PEP Fellowship
In Acts 2:42, we see that the early church devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching (i.e. Bible study), fellowship, the breaking of bread (likely a meal followed by observing the Lord's Table) and prayer. As a church family, we seek to be diligent and intentional in each of these areas, yet we felt that we would do well to be more purposeful in our fellowship. It is so easy to arrive at church a few minutes before a service begins and leave shortly after it concludes. While we are comfortable chatting about the latest game score or current event in the brief moments of fellowship outside the service, we often fail to transition to more meaningful conversations about our spiritual walk. Hebrews 10:24-25 states that we are to "consider how to stir up one another to love and good works," and "encourage one another" (ESV). We prayerfully decided to build into our Sunday worship a time to personally encourage and "stir up" one another unto good works (i.e. biblical thinking and action).
With that in mind, we've named this time our PEP Fellowship. PEP stands for "Purpose, Encouragement, Perspective." While this is an informal and unstructured time between the services where we serve light refreshments, we want to be intentional in seeking to help one another to stay focused on our PURPOSE as citizens of Heaven, to ENCOURAGE one another in our daily walk, and to maintain PERSPECTIVE in all we do and face.