One-Anothering through Encouragement

A week ago, my wife and I took part in a church gathering that provided a wonderful opportunity for encouraging one another. Before anyone arrived, small rectangular blank slips had been placed on all the chairs. The pastor asked that we write our names, contact information, and prayer requests on our papers. Ushers then came by with bags to collect them. After switching stations, the ushers returned with the filled bags. Each of us now drew out a single piece of paper.

Since then, both my wife and I have exchanged a series of phone calls and emails with those whose prayer requests we received. Each of us is now in contact with someone in the congregation we had not met before. One request had to do with being an “encourager, helper, and cheerleader” for a spouse. All of us involved in this exchange have been greatly encouraged.

An Urgent and Never-Ending Need

Encouragement. Why do we Christians constantly need it? Because dead set against us is the relentless discourager. He tempts, then accuses us if we give in. He jams our paths with spiritual speed bumps, potholes, and detours. No wonder, then, that the Greek word for “encourage” shows up more than 100 times in the New Testament. Someone has called encouragement “oxygen for the soul.”

Countless people in our culture suffer from encouragement deficit. One blog title says, “Lack of Encouragement Nears Epidemic Levels.” Without encouragement, employees quit. Students drop out of school. Athletes give up. Even our biblical heroes of faith experienced extreme down times:

• Job: “I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.” (Job 7:16)
• Jonah: “It would be better for me to die than to live." (Jonah 4:8)
• Elijah:  "I have had enough, Lord. . . Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." (I Kings 19:4)
• David: “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.” (Psalm 73:2)
• Peter: “And he went outside and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:62)
• Paul: “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.” (II Corinthians 1:8)

Antidote for Spiritual Toxins

Four one another/each other passages in the New Testament specifically link one-anothering with mutual encouragement (1 Thess. 4:18; 5:11; Heb. 3:13; 10:25). Most versions translate the Greek word parakaleo as encourage. Others render it as comfort, exhort, or warn. In the verses just referenced, encouragement seems to be an antidote against:

• The damaging effects of grief and loss.
• The erosion of faith, hope, and love.
• A heart grown unyielding as a result of being deceived by sin.
• Swerving from the faith and turning away from God.

One-anothering is a major God-given channel for encouragement. Should we should encourage each other one-on-one and in small groups? Yes. But shared-church means we should also look for ways to do so when we gather with our congregations. Writing about a church-meeting context, Paul said, “For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged” (I Cor. 14:31). In church meetings, pastors can and should encourage. But encouragement is a whole-body ministry. We must never hand it off to the professionals on the platform.

Stories that Capture Attention

In Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, I include an interview with Bob Maddox, one of the pastors at Grace Community Church in Gresham, OR. He explained why their church includes frequent one-anothering in their meetings:

“One of our pastors can get up and say, ‘We’re going to have Tom come up and illustrate this point.’ Suddenly, the mood in the entire auditorium changes. Everyone stops and leans forward, wanting to hear Tom’s story. In reality, the average person’s story grabs people. It is able to penetrate and cut through some of the hardness our culture has built into us. It also cuts through the ways we have conditioned ourselves not to listen when someone is preaching. We choose to have people from the body up front on a fairly regular basis, because they can say things we staff people cannot.”

Why can those in the congregation “say things we staff people cannot”? One reason: throughout the week they have slogged through faith-challenging crises as they worked and lived elbow-to-elbow with fellow employees and neighbors who are indifferent or hostile to the faith. What their stories may lack in polish they make up for in fresh-from-the-front-lines authenticity.

Encouraging All the More

Many of those present on a Sunday morning might not meaningfully cross paths with another Christian in the week to come. Pastors and church leaders would do well to stay awake at night thinking of ways to structure church meetings to make room for frequent encouragement. As forces in our culture chill relationships, the need for encouragement escalates.

Jesus warned that as the end approaches, lawlessness will cause the love of most people to “grow cold.” The Message paraphrases his words to say that, for many, “the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in—nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes” (Matthew 24:12). Paul cautioned Timothy about the “terrible times in the last days” (II Timothy 3:1).

A God-given defense? The writer of Hebrews calls for one-anothering encouragement to take place in our meetings—“and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (10:25).

Shared Church Takes On Monday Stress

Where is your church on Monday?

No, I don’t mean the building at the corner of First and Main. I’m talking about the church—the people, the Body of Christ. Weekdays, much of your church scatters to work in hardware stores, classrooms, government agencies, sales offices, repair shops, and so on.

In your church, how many working people regularly show up on Sunday? You can easily make a rough estimate. For example, in the U.S., around 63 percent of those 16 and older serve in the labor force. So if your church has 100 people in that age range, nearly two-thirds may spend most prime-time hours in the work world.

What might these fellow believers be going through on the job? The American Institute of Stress (AIS) says, “Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades.” Rising  quotas. Too few workers. Coercion from demanding bosses. Toxic fellow employees. Killer overtime schedules. All these and more help explain why Gallup has found that 70 percent of American workers are either not engaged or disengaged on the job.

Created (and Re-Created) to Work

Does the church—do its people—have any responsibility here? Let’s see how the New Testament speaks to this issue. For starters, consider what it says about why God made us into new creations in Christ: “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).

No, we are not saved by good works. We are saved by faith--for good works. This Greek word translated as “works” is not a stained-glass, churchy word. It includes the everyday get-your-hands-dirty work of weekdays. Paul used the verb form of the same word when said, “We work hard with our own hands” (I Cor. 4:12). It’s the word he used to say that former thief should “work, doing something with his own hands” (Eph. 4:28). It’s the word he used to tell the Thessalonian believers, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands” (I Thess. 4:11).

Put all this together. Why did God form us in Christ? Not only to join him in heaven someday but also to do good work on earth here and now. Not only good church work but also good work that will help his creation and our fellow creatures thrive. Good work that will demonstrate the difference it makes when we work as new creations in Christ. The labor of each Christian puts God’s own artisanship on display (we are his "workmanship"). So the way we do our work matters greatly.

Mending Wounds from Workplace Stress

Now relate this to shared church. As AIS says “job stress is far and away the major source of stress.” Are Christians exempt from this kind of workplace hassle and tension? Hardly. Just as the post-sin lives of Adam and Eve involved thorns, thistles, sweat, and pain (Gen. 3), we still work in a fallen world. In such a setting, our work depletes and frays us. So Christians in the labor force regularly need three kinds of repair work the New Testament calls on all of us to do for each other. When disheartened, they need to be encouraged. When exhausted, they need to be strengthened. And when knocked down, they need to be built up.

I’ve regularly observed traditional church services for three-quarters of a century. And from what I’ve seen, platform performances typically leave little if any time or space for one-anothering. More than half the people present likely spend their weekdays working among people who will not—and cannot—encourage, strengthen, or build them up. But even on Sundays, among fellow Christ-followers, the damage they’ve sustained in the work world is rarely attended to.  

Shared Church Frees Up One-Anothering

That’s why shared church, which opens doors for New Testament one-anothering, is so important. Working Christians need to hear encouraging accounts from other working believers who are experiencing God’s sustaining presence on the job. In my book, Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, I include  this quotation by Alan and Eleanor Kreider from their book, Worship and Mission after Christendom:

“If we receive no reports from the front in our congregations, we are in trouble. Without testimonies we experience a drought, a nutritional deficit for healthy Christian living. And the dominant cultural narratives take over. God seems powerless and inactive. And Christians who do see evidence of the missional activities of God in our time may only whisper about it in the church’s hallways or discuss it during the week in house groups or on the telephone—but not in worship services.”

Of course, those who spend their weekdays in the workplace are not the only ones who need to be strengthened, encouraged, and built up. So do single moms. Those battling cancer. Spouses who are struggling in their marriage relationships. And believers coping with many other situations. All of us need to hear from each other stories of how God is at work in our scattered-church lives. Those on the front lines who have seen God deliver can best refresh others who are struggling in similar arenas.

Without using the term "shared church," the author of Hebrews wrote about our need for it. The instructions are just as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds [literally, 'works']. 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” (Heb 10:24-25). That Day is even nearer now than when the author penned those words. This makes moving toward shared church an urgent concern.

Shared-Church Insights from Online Classrooms

Teaching, so they say, is the best way to learn. They are right. Over the past four years, I have learned much from teaching online for the Bakke Graduate University. For example, leading these classes has expanded my understanding of shared church. In what follows, I’ll explain how.

My courses cover the “theology of work,” focusing on what God’s Word says about our everyday work. Because nearly all the students are Christ-followers, each class is full of those to whom the Holy Spirit has given various gifts. So, class members have received resources God gave them for the benefit of others.

Creating a Learning Environment

Because I earned a graduate degree in the theology of work, I bring to each class a wider grasp of the subject than almost all who enroll. But my background does not mean I am the only one with something useful to say about how God views our work. Instead, my challenge is to create a learning environment. This means putting together an agenda made up of a series of experiences that will change how the students think, believe, act, and pass along to others what they have learned.

Woven into those experiences are resources I have written. For example, I ask them to read my articles, “How to Weave Theology of Work into Church Life” and “Regaining a Biblical Worldview.” They also view and listen to my narrated PowerPoint presentation, “Stewardship.” Assigned reading also includes a variety of books by many others—for some of which they must write book reviews. Learning requires instruction by gifted, knowledgeable, and authorized teachers.

Yet another critical element in this carefully shaped discovery environment is what they learn from each other. An instructor who knows a subject well can easily lose a sense of what those still trying to comprehend it for the first time are going through. Fellow students, those also struggling to grow in their understanding, are often in the best positions to say it in ways others in the class can “get it.”

Interaction: the Benefits

To help that kind of learning take place, I have devised assignments that ask students to interact with each other. For instance, in one lesson I task them with reading a case study, answering three questions about it in writing, and posting their paragraphs in the online classroom for other students to read. But there’s more. Before the end of the week, each student must respond in writing to what at least two other students have posted on the case study. This interrelating results in several benefits as students:

• Encourage and affirm each other. Supportive statements like these are often posted: “I concur with your comment here.” Or, “You have well articulated the idea that ‘all work matters to God as God matters to all our work.’” And, “I am compelled to borrow your idea of ‘working as a family.’”
• State truth in words that help fellow students understand. One student had posted a comment about “Church members who have been taught to glorify their leaders. . ..” To which another responded, “That is an interesting perspective I hadn't thought about before, about those who idolize the leader.”
• Raise questions about unclear points. One student had written, “all positively positioned work (i.e. not illegal or immoral) is sacred work as it aids in the establishment and flourishing of human communities on God’s planet Earth.” In her response, a fellow student wrote: “I am seeking clarification on two things when you spoke of work that is not illegal.” This resulted in a fruitful dialogue that benefited not only these two but the rest of the class as well.
• Tactfully disagree and offer a contrasting viewpoint. For example, one student had written that, “We have to become vigilantes on the war on adverse waste disposal.” When another objected about that language as too strong, the first writer responded, “In retrospect the word 'vigilante' may be too harsh and inappropriate. I would like for us to be in 'advocates of change' instead.”

Making Disciples in Shared Church

How does all this relate to shared church? When Jesus told his first disciples to “make disciples” (Matt. 28:19), the word he used could be translated, “enroll people as learners.” Making learner-disciples should be a vital part of gathering as a church. My experience with online classes has demonstrated that learning takes not only through one-way communication from a teacher but also requires interaction among the learners themselves.

 Shared church, like an online classroom, must include instruction by qualified pastors and teachers. But enrolling learners also calls for structuring a church-meeting learning environment in which they may interact with and teach each other. Even though he had not yet met them, Paul was convinced that the believers in Rome were “competent to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14). And he urged believers in Corinth to meet in a shared-church format in which everyone had opportunity to participate (I Cor. 14:26).

 Churches are not just preaching stations where one or two exercise their teaching gifts. Rightly structured, the congregational meeting itself offers opportunities for disciples to learn how to articulate their growing faith in front of each other.