A Fellowship is the familial expression of Basileia, a collective member of a Basileia Community, comprised of Basileians in general, Adult Communicant Members and Governing Members in particular as well as Chapters, and founded by a Presbyter. The complementary governing functions of its Presbyter Councils, Deacon Councils and Missional Councils enable each Fellowship to create an outpost of the Ecclesial City with its own unique charism and distinctives. The Greek word koinonia is often rendered as “fellowship” in English Bible translations, whose meaning is then weakened by modern usage that sentimentalizes koinonia to the warmth and intimacy shared by a troupe of girl scouts around a campfire, which it can certainly have. But in the context of the teaching of Christ’s apostles, the highest type of koinonia this word has historically been used for is in regards to the association or community of people who form a city (polis). While people can hold many things in common (koinos), including the warmth and intimacy around a campfire, the city is the highest expression of what a fellowship of people hold in common. The Church is a fellowship, a community of people who publically share all things in common in the context of the Kingdom of God, the empire led by the Emperor, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. The acts of Baptism and the Eucharist in a Fellowship should not be mistaken for private religious acts of devotion performed in someone else’s society. When rightly understood these covenantal acts of initiation and renewal encompass the whole of the private and public life of a Fellowship in its mission of embodying another empire in resistance to all the empires of man who as yet have not bowed the knee and proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord. Thus in a Fellowship individuals are discipled as citizens of the Ecclesial City where all three expressions of the Church – Festival Assembly, Vocational Assembly and Community Assembly – converge.
(Also see Community Assembly, Ecclesial City, Familial, Festival Assembly, and Vocational Assembly.