The surprising power of encouragement
Encourage (verb): to help someone feel confident and able to do something; to inspire or motivate.
One of New England’s mission partners, Dean Anderson, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Woodbury, Tennessee, wrote about the power of encouragement: “I recently heard about a man whose paperboy landed the newspaper on the driveway about 75% of the time, and in the wet grass the other 25%. The man wrote a note thanking him for being so accurate and so often hitting the driveway. And from that day forward he never found another newspaper in the grass!” Pastor Dean understands the surprising power of an encouraging word: Recognizing and affirming when people do something well, motivates them to do even better.
Most pastors emphasize the spiritual gifts of preaching/teaching and leadership. And indeed they should. But, if we want our churches filled with enthusiastic, highly motivated followers of Christ, actively and energetically serving Jesus, we cannot neglect the gift of encouragement!
Recognizing and affirming when people do something well, motivates them to do even better.
Some leaders, like Barnabas, have the spiritual gift of encouragement. For them, encouragement comes easily, but most of us have to work at it. Christian therapist, Dr. Dave Currie, recommends the following: “Try to encourage 3 people each day—every day. But take it to the next level. Challenge a friend to join you in the 3 affirmations/day goal and check with each other weekly to see if you hit the target of 21 encouragements per week. My long-time accountability partner and I did this for 18 months to really turn our semi-encouraging life around.”
Being an encourager is such a godly virtue. The Holy Spirit is called the parakletos, i.e., the Encourager and Scripture constantly reminds us to encourage one another (Heb 3:13; 1 Thes 5:11; 2 Cor 13:11; Heb 10:25; 1 Thes 2:11-12). Pastors and church leaders, I encourage you to become a super-star encourager and see for yourself the surprising power of encouragement at work in your ministry!
Sam Taylor serves as the Boston area regional coordinator at the Baptist Convention of New England.
