Omagh Church of Christ
> "Friendship is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a friendly hand will take and sift them; keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away.
> "The main business of friendship is to sustain and make bearable each other's burdens. We may do more of that as friends than we do anthing else. Getting through the tough times, offering encouragement when the other desperately needs it, shoring each other up to face the unfairness of existence - the main work of friendship consists of just such homely tasks."
> The neighbourhood bar is perhaps the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His church. It's an imitation dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets and they usually don't tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers. Christ want His Church to be unshockable, democratic, permissive - a fellowship where people can come in and say "I'm sunk!", "I'm beat!", "I've had it!" Alcohol Anonymous as this quality. Our churches often miss it.
> There are two ideas of religious life. There is the tramcar idea and the fireside idea. In the tramcar you sit beside your fellow passenger. You are all going in the same direction, but you have no fellowship, no inter-change with or interest in one another... Then there is the fireside, where the family meet together, where they are at home, where they converse one with another of common pursuits and interests, and where a common relationship binds all together in a warm bond of love and fellowship.
-George Mansfield - copied