“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12–13)

Awakening moves at the pace of friendship; relationships are not peripheral to the dynamics of awakening—they are central.

When you read the passages in the Gospels and in the book of Acts—scriptures documenting the greatest awakening the world has ever seen—what do you see? In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, many Christians see Jesus teaching, performing miracles, telling stories, dying, and rising from the grave. In Acts 1–2, many Christians see the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of the Father, the sound of a rushing wind, tongues of fire lighting on a room full of disciples, and a first wave of evangelism that sets the good news exploding onto the scene of the first-century world.

But what if we look a bit closer? Zooming in on all the Gospel wonder, all the drama from incarnation to resurrection, all the hillside chats upturning the world, all the love evidencing God’s active presence, and all the power encounters people experienced—one might see a backdrop of people growing in close relationship with Jesus and with one another.

Behind all the stories of awakening in the New Testament, and weaving through the stories of revivals and awakenings throughout history, the attentive eye will see relationships—tightly-knit bonds between people and small communities bound together by what the Bible calls koinonia, or fellowship.

Koinonia is not something that happens to a group of believers. It is a bond created by the Holy Spirit which is then reinforced by shared encouragement, mutual service, frequent confession, and dignifying prayer—acts that enable a few people to become the love of God to one another so that together they can become the love of God to the world.

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