For five hundred years, a fellowship was understood, Tolkien-style, to be a collection of humans engaged in mutual support. [Definition]
It’s hard to imagine something more reassuring, challenging and productive, all at once.
To be part of an organized fellowship is a responsibility and also the chance to leap forward. Join the others, people like you, eager to see and to be seen, and most of all, to be of service. (Worth noting that ‘fellow’ it is not gender-specific and in fact is used in the Old Testament in reference to women).
A few decades ago, our status and selection-based culture shifted a common meaning of the word to describe a sort of prize. You get picked for a fellowship, maybe you even get some money, and you can definitely put it on your resume. Missing, too often, is the original magic, the idea that the others are there with you, side by side, together.
That new sort of fellowship isn’t really helpful to most of us. I’m more interested in the traditional, effective kind. Mutual support and a shared journey.
There are organic fellowships everywhere, which sprouted on their own, seemingly out of nowhere, and if you find yourself in one, that’s a wonder to be cherished. They don’t need a name or a published agenda. Simply being in it is sufficient.
For the rest of us, there’s the chance to go start one. Start a fellowship, invite some people along, and then do the hard work to keep it going. All for one and one for all.
TODAY we posted the first lesson for our Podcasting workshop. It’s the perfect day to join, to connect and to start being heard. Check out what our graduates have said… Hope to see you there.