It happens when the Piecemakers meet to make a beautiful quilt for the festival auction. It happens when potential new members sit through a grueling, five session Seminar on Christian Theology. It happens when the choir and chorus and children's choir rehearse in order to make a musical offering to God. It happens when the AIDS Care Team meets around the common cause of caring for people in need. It happens when food is sorted for distribution at the food bank, when children gather for instruction in the faith, when the Church Council holds a planning workshop to draft missional emphases for the coming year.
Fellowship happens in our church as a by-product of our church's mission.
We don't have many fellowship activities as such, but we have a lot of fellowship accomplishments in the normal course of being the church we are called to be. Peter's impulse to engage in the activity of building three dwellings on the Mount of Transfiguration was thwarted by the cloud that surrounded Jesus. Such activity would have to wait for the accomplishment of salvation when Jesus had been crucified and then raised from the dead. The vision of Jesus between Moses and Elijah meant nothing apart from Good Friday and Easter. In the same way, no matter how honorable the intention, church activity for the sake of activity is never a substitute for missional accomplishment.