Friendship & Fellowship

So this a theme idea for this week has been fellowship. I've been contemplating what I think the differences between fellowship and friendship are. Is fellowship just a fancy religious (Christian?) word for friendship?

First definition of fellowship from Merriam:

1 : COMPANIONSHIP, COMPANY
2 a : community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience; b : the state of being a fellow or associate
3 : a company of equals or friends : ASSOCIATION
4 : the quality or state of being comradely

Friend is less informative:

1 a : one attached to another by affection or esteem b : ACQUAINTANCE

Anyway, I went back and dug up my teaching notes on a sermon I heard many many moons ago (June 22nd, 1999). The sermon was on fellowship as a discipline, and many of his points have stuck with me over the years; I'm surprised, though, how much I jotted down that I don't normally articulate. He started by talking about fellowship as a discipline: Amazing abilities require hours of training, and that spiritual maturity is similar in that Jesus does not short cut us into maturity. He then goes on to draw the parallel that fellowship takes consistent work to achieve and is not a intrinsic aspect of being Christian (or human).

A few other points: Fellowship is a command (as well as a blessing) - it leads to challenge and encouragement of one another.

Fellowship is deeper than friendship.It is about interdependence - common lives, common material, common experiences. It is warmer - people who share their lives, crying and rejoicing together. It is wider, spanning generations, dress, education, cultures, and such.

The concluding application still gets me. The pastor quoted Acts 20:36-21:1

When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Cos.

and left us with the following questions:
- Who would leave your fellowship and you would weep?
- If you left your fellowship, would you feel like you are "tearing yourself away?"
and one comment: This is the Bible's description of the living church. A brave but soft people, full of passion for each other.

Those parting questions still get to me. How much do I care about the presence of others? How much does their absence grieve me? How consumed am I in my own little world?