ViewPoint Q&A: Becoming a Community of Encouragers

If you made a Top Ten list of the greatest needs in the church, would encouragement even make the list? Revive spoke with Bill Elliff, lead pastor at The Summit Church in N. Little Rock, Arkansas, to discuss why the ministry of encouragement is vital to believers—and key to the mission of the church.

Why should encouragement matter to Christians?

Bill: The root of the word encourage is "courage." If I am discouraged, I have lost courage. But Scripture tells us that we have the ability to infuse courage into another believer (Hebrews 10:25) by the grace of God, Word of God, and Spirit of God. That's our role and responsibility as a community of believers.

I was in a fire station recently, and one of the firemen was showing me his fire truck. (I felt like a 12-year-old kid! It was really cool.) He said, "We hook that big hose up to the hydrant, and the water comes out with unbelievable pressure. It infuses the truck with water, and that goes to the fire." Similarly, believers have the capacity and responsibility to be connected to the hydrant of God's grace and Word—to be pouring that out all the time on the discouraged people around us.

First Thessalonians 5:14 tells us to encourage the fainthearted. That word fainthearted literally means "small-souled." People come to a moment where their souls can't handle it—circumstances are just beyond their capacity. Then the community of believers is to plug in the hose of encouragement and pour it on.

What keeps us from encouraging each other?

Bill: I think believers have had kind of a flabby theology about need. In general, American Christians are not comfortable with seeing ourselves as needy. But the biblical model for understanding need within the church is clear in Acts 4:32-35. It's an incredible passage where the believers are selling their things and sharing with each other until—and here's the statement that grabs my attention—"there were no needy persons among them."

Now, this was a church of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, in Jerusalem. Can you imagine the testimony, when a watching world sees a community of faith where not one single need is going unmet? What a witness to God's power and love! But notice that this kind of opportunity came because of the existence of need. Our response to need gives us the chance to put our faith into action as we encourage in both word and deed. That's why it's time to rethink our theology of need.

How can a church become a community of encouragement?

Bill: Let's take the whole arena of finances, since there are very legitimate needs right now econ-omically. People are losing their jobs, their homes, and more.

When unemployment hit 10% nationally, a friend of mine made this statement: "If nine employed Christians can't take care of one unemployed Christian, our problems are bigger than financial." I think he's right. Our congregation has been wrestling with taking up the challenge to become like the church in Acts 4:32-35—one so giving that there is no more need.

We knew of 6-8 families in our church who had lost their jobs, and some others who had suffered reduced income, but we suspected there were probably others. At the close of one Sunday morning message, completely unannounced and after we had already taken our normal offering, we told the people about the needs of these unemployed members. We placed baskets across the front of the auditorium and asked them to give as God prompted them, promising that every dollar would go directly to those affected by the economic downturn.

Then we told those who found themselves unemployed or underemployed that we wanted their offering to be a willingness to receive from God and His people. So we asked them to come to the baskets, and rather than putting in money, to put in their name and contact information. We also gave anyone permission to submit the name of a person or family in the congregation that they knew were in this situation.

The giving was spontaneous, joyful, and instant. The baskets filled to overflowing. Normally, when we do an announced special offering, we might receive $5,000. But the offering this day was over $22,000! But here was the other surprise. Instead of receiving 8-10 names of families in need, there were 41 names in the baskets! Needless to say, our elders and deacons had a lot of fun the following week calling those families, assessing the exact need, and delivering every dime of that money to see those needs met.

But I've got to admit something. It was tempting to worry, "Oh, boy, if we start encouraging the congregation to meet each other's needs like this, we're going to lose critical money for our church budget." But this incredible experience of seeing the abundant release of love, joy, and the power of Christ's community has made me wonder, "What would happen if churches all across America would take the risk to teach our people a fresh theology of how to respond to the needs of others?"

That's quite a vision of what life in the kingdom could be!

Bill: A lifestyle of encouragement is a powerfully authentic witness to the gospel, particularly for the next generation that is very suspicious of the church. What if when they came they didn't hear, "You've got to give, give, give to us," but rather they saw us meeting others' needs, taking care of the poor, helping the community?

Our life's purpose is to communicate the sufficiency of Christ and the power of God's love and grace. Encouraging others in practical ways, especially when times are toughest, provides us the opportunity to fine tune our faith and give an irrefutable testimony to a watching world. But that will only happen if we resist the temptation to hoard and to self-protect, instead trusting Jesus to mobilize us together to do the opposite. That's what being a community of encouragement as the body of Christ is about.