Cliques in the church are good thing? – Meeting together, Part 5

Over the years people in my church have expressed concern that there are cliques in our church family. The word “clique” reminds me of my high school cafeteria. You could look across the large space full of tables and see the cliques, the small groups of people, like the football players, the cheerleaders, the academics, the band members, drama team, and my own clique, the soccer players, to name a few. Have we adults grown up out of our high school cliques?

The people who make accusations about cliques in the church, give the impression that everyone in a church family should be equally together and loving. Remember (in this post) that the early church in Acts 2:42-47 was together and had everything in common, and there were 3120 of them. Additionally, we read that God was adding to their number daily. So it can seem as though a church should be one big, or even really big, happy family. 

As we look closer at Acts 2:42-47, however, there’s more to the story. Smaller groups of people who really bond together, who do life together, even if they appear to be a clique to some, can be a very good thing.  Yes, the early church had large group meetings in the temple and they had small group meetings in homes. 

We can have Christian brotherly and sisterly love for everyone in our church, but we can and should share life with only a much smaller group. 

Last week I mentioned Hebrews 10:25. I mentioning it again in this post because the writer of Hebrews brings together last week’s emphasis on encouraging one another and this week emphasis on meeting together: “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.”

We need each other. Here’s an axiom for you (remember axioms from this post?): We can’t encourage one another if we aren’t meeting together on a regular basis. 

We see these themes in what Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”

Those two passages teach us that meeting together means that we are a community who share our lives with each other.  That is not to say that we can be best friends with everyone in the church.  Well, maybe we can be best friends with everyone in a church family that has only 10 people. 

It is also quite important for us to be welcoming, even in a larger group.  Listen to this story about a group of guys who went to a restaurant where there was an amazing culture of welcome.

What can you do to enhance that kind of culture of welcoming in your church family? Be on the alert for people in your church, especially those who are newer, who might be disconnected.  Take the initiative to meet with them, reach out to them.  On a Sunday, if you see your friends who you enjoy the most, or feel closest to, it will be most easy to go over and talk with them. 

I encourage you, instead, to make Sundays about being quick to include those who might be disconnected. 

Christians, let’s be people who meet together with other disciples of Jesus to share life together, pursuing the mission of God’s Kingdom together.  If you are uncertain how to start, I encourage you to talk with your church leaders and pastors. They will be able to point you to the opportunities for going deeper that are already available in your church family. For example, at Faith Church we have fellowship time after worship, we have Sunday school classes, Wednesday prayer meeting, home care groups and Bible studies, and we have serve teams. 

I also encourage you to consider listening to this podcast episode in which Preston Sprinkle interviews John Mark Comer about Christian meeting together.

For more of my thoughts on cliques, read this post.

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

The earliest Christians were not perfect.  But they do help us think about… Meeting together, Part 4 

It is normal for pastors and church leaders to be idealistic about church, as we want our churches to be all that God wants us to be. In pursuit of the ideal, we often look to the early church as perfect. They were not perfect. But they definitely give us an excellent example, especially about how to meet together. Let’s travel back to the very beginning of the church to learn how the first followers of Jesus met together.

In Acts 1, verse 12, the scene begins just outside the city of Jerusalem. It’s about a month and a half after Jesus died on the cross and rose again.  In the verses just prior to verse 12, the disciples are having their last day with Jesus.  Verse 12 tells us what happens right after he leaves them, ascending to the Father in heaven,

“Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

This is a liminal time for the 120 followers of Jesus. They are in between. Their years as disciples of Jesus have concluded, but their new mission as apostles has not yet begun. Jesus told them to wait in the city until they are empowered by the Spirit.  Then they will commence the mission of the Kingdom.  Observe how those first followers of Jesus meet together in this liminal moment.

They joined together constantly in prayer.  This is an incredibly important period of patiently waiting together. Waiting for the Spirit.  I encourage you to meet together with others in your church family, joining in prayer together. 

Does your church have prayer gatherings? Faith Church has a prayer meeting on Wednesday evenings.  I don’t believe Christians have to attend a prayer meeting.  It is not a requirement.  Perhaps you could your church’s prayer gatherings.  I don’t attend mine every time. But I do think it is a good thing, and one way to meet together to pray just like the early Christians did.

Back to those early Christians. What else did they do when they met together?  After about 10-14 days of praying together constantly, everything changes. 

At the beginning of Acts chapter 2, the Spirit arrives and fills them with power, just as Jesus said. His followers start preaching about Jesus, and 3000 people are added to their number.  Then what did they do?  In Acts 2:42-47, we have the earliest description of the church’s regular meetings. Count up all the ways they met together.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Consider all the ways this passage describes how the first Christians meet together: they meet to hear the apostles’ teaching.  They meet together for communion and prayer.  They meet together to help those in need.  They meet in large groups in the temple.  They meet in small groups in homes to have meals together.  They meet to praise God. 

There is no mention here at all of individual faith, of going it alone, of being isolated, as we learned in the previous post that can be especially problematic for us American Christians.  The first followers of Jesus were together.  They practiced a meeting together kind of faith.  Meeting together was vital, meeting together is vital.

We Christians are people who meet together, because God is a community, a Tri-Unity. We Christians are people who meet together because when we meet together, Jesus is there among us.  We see ourselves as a community, then, a community of Jesus’ people, together, supporting one another, sacrificing for one another.  Our meeting together is to go deep. When we meet together, we cannot settle for shallow relationships. 

Check back to the next and final post about meeting together, as we learn what Scripture has to say about moving away from shallow relationships in church families.

Photo by Terren Hurst on Unsplash

How a hidden camera can help American Christians improve…Meeting together, Part 3

Imagine you are in a building like a hospital or office high-rise. You’ve just finished an important meeting on one of the upper floors, so you head for the bank of elevators. After pressing the down button, you wait until your elevator is ready, and the doors open. What you see inside surprises you. The elevator is nearly full, and everyone is facing away from you. You peek toward the back wall, and there are no doors on that side. That’s odd, you think. You wonder if something is wrong. Why is everyone facing the opposite wall? That’s not normal. Maybe you’re not supposed to be in this elevator. But you need to be on your way, the elevator is going down, and there is space available, so you walk in. 

Here’s what you don’t know. This is a social experiment with a hidden camera. It’s one example of the Asch Conformity Test, and it is designed to study how groups can influence individuals to conform to the crowd.  The are many such experiments, but the elevator is a classic. In the test, everyone in the group except one person is an actor with instructions to enter the elevator and stand facing away from the door.  Very often it doesn’t take long for the person who is not in on the secret instructions to succumbs to a feeling of peer pressure, and mid-ride, they will turn to face the same direction as the rest of the riders, even if those other riders are facing a blank wall. 

Here’s where it gets interesting. The Asch Conformity Test has been used globally in research, and it has found Americans are least likely to conform.   Our individualist streak is scientifically verifiable. That probably won’t surprise many American Christians. We Americans take pride in our individualism, as we have harnessed individualism’s power to achieve much. But there is a shadow side to individualism, particularly when it comes to meeting together as Christians.

To be the kind of people who meet together like God desires, we American Christians need to be aware of our individualistic tendencies.  This week on the blog we’re talking about how Christians are to meet together, and we American Christians may need to take a hard look at ourselves to see if perhaps we are being too individualistic, too isolated, maybe gathering in the same spaces, but not really meeting together. So what kind of meeting together does the Bible teach us?

First, Christian theology of meeting together is rooted in who God himself is in his being.  God is a community.  God is a Trinity. Father, Son and Spirit.  While we might not understand how God can be three and one at the same time, we can simply observe that God is a Tri-Unity.  Three, together. 

So when we gather together, we push away our individualistic, isolationist tendencies, and we follow the example of our Triune God, that God is a community, a relational God.  We meet together because God meets together.

We also meet together because when we meet together, in a mysterious, but very real, special and amazing way, God is there.

Second, in Matthew 18:10 Jesus said this about our relationships in the church, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

Think about that.  When we meet together, even a group as small as two or three, Jesus says that he is in our midst.  I’m not saying that Jesus is not with us when we are all by ourselves.  Paul writes in 1st Corinthians chapters 3 and 6 that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.  Our bodies.  Jesus taught the same thing about the Spirit in John 14, 15, and 16.  God the Spirit lives with us and in us. 

When we come together in Jesus’ name, however, his presence is with us in another sense beyond his Spirit.  Don’t ask me to explain it in scientific detail.  But we have his promise that Jesus is with us when we come together in his name. 

Notice the important detail in Jesus’ teaching.  He describes our meeting together “in his name.”  When we come together in his name, we are gathering with a heart motivation to serve the mission of his Kingdom, to truly love and care for the people in our church family.  Meeting in his name is meeting in the way that he would meet with us.  Jesus was selfless love, and so when we meet with our church family, we follow his example of selfless love. 

Paul wrote about this in Philippians 2:4-5, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus”

I find it astounding to think that when we gather with that selfless heart motivation, Jesus’ presence is with us!     

The Scripture tells us that there are additional compelling reasons for meeting together. In the final two posts this week, we’ll examine those reasons. Check back in tomorrow.

Photo by Derrick Treadwell on Unsplash

When I played a Beatles’ song for youth group, and it failed – Meeting together, Part 2

In the spring of 2003 I had been in my role as Faith Church’s Youth/Associate Pastor for less than 12 months when a nearby sister church approached us with an idea: could we combine youth groups? 

They were renting space at a local school, and not only did they not have easy access to additional hours and usage of the space for youth group meetings, but they also couldn’t afford to hire a youth pastor.  Some of that church’s families with teens were unsettled by their lack of focus on youth ministry, and thus their church leaders were concerned.  Given my congregation’s geographical proximity to their focus area, given our space, and given the fact that I was already on board as Faith Church’s youth pastor, they thought a merger just might solve their needs. 

Further, they wondered if this combination, which would double the size of both groups, might be a boost for all involved.  To top it off, they offered to pay part of my salary and subsidize costs for their students at the same rate my church was subsidizing costs for all our students.  The leaders of our sister church saw it as a win-win, as did we, and that summer I feverishly began planning to launch the newly combined group.  I was excited to embark on a journey of togetherness, but the groups were separate.  As a very inexperienced youth pastor, how would I help two distinct groups of teenagers come together? 

I knew it would take time to build meaningful relationships, but I thought it might help to start with a symbolic act.  Rituals are symbolic acts that help us imagine and build new worlds.  I wanted the two youth groups to imagine becoming one group. 

Our sister church paid to rent the gymnasium of the school where they met for worship, so we decided to have a sports-themed kick-off event.  Most of the rest of the regular meetings and events were going to take place at Faith Church, so we thought it appropriate for Faith Church’s group to make a sacrificial overture by holding the first event on our sister church’s home turf.  That evening, after some “ice-breaker” games and sports, the groups ate pizza on the bleachers in the gym of the school.  I say “groups” because there were two very visible groups on those bleachers.  The youth of each church had sorted themselves apart from one another. 

My plan for the night was to have a devotional talk about unity, and it seemed that the evening was starting with disunity.  I was disappointed that none of the students from either church were sacrificially reaching out to one another.  I can hardly blame them, because I have observed the same tendency with a variety of age groups.  Most people stick with their friends, with the familiar, whether children or adults.

But I was ready.  I had come prepared with my symbolic gesture.  I cued up the Beatles’ song, “Come Together,” and I gave the following instructions: as the song played, I wanted them to physically move their bodies and sit next to someone from the other church.  I hit the play button, and as the Beatles crooned the chorus, “Come together, right now, over me,” nothing happened. 

Instead, the looks on the teenagers’ faces were filled with fear and loathing.  Years later, they were the same looks I saw on the faces of adults when, as senior pastor, I instructed the people in a worship service to get up and sit in a different pew, so as to meet new people.  In the gym, at my further coaxing, the students begrudgingly rose from their places on the bleachers and came together.  They were now physically together, but at the same time they were far from truly together. 

To bring it home in a personal way, my wife will often say to me that though I am physically present with her as I sit next to her on the sofa in the evening, I am not always present with her in a way that she desires.  The two of us have gathered, as we are in very close physical proximity, but my wife is dissatisfied with the quality of our togetherness.  That might have something to do with the fact that I often fall asleep while sitting there.  My snoring doesn’t help either.  The same goes for when I am sitting next to her, but I am engrossed in playing a game on my phone.  I am physically present, together with her, but as she would say, “I am not really present.”  What real presence does she desire? 

Simply put, we humans can gather in the same proximity, but we might not be together in a meaningful way.  What, then, should “togetherness” be?  Better yet, let me ask another question that I believe will help us discover what togetherness should be: “What kind of togetherness does God desire?”

Photo by Fedor on Unsplash

An axiom to help Christians think about how to meet together – Meeting together, Part 1

As we learned in the preview post, the last 25-35 years, 40 million adult Americans in all religious traditions, left their houses of worship.[1]

This does not include people who attend church infrequently.  If they attend on Christmas and Easter, they are not counted in these numbers.  40 million totally gone.  Of the 40 million, 15 million are evangelicals. The numbers are staggering.  Lots of people, have given up on church.

Why are people changing their practice of meeting together?

In our contemporary society, participation in a church has some serious competition.  I have a feeling you can guess the church’s four main competitors, which all start with the letter S: sleeping, streaming, scrolling, and sports.

And that leads us to a conclusion.  The majority of people are not leaving the church because of a fifth S: scandals.   There are absolutely church scandals that have caused people to leave the church, far too many scandals.   

But the report says that “30 million of the 40 million people who have left the church in America have left casually.”  Casually?  What does that mean?  It means that they have “no pain point, animus or even high degree of intentionality for leaving.”  So why did they leave?  The top three reasons are: 1. They moved.  2. Attendance was inconvenient.  3. They had a family change, like a divorce.  They stopped going, and they haven’t returned. 

So what?  What does it matter? Do Christians really need to meet together?

Last week I started a blog series on relationships in the church, starting with how we are to encourage one another.  This week we’re talking about meeting together. That brings me to my high school soccer coach.  He loved axioms.  An axiom is a pithy statement meant to explain an obvious, but important truth.  For example, you cannot win a soccer game unless you score a goal.  Or the axiom that is logically next: You cannot score a goal unless you get the ball into your opponent’s net. 

Those are so obvious. You want to roll your eyes and say, “Of course.  Tell me something I don’t know.”  But the power of the axiom is that it states the obvious to help us get to the root of a problem.  For my high school soccer team, at halftime when we hadn’t yet scored any goals, my coach’s axiom was meant to shake us into the reality, the down-to-earth truth, of what it will take to turn the game around and score some goals.

Likewise, in the church, if we are having a sermon about relationships, we need a really down-to-earth axiom.  Here’s an axiom for meeting together:

You won’t have relationships in the church if you don’t have any relationships in the church.

I was tempted to write the axiom like this: you can’t have any relationship in the church if you aren’t meeting together.  That would be good.  That would work.  But I like the first one better: You won’t have relationships in the church if you don’t have any relationships in the church.  I like that better because it forces us to ask, “Do I have relationships in the church?”

“Yes, of course we do,” we say to ourselves.  But I encourage you to evaluate your relationships more deeply. The axiom has opened a door to help us evaluate our relationships in the church.  What is the quality of those relationships? 

“Do I have good relationships, deep relationships, meaningful relationships, in the church family?  Or am I just in proximity to people, maybe saying a few words about the weather, sports, or the news?” 

Good, deep, meaningful relationships require us to meet together, but meeting together is so much more than just being in the same room. This week we’ll talk about what the Bible has to say about how Christians are to meet together.

Photo by Small Group Network on Unsplash

[1] From the Good Faith Podcast, October 14, 2023, “The Great Dechurching”.

How solo can a person’s relationship with God be and still be faithful? – Meeting together, Preview

It’s been in the news, so I suspect many of you have heard the dire reports.  Christian worship service attendance across our nation is down.  Way down.  One report notes that in the past 30 years, 40 million people have stopped participating in the life and worship of their houses of worship.  That decline is sharper than the increases of the great revivals in our nation’s past, revivals like the First and Second Great Awakenings, and the arena evangelism era led by Billy Graham.

Surely not we evangelicals, though?  I mean, of course the Catholic church is seeing decline because of all the scandals in their midst.  And of course the mainline Protestant churches are falling apart because they “haven’t remained faithful to the Bible.”  But we evangelicals aren’t like that.  The decline can’t be affecting us evangelicals, right?  Look at all our megachurches.  Surely we’re doing okay, aren’t we?

No.

Of the 40 million people who have disconnected from church, 15 million are evangelicals.

Okay, so evangelicals have seen an exodus too, but is it really that big of a deal?  We can have a relationship with God anywhere, right?  We can listen to worship songs, we can watch TV preachers or Bible podcasts.

Yes, we can do all that.  Much of the content is very good.  But consider some questions:

How disconnected can our practice of Christianity be until we have crossed a line into unfaithfulness?  How individual can our practice of discipleship be?  Can a person’s relationship with God be solo?

How much do we need gather together?  Do we need to come to a particular address, where a congregation owns/rents property, and a bricks and mortar building with a worship space?  I believe these are vital questions for understanding faithful discipleship to Jesus.

Last week I started a blog series on relationships in the church, and this coming week that series continues as we take a look at what Scripture has to say about Christians meeting together. 

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

Giving people another chance with gracious, truthful love – Encourage one another, Part 5

How will Paul react?  Remember the situation? 

In the previous post, we learned that in Acts chapters 13-14, Barnabas the Encourager and Paul embark on the first missionary trip of the early church, and they take John Mark with them. But mid-trip, John leaves them to return to Jerusalem, where his mother lives. Time passes, and Paul and Barnabas are ready to begin their second trip. We learned in Acts 15, verses 36-37, that Barnabas wants to bring John Mark on this second trip. How will Paul react?

Look at verses 38-40,

“Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. [Paul and Barnabas] had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord.”

We see the encourager in Barnabas here.  And frankly, my personal opinion is that I believe Barnabas is right in this case, and Paul is wrong.  God is gracious and forgiving.  I have a feeling that Paul, later in life, would have reflected on this situation and agreed that Barnabas was right in encouraging Mark by giving him another shot. 

But perhaps Paul, super intense in his younger days, is unwilling to give Mark a second chance. 

And yet, Paul is not totally wrong either.  Paul helps us realize that being encouraging and being nice are not the same thing.  Being nice can actually be damaging to people.  One author writes, “Religious institutions are the worst offenders at encouraging immaturity and irresponsibility.”  Why?  Because we can say that we are being encouraging, and we can never get around to being truthful.  When we encourage without truth, we are not actually being encouraging, because genuine encouragement is based in truth. 

This is very difficult for me, to a point.  I find it much easier to speak boldly and bluntly in my sermons or teachings because I am in front of a group of people, and I know that my sermons are not directed to any one person.  I feel much more free to say what I believe is truthful. 

But put me in my office, one-on-one, and I can really struggle.  In a conversation with one person or a very small group, I just want to encourage them, even if I know that there is a potentially difficult truth the people would do well to hear and face.  If I say something confrontational, even if it is truth, I am fearful of what will happen next.  The person might have a bad reaction, might gaslight, might leave the church, you name it.  In those one-on-one situations, then, I can default to kindness.  But I’m not really encouraging them if I am not grounding my kindness in the truth, and directing them toward growth in Jesus.

So how do we practice encouragement that is grounded in the truth?  We want to encourage people.  That means we do not overlook the truth about them or a situation.  To best encourage them, we need to know the truth and they need to know the truth. As Paul writes in Ephesians 4:15 speak the truth in love. Encouragement is more than being kind or nice.  Encouragement means we push people towards growth in Jesus, as we walk alongside them, support them, speaking the truth in love in a sacrificial way.

The story of Barnabas, Paul and John Mark comes full circle, as learn some very interesting information in Paul’s letters of Colossians and Philemon, which were written about 12 years after the incident in Acts 15. At the conclusion of each of those letters, Paul communicates greetings on behalf of Mark to the people in the church Paul is writing to.  That means Mark is with Paul, serving with Paul.  Paul eventually did give Mark another chance!

Mark seemed to thrive under the encouragement he received from Barnabas and eventually Paul. Mark would go on to serve as a missionary with Peter, and write the story of Jesus we call the Gospel of Mark.  Mark’s path to maturity started with Barnabas, the encourager, truthfully, graciously, sacrificially walking alongside a fellow believer in a hopeful way.

It really seems that Barnabas not only wanted to be an encourager, he seems to have the spiritual gift of encouragement.  Some of you might have that gift too.  As Paul writes in Romans 12:4-8,

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

But that doesn’t mean that if you don’t have the gift of encouragement, you are off the hook and don’t have to encourage others.  We are all called to be encouragers.  For example, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:31, “For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.”

Paul also writes in 2 Corinthians 13:11, “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

In 1 Thessalonians chapters 4 & 5, Paul says three different times that we are to encourage one another.

The writer of Hebrews, likewise, makes a point of teaching us to encourage one another:

Hebrews 3:13, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Hebrews 10:25, “Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

When we encourage, we lift one another up.  When we encourage, we are on the lookout for people who are struggling.  When we encourage, we build each other up.  We are hopeful.  We are rooted in the love of Jesus for one another.  And we act on that, speaking to one another in gracious truthful love.

I saw this kind of encouragement in action recently.  This past Sunday my wife drove from Lancaster to Pittsburgh to be with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson, as their new baby girl was about to be born. Testing revealed the baby to have an under-developed heart, so once born she would need immediate treatment. She was born yesterday, is doing well, and that treatment is in process. It is, as you can imagine, a very intense, emotional situation. My wife went there to help care for our two-year old grandson, so our son and daughter-in-law could focus on their new baby.

On Saturday, the day before my wife left, two dear friends came and surprised her with a care package filled with all sorts of really thoughtful, helpful gifts.  Do you see what that means? These friends knew about the situation, cared, took time to think about how to be sacrificially generous, and then they fulfilled their plan.  It was a major encouragement to my wife, pointing her to the love of Jesus.

Even if you don’t have the gift of encouragement, what steps will you take to encourage the people around you? What words of gracious, truthful love can you speak to them? What actions of uplift can you take? 

Photo by Anastasia Vityukova on Unsplash

It’s good to ask for help – Encourage one another, Part 4

It may be part pride, part arrogance, part determination, but I do not like to ask for help. I can tell myself that I can figure out whatever problem I’m encountering. Actually, I can tell myself that I should figure it out. I don’t want to come across as needy or weak or incapable. So I bristle at the thought of asking for help. It’s easy to convince myself that not asking for help is actually the better choice: “I don’t want to be a bother. I don’t want to be known as the person who quickly asks others to help, without first trying to figure out my problem for myself. Especially with all the free instructional videos on YouTube these days, I can surely handle, can’t I?” 

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we need to be people who ask for help.

In the previous post, we left Barnabas in Antioch trying to encourage the Christians there. But Barnabas knows his limits.  He so much wants to encourage the people to remain true to the Lord, but though he is an encourager, he is not as gifted a teacher.  We can imagine the Christians in Antioch asking Barnabas all sorts of questions about what it means to be a faithful disciple of Jesus, and Barnabas wants to help them.  He knows he needs help. 

In Acts 11, verses 25-26, we read, “Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

When he knows he needs help, an encourager asks, “Who can help me help these people?”  In this case, the person who could help was Saul.  Saul was a very gifted thinker and teacher. 

But Saul had gone to his hometown of Tarsus.

It’s not like Barnabas could get on the phone and say, “Saul, we need you over here in Antioch.”  Sending a letter, which was possible, could take months.   So Barnabas heads over to Tarsus himself.   The trip from Antioch to Tarsus wasn’t quick.   It could take 5-6 days for Barnabas to get there.  Then he’d have to find Paul, and then they’d have to travel back.  That short little verse 25 is likely a two-week long process. 

We learn something important about encouragement from Barnabas in this episode.  Being an encourager is a commitment that can require sacrificing time and energy and money for the well-being and discipleship of others in the church.  It is more than just saying something kind.

For Barnabas, being an encourager was not just a matter of going to get Saul, plugging Saul into the community there in Antioch and letting Saul do his thing.  Barnabas and Saul stayed there a whole year.  Talk about commitment.  Encouragers commit to relationships with people, and they stay, they persevere, they follow-up, and they keep at it.  Encouragement can take time. 

As the situation in the church advances, Barnabas and Saul become a missionary team.  The encourager and the teacher.  It’s a great mix of gifts.  We read in Acts 12, verse 25 through chapters 13 and 14 that Barnabas and Saul bring John Mark with them and the three of them go on a missionary journey that takes them to numerous cities and on many adventures as they proclaim the good news about Jesus. 

But something troubling happens on that journey.

In Acts 13:13, John Mark suddenly leaves them.  All the author of Acts tells us is that John Mark wanted to return to Jerusalem.  We know from Acts 12:12 that Mark’s mother lived in Jerusalem, so perhaps Mark was homesick or just wanted to check on her.

John Mark’s departure, however, gives Barnabas another opportunity to practice encouragement. In Acts 15, verses 36-37, we read,

“Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them.”

A year or so has gone by since John Mark left Paul and Barnabas. Perhaps God has been at work in John Mark’s life, and Mark is once again ready to serve in ministry.  My suspicion is that, though Mark deserted them earlier, Barnabas now wants to encourage Mark, to give Mark a second chance, to disciple him.  Barnabas and John Mark are cousins, as Paul will later tell us in Colossians 4:10. It is possible that Barnabas has some family pressure pulling at him, and as I’m guessing you well know, family pressure can be complicated.  But the point remains.  Barnabas is an encourager, and part of being an encourager is a willingness to give a person a chance to change and grow.

Barnabas, however, is just one member of the team. How will Paul react to the idea of giving John Mark another chance? We’ll find out in the next post.

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How to have hope over fear – Encourage one another, Part 3

Saul has just made a decision to turn his life around 180 degrees. He met Jesus, and everything would now change. He used to persecute Christians, and now he was preaching about Jesus. But that all happened far away from the church’s home base in Jerusalem. No surprise, then, what we read in Acts 9, verse 26, “When [Saul] came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.”

Except for one person.  Barnabas.  Look at the next verse:

“But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.”

Barnabas the encourager steps in and supports Saul!  It was wise of the disciples to be cautious.  They weren’t wrong.  Saul could easily have been trying to worm his way into their trust, only to take them down.  But Barnabas the encourager saw past the fear and supported the work of God that was clearly evident in Paul’s life. 

Encouragers are like that.  Encouragers see how God can work in people’s live, and they push discouraged people to see how God can work.  Encouragers have a vision beyond the current circumstances.  We can get so caught up in the muck and mire, thinking that our current difficult circumstances are all that life will ever be.  It is normal to get stuck in those kinds of ruts.  When we are in those ruts, we tend to use absolute words like “always” or “never” or “no way.” 

“Why does stuff like this always happen to me?”  “I will never pay off that debt.”  “I will always be alone.”  “All I ever do is give in to temptation, to that sin, that bad habit.” 

“I will always, never, ever.”  Absolute words can hold us in fear.

Barnabas-types, encouragers, are so important because they remind us that there are other ways to view life.  In the early church, the people were afraid of Saul because in their limited view of God, there was no way that a terrible person could change so fast into a genuinely good person.   Encouragers are vital because they remind us, “Yes, there is a way.”  Encouragers see hope, and they share the hope they see.

Barnabas’ story continues in Acts 11. Some time has passed since chapter 9, and now the church sends Barnabas to reach out to the Christians in Antioch, meaning that the church had spread beyond the borders of Israel.  Barnabas goes to Antioch, and as we read in Acts 11, verse 23, he encourages them, no surprise there, to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 

Notice the description of Barnabas in verse 24, “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.”  We read that kind of description about many of the disciples, as it is a wonderful description of discipleship.  Barnabas was a true disciple.  What I want us to consider, however, given the topic of our posts this week, is what we read in verse 23.  He encouraged them to remain true to the Lord.  Barnabas’ encouragement led to their growth, both in quality and quantity. 

We encourage people by urging them to remain true to the Lord.  We encourage people when we point them to the Lord, to follow the Lord with all their hearts.  Encouragement is not just a “You can do it.”  It is that, but it is “You can do it, by following the Lord with all your heart.”  Encouragers point people to Jesus.  Encouragers help people remember the truth about God’s love for them, and how God has interacted lovingly with them in their lives.  Encouragers encourage people to build their lives on Jesus, to depend on him, to obey him. 

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One man’s example of sacrificial generosity – Encourage one another, Part 2

One of the most famous encouragers in the Bible is Barnabas.  But Barnabas is not his real name.

Turn to Acts 4:36-37.  In Acts 4:36, we learn that Barnabas’ actual name is Joseph, but he is called by the nickname “Barnabas” because he is known for being an encourager.  “Barnabas” means “son of encouragement.”  Though we just barely meet him in Acts 4, Barnabas is mentioned there because he does something that illustrates the theme of that section, a theme that starts in chapter 4, verses 32 and continues through chapter 5 verse 16. 

Chapters 4 and 5 of Acts describe a period when the early church is still quite young.  It is likely less than a year or two old.  How did the people in the church relate to one another?  What we learn, starting in chapter 4 verse 32, is that people in the church were “one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” 

As a result, look at verse 34.  “There were no needy persons among them.  For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”  Then we read that Joseph from Cyprus, aka Barnabas, the son of encouragement, was one of the people who did just that. 

Encouragement includes at least this, therefore, a willingness to be sacrificially generous to the church family.  Obviously, not everyone has the means to do what Barnabas did.  But all of us have the ability to be generous, as God has blessed us.  To be encourager is to be one who gives. Do you see people in need?  Encourage them by being generous to them.

But Barnabas was more than just a man of means who gave money. Turn to Acts chapter 9, verse 27.  In Acts 9, we read the amazing story of Saul, one of the Jewish religious leaders who was horribly persecuting Christians. Shockingly, Jesus reaches out to Saul in a light from heaven, and Saul responds by doing a 180 with his life, becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus. 

But the Christians in Jerusalem were not present when Saul met Jesus.  All they had experienced was Saul rounding them up, jailing and killing them.  Of course they would be really suspicious about Saul’s supposed 180 change in belief.  Of course they would be afraid that Saul was lying, concocting a plan to scam them.  

No surprise, then, what we read in Acts 9, verse 26, “When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.”

Except for one person. In the next post, we find out who that person was.

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