual care and deep fellowship.

When this happens, the isolation eases all round, and being a follower of Jesus Christ brings new joy and freedom. In a word, there seems little reason for isolation to be so widespread both in the church and outside it.