Strength in Numbers

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other...”

(Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

My wife and I live in an area surrounded by water. The Atlantic Ocean is just fifteen minutes away by car. Our town of Georgetown is situated on Winyah Bay. Coming into the bay from either end of Georgetown are four rivers – the Waccamaw (which is also the Intracoastal Waterway), the Great Pee Dee, the Black and the Sampit Rivers. Further south is the Santee River. Our house is only half a block away from the marsh that buffers us from the Black and Pee Dee Rivers.

With all this water around us, there is an abundance of waterfowl, some native, some migratory. Commonplace birds in our area include egrets, herons, cormorants, pelicans, ibis, geese, ducks of many variety, seagulls (of course!). We also get birds of prey like red-tail hawks, owls, osprey, falcons, bald eagles... I'm just scratching the surface.

I love to watch birds fly in formation or gather in groups along the water. Sometimes we'll be walking along the beach and I will look out at the ocean, and just above the waves will be a group of pelicans flying in formation. For a big, awkward and gangly-looking bird, they really look graceful and elegant in flight.

While it is not unusual to see a lone pelican, they do have a communal nature about them. They fly in formation, instinctively taking advantage of their God-given aerodynamics. They hunt cooperatively. The nest in colonies. I know this because it's on Wikipedia, so it must be true.

In groups, birds are better able to shield themselves from the elements. They are better able to watch for predators. They have advantages in hunting for food. When they fly in formation, they are known to encourage one another, and they expend less energy than when they fly alone.

I think we need to take a cue from the communal birds. The Christian faith is not something that we are supposed to live alone. Two are better than one. When we come together, we can pool our gifts to do more than any of us can do on our own. God has designed us for fellowship; God's first reaction after God created the man was, “It is not good for the man to be alone...”

We need each other. We need each other for encouragement, for mutual support, for spiritual nurture. The Christian life is meant to be lived in community. That's why God has given us the church.

Some will say, "I can just as easily worship God on my boat; I don't need the church." But that's not really what faith is all about. Faith is about being in fellowship with the people of God, and discovering in community the richness of God's steadfast love and mercy. Faith is about working together to serve God and to meet the needs of the world in which we live. Faith is about companionship on this journey of life.

Go it alone, if you wish. But we'll miss you. Two is better than one. We're better together, because that's the way God made us.

"Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another..." (Hebrews 10:24-25)