Friendship and Fellowship in the Local Church: A 21st Century Perspective

By Dr. L. Vega-Sanabria

After a teaching career of more than thirty years, having taught across all grade levels and a broad range of subject areas, Friendship and Fellowship in the Local Church: a 21st Century Perspective is a product of an encompassing ministry experience in the local church for both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking congregations as a teacher, deacon, and pianist—a research-based study with a pragmatic and practical view on the needs of one of the most unrecognized and misunderstood populations: those of the inmate believers.
The Gospel message is clear, and the members of the body of Christ have a responsibility to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV). The message of our Lord Jesus Christ is as real today as it was centuries ago: “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (John 4:35 NIV).
Believer inmates are members of the body of Christ; their conversions are real, their transformations are evident, and their faith is strong. Yet they, too, need the support of other members of the body of Christ, for the Holy Spirit works through each member, as he or she is gifted in order to address and attend to the unique needs of the incarcerated believer inmates. Hear their silent cries as they are revealed in the Friendship and Fellowship in the Local Church: a 21st Century Perspective.
The Gospel of John states the reason Jesus visited Samaria: “Now he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4 NIV). And in NKJV, it states, “He needed to go through Samaria.” For Jesus, it was a need.
Jesus knew the importance of reaching out to those who were marginalized, who were ostracized, and who were highly criticized and judged. They had been abandoned, but Jesus had other plans.
Later he met the Samaritan woman, and through her, her village and her town received the Good News about the Messiah: “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39 NIV).
His own disciples were blind to this need; they were subject to the day’s misconceptions and misinterpretations and biases. Later, Jesus pronounces one of the most significant statements of the Gospel message: “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35 NIV).
Friendship and Fellowship in the Local Church: a 21st Century Perspective is a call to reach a group of people that have been abandoned and rejected: to address their needs—spiritual, social, emotional, and psychological. It is like Jesus said, “A field ripe for the harvest.” It is an eye-opener—a pioneer research study addressing the needs of one of the most deserted and neglected populations, considering it covers a topic difficult to discuss and is of much controversy.
Paul said, “Remember my chains” (Colossians 4:18 NIV). When Jesus was accused of associating with those that were outcasts, his reply was, “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13 NIV).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887514277

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Friendship and Fellowship in the Local Church

A 21st Century Perspective

Dr. L. Vega-Sanabria

ISBN 979-8-88751-426-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-427-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Lazaro Vega-Sanabria

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Of Missions, Missionaries, and the Mission Field

Unhappiness: Causes and Solutions

The God of Second Chances

The Problem with Pain. Pain Hurts!

Of Attitudes and Virtues

Of Virtues and Attitudes

The Trouble with Trends

The Transformational Power of Love

Love in Friendship

Friendship and Fellowship

Of the Human Experience

Bibliography

About the Author

Foreword

When the Lord appeared to Paul on the way to Damascus, he told him to go into the city, and there he would be told what to do. Paul was to wait on a man named Ananias for further instructions. The Lord appeared to Ananias in a vision and told him to meet with a disciple named Judas who lived on Straight Street, and ask for Paul, who would be waiting for him there. Ananias was hesitant and reluctant to meet Paul, with due reason, who had a reputation for persecuting the Lord's disciples.

Among the community of believers, Paul was a persona non grata; he was unwelcomed and invidious, but the Lord saw something in Paul that no other could see. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel (Acts 9:15 NIV). An unyielding man, implacable, and relentless; a man with a reputation for being violent against the Lord's disciples, he had become an odious man. Now—much like the followers of Jesus who had become subjects of abuse and ridicule and were victims of the cruelty of the oppression by the religious establishment and, consequently, the provincial government of Rome—Paul was to experience, in his own flesh, what he himself had inflicted on the believers. He now would feel the sting of the isolation, the abandonment, the rejection, and the pain of being unwanted, unlovable, and unwelcomed.

But the Lord saw otherwise; he was to be an instrument, the instrument…and Judas, and Ananias, and the rest of the followers of Christ would learn a lesson too: be accepting and tolerant of those he has chosen to deliver the gospel message regardless of their past reputation and of that intimidating attitude and ungraceful behavior for which they were known, for the Lord is a God of redemption, a God of transformation, and a God of renewal.

This study, a narrative in its most broad sense, is the result of a prison experience, of having been a (believer) inmate in a state prison, one which this writer would have never been part of had it not been for the unseen opportunity. There are—throughout the biblical narratives, whether in the books of the Old or New Testament—numerous and various examples of those individuals who have become like Paul: instruments; individuals who have lived under some of the most unfavorable circumstances and who have been under the most precarious, risky, uncertain, and dangerous situations. There are, similarly, some like these men and women of faith among the incarcerated believer inmate populations, even in this twenty-first century, whose life stories, events, and circumstances are parallel mini-biographies to those biblical characters whose lives have been publicly exposed and exhibited.

For example, consider Daniel and his friends—Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—who were displaced from their homeland and forced to live as exiles in Babylon. They were young teens, members of the royal family who had lived a comfortable life, but were now orphans and were taken as captives by King Nebuchadnezzar. Each of their lives, as seen through the eyes of the human experience, was one without a future; yet each lived in the land of their oppressors as witnesses and recipients of the grace of God and as part of the remnant of God's people.

Daniel, a foreigner, became one of the most powerful and influential Jews during the captivity; he outlived many of the other kings of the empire, and he ruled in the royal court for over seventy years:

…and Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus (Daniel 1:21 NIV)

God used his experience as an exile to deliver to his people a message of hope, a message of God's grace, even under such harsh circumstances. Daniel was promoted several times until he became the third most powerful man in the kingdom, that is, ruler over the entire province of Babylon [Daniel 2:48 NIV]; proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom [Daniel 5:29 NIV]; Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian [Daniel 6:28 NIV]). His friends, too, also became powerful influences as rulers over the kingdom of Babylon (administrators over the province of Babylon [Daniel 2:48 NIV]; promoted in the province of Babylon [Daniel 3:30 NIV]). Their roles changed from that of being exiles to rulers of the same kingdom that imprisoned them. An example of transforming adversity into opportunity and an example of a renewal of the mind.

Another example of God's providence and of unseen opportunities can be observed in the life of Moses. Displaced at birth and raised in a foreign culture, he became one of the most powerful leaders of Israel. During the period of separation from his family, which lasted forty years, he was privy to the best education at the time, for he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22).

Moses spent the next forty years in the desert as a shepherd (now eighty years old), where he learned many skills that were to be key as he guided the Israelites through the wilderness. And for the next 40 years, Moses became the legislator, an administrator, and a ruler (he died at 120 years of age). Moses is an example of how—as a child who was separated and displaced from his family, and with a criminal past, having killed a man—he was redeemed and transformed into one of the most powerful men in biblical literature regardless of his past, and who overcame those circumstances that seemed at the time, to him and to most of his fellow Hebrews, most unfavorable.

Yet there are others. There's Jeremiah, who lived, too, under much scrutiny, particularly from his own people; he suffered much condemnation, and he experienced some of the most adverse, calamitous, and ill-fated conditions. He never married, and he did not have a family; he did not have a single convert, by today's standards (as if numbers mattered), and he was ridiculed and mocked by his own people to whom he prophesied. He suffered under some of the most cruel and brutal forms of torture, and yet he is one of the most influential and important prophets and individuals in the history of the nation of Israel even though there are no immediate converts or visible results of his ministry. His life is an example too of transformation and of renewal.

Incarcerated believer inmates too have faced many tragedies. Some, of course, were due to the nature of the reasons they were incarcerated; some are products of their past, of those experiences that shaped them, and of their bad decisions. Others were victims of an imperfect system run by imperfect people. Those believer inmates too are meritorious of that opportunity in experiencing the transforming power of the gospel and of the redemption offered through the blood of Jesus. The community of believers too must be tolerant and, while cautious like Ananias, be accepting of them and be caring, meeting their needs and helping them become the instruments of God—just like God foresaw and designed the opportunity in the life of Paul and of many, many others.

Incarcerated believers have a need: it is an unaddressed need and an unmet need, for many members of the Christian community and for many of the people in the local churches throughout the various communities are unaware of their struggle. It is the purpose of this writer to raise awareness for the community of believers to become more involved, to become more engaging, and to take a more personal and direct approach and interest in the lives of those believer inmates, and not only provide for them spiritually but also meet their social, emotional, psychological, and even material needs: to establish friendships, to offer them that fellowship that is missing in the (state) prison environment, and to provide for them guidance and assistance upon their release. And as God wills, with the given opportunities, become facilitators and guides for them to become part of the family of believers of that community of the body of Christ.

This is an opportunity for a new field of service, one that is most often ignored. And because of the stigma and misconceptions of the incarcerated, of those who happened to be believers but who are now incarcerated and are now inmates, they find themselves uncared for by the community of believers. It is the hope of this writer that any one reader will become an instrument: that agent of change, that messenger—as a Phillip and as an Ananias, who will be an advocate and a supporter, and who will play a role, a significant one (as God provides), as God has gifted him or her with those skills and abilities to be able to network with other believers who will be more involved and more active in consideration of the circumstances of prison life.

For when God asks you, Where is your brother? (as God asked of Cain of Abel), and you answer, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? you will answer, unlike Cain, as the Holy Spirit convicts you: Yes, yes, I am; I am my brother's keeper! (Genesis 4:9–10 NIV). Then when the Lord asks you for a second time, much like Cain (and like Jonah, who had a second chance, a second call), [Cain], What have you done?, you will answer, most assuredly, with certainty, with confidence, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. And I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey… And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:7–10 NIV).

You, the reader, can be that deliverer; you, the reader, can see what God sees; you, the believer, can hear what God hears; you can be concerned as God is concerned about his people. Guide these believer inmates out of that land of oppression; rescue them from that life of misery; and take them, lead them to the land of milk and honey. Bring them the