Living Fellowship: Willing to be the Third Side of the Triangle

by Helen Roseveare

"God is the hub of our wheel", states Helen Roseveare, "and we are the spokes reaching out to the rim of the world." Living Fellowship examines the true meaning of biblical comunnion as a dynamic relationship between God, ourselves and others. True fellowship will involve submission, service, and suffering. Taking each theme in turn, Helen Roseveare draws on the teaching of Scripture and personal experience to show the practical outworking of God's invitation to us to share in a relationship with Him.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Dr. Helen Roseveare was born in Hailebury, Herts, England in 1925. She became a Christian as a medical student in Cambridge University in 1945. She continued to have strong links with the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union and was designated as the "CICCU missionary" during the 1950s and 1960s. She built a combination hospital/ training center in Ibambi in the early 1950s, then relocated to Nebobongo, living in an old leprosy camp, where she built another hospital. After conflict with other staff at the hospital, she returned to England in 1958.

She returned to the Congo in 1960. In 1964 she was taken prisoner of rebel forces and she remained a prisoner for five months, enduring beatings and rapings. She left the Congo and headed back to England after her release but returned to the Congo in 1966 to assist in the rebuilding of the nation. She helped establish a new medical school and hospital (the other hospitals that she built were destroyed) and served there until she left in 1973. She helped many people from different countries, and helped them when needing food, and drink.

Since her return from Africa, she has had a worldwide ministry in speaking and writing. She was a plenary speaker at the Urbana Missions Convention three times. She is now retired and lives in Northern Ireland. Her life of service was portrayed in the 1989 film Mama Luka Comes Home. Her touching story about how the prayer of Ruth, 10-year-old African girl, for a hot water bottle to save a premature newborn baby after its mother had died has been widely forwarded by email. She survived rape and trial during the Congolese civil war in 1964 because of the intervention of the villagers she had helped previously.

(Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Lisa Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admire and appreciate everything Dr. Roseveare has written, and this is no exception. Inspiring and challenging!

[Sarah Dixon Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Christian should read this book.

There is no fuller, deeper view of fellowship anywhere except in the pages of Scripture. If you have been lulled into thinking fellowship has anything to do with coffee or food, Roseveare will challenge your view.

Do you want to grow closer to Jesus? This book is a good tool for doing just that.

[Jenny Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging book from the author of 'Give Me This Mountain'. Helen Roseveare was a pioneer missionary doctor in the Congo in the days when it was still called Zaire. Having served there for many years and been through the privations of Africa as well as the Simba rising of the 1960s, she knows about nitty-gritty, authentic faith.

Pulling no punches, she challenges the reader to pursue fellowship and intimacy with God through Jesus. She pictures God as the hub of a wheel, the world as the rim and His people the spokes – nothing special to look at and pretty useless alone, but together they transfer the life of the hub to the rim. Her illustration continues as three sides of a triangle in which we are invited to share the yoke of submission, the towel of service, and the cup of suffering; all things which Jesus demonstrated.

This is part of a four-book set, of which I have now read two. I'm looking forward to the other two, though I know I may be stretched and made uncomfortable by her hard-hitting questions. This book will definitely benefit from another reading in a year or so.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful! I find Dr. Roseveare's way of story telling compelling. She puts herself in the light of a learner, who is feeling her way along the path of faith and is trying to understand the magnificent ways of God. Just like me. Even though she is spiritual leagues beyond me I find that I can relate to her feelings of uncertainly and inadequacy. I loved that this book showed how God used a terrible tragedy in her life to bear fruit. Because of the abuse by soldiers, she became one with her beloved people, who also faced similar atrocities. People who would give her any audience now did and received Christ. There is such a hopeful message in that for all of us.

[Jennifer Tse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book by Dr. Helen, who was a missionary in Africa for many years. It is amazing reading the introduction about her journey of becoming a yoke for God's glory. Although she is a doctor and the head of the missionary team, she realized how she also needs to humble herself. In the beginning, it was kind of hard to relate to some parts of her analogy to the bicycle, because I don't ride a bike. However, it is still a very good analogy of how God can really work in our lives as we become his spokes. I liked the section of the practice of the fellowship of Christ's suffering, which really challenges me to desire suffering with Him in order to know Him in a deeper way. She also suggests 4 ways you can keep in mind to share in Christ's suffering.

Favorite Quote: (Page 197) "We should not seek to run away from or to avoid suffering: it is part of our heavenly Father's plan for our lives, to conform us to the image of His Son. Somehow our attitude to suffering has become warped. We tend to think of all suffering - physical, mental, spiritual - as a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs. And if it does dare to approach us, we think we have the right to claim deliverance from it by the hand of our omnipotent God."