If so then, even more so today.
Hebrews 10:24-25 stands out: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” What would this have meant to a Christian church in, say, Rome or Philippi?
This passage shows that mutual encouragement was a primary church function. Also, notice that a certain amount of informal conversation and “consideration” happened. They talked together; they evidently practiced some of the other “one anothers,” such as instructing (Rom. 15:14) and building each other up (1 Thess. 5:11).
Finally, they were concerned not just with fellowship, but with the practical matter of “love and good deeds.” The author of Hebrews tells these brothers and sisters to be intentional: Consider how you may prompt one another to the practical living out of your faith.
This passage also hints, however, that “some” were developing a bad “habit” of neglecting the meetings. So it is in any age or culture. Some people will drop by the wayside. The temptation, then, is to water down the intimacy or frequency or cost of meeting together to accommodate those who want something less demanding.
This is a fatal mistake. Historical and sociological studies have shown repeatedly that churches with high belonging expectations are more vital, grow faster, have more countercultural impact and last longer than those that relax the intensity of their community life.
In small groups, it is important to share your concerns and “growing edges” and to study Scripture. Face-to-face community in such contexts is not a secondary add-on—it is the church itself, as described in Acts 2:42 (“They devoted themselves … to the fellowship”) and in the “one another” passages.
When in 1738 John Wesley started the religious group known as the Fetter Lane Society, he said that he did so “in obedience to the command of God by St. James, and by the advice of Peter Böhler.” The reference is to James 5:16 (“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed”).
Wesley came to understand—as other Christians have learned—that Christians don’t naturally confess to each other. It takes the kind of trust and openness that develops only in some form of face-to-face community. That is the way churches know what it means to “be healed.”