Day 21

 Renewal through Fellowship

 We turn now to look at the final point we shall make about the renewal of the Church.  Renewal comes through fellowship, and, as we begin, it is good to recognize that deep, real fellowship is the greatest thing that every soul most deeply needs and wants.  It has often been pointed out that the salutation Comrade has for millions a mystic appeal, and that the fellowship of the communist cause with it closely knit cells attracts the lonely people of our day.  Let us not be misled by the noisy gregariousness of many people and by the many social groupings into believing that it is not a lonely age.  Our cities and towns are full of lonely people; and no parish faces the need of its community which does not see this fact.  One clergyman I know in a large city sensed this fact, and that a dinner would be served in his parish hall on Thanksgiving Day, following the morning service.  The result astonished him.  Lonely men, women, old couples, students  away from home bought every available ticket.  The loneliness of people in our cities has led one friend of mine to state that no downtown city parish can serve the community truly without the fellowship of eating.

People are lonely, I think, in our day for two reasons.  First, modern mechanization and industrialism have destroyed to a considerable extent the natural community groupings of a previous society.  Life has been fragmented and it unity destroyed, so that we work with one group of people, play with another, and worship with another.

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