A Place of Encouragement

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Here’s another reason I come back to church every week. It’s because it’s a place of encouragement.

I think one of the main reasons people leave churches is because they feel abused and judged and hurt, instead of encouraged and loved.

Church Should Be a Place of Encouragement

In Hebrews 10:24–25, the writer says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.” And so here, in the church, we should find great encouragement week after week.

All of us come with struggles. I think if we had to go around church and ask people to tell of their deeper struggles, we’d all be shocked. Instead, we come and we pretend everything’s OK, and we put on a mask, so to speak, when truly this is the one place in the world you should come with your mess.

G. K. Chesterton once said that we’re all in the same boat and we’re all seasick. Now there’s an image for you! A church is a bunch of seasick people in a boat, trying to keep their mess down!

But I want you to know that church is a place where you can come with your mess. Come and let it out. Come and be a mess. Because together we help each other out here. We find encouragement. We find help. We find healing. We find strength.

Encouragement in a Local Church Community

Of course, you can find these things watching the celebrity preachers online. Absolutely, they speak words of life and truth. But there’s something about hearing personal words in your local church, where there’s a minister who understands the needs of your community. There’s true encouragement and personal encouragement you can find there.

We come to church and connect with people because we need their encouragement and God’s encouragement through them.

This is why church family is important. Your friends in Christ can encourage you in a real and personal way, and probably in a more effective and helpful way than words preached by someone you don’t know at all.

In fact, earlier this year at our AGM, at eMseni, one of our congregation members came to the front and shared how the support of this church had made all the difference for him and his wife after a car accident they were and a lot of struggles after that, and he said, with tears in his eyes, how the love and support of this church community was the greatest thing that helped them through.

And you know what? You don’t get that from the mega church in the States. Not that you shouldn’t watch them, by the way! Watch and be blessed by them. But don’t lose out on the encouragement and help you can find in a local family of faith. This is what the early church did. That’s what we are trying to do. And I hope and pray that you will find a church where you can find that sort of encouragement.

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