We could all use a pat on the back or a word of motivation. What are signals that someone needs encouragement? What if that's not your spiritual gift? Bro. Chris Carter shares some tips and ideas to have a heart of encouragement.

Let's start with a really broad question, just to hone in on the perimeters of what we're talking about today, what is encouragement?

Well, I have to tell a story to lead into this, and it involves Bob Cousy, who's the legendary Boston Celtics Hall of Famer. 

It's said that his teammates loved to play with him because he loved to spread the sugar, and I love that expression. He scored a lot, but he didn't live to score; he lived to be the assist man. He lived to get the ball in the hands of his teammates in any way that he could. 

I would say an encourager lives to spread the sugar. To encourage means literally to assist others in whatever way they need help. This implies that we must be in a relationship with others or we won’t know how they need help. So the context of encouragement is about being in a relationship with other people because it's only in the context of the relationship that you're going to know what, where, and how people hurt or what makes people happy.

You have to be in a relationship to know what's going on in their lives, and that takes some intentionality because you have to get close enough to people to really listen. So that proximity predicts or implies that you notice their needs and are concerned about them. 

Encouragement is one aspect of God's nature. The scripture says that He's the Father of Compassion and the God of all comfort. He is the ultimate encourager, but we are His assistance in this ministry. We're the assist people, and we can't do it alone. But as God works in our lives and recognizes people's needs, we want to offer them the same encouragement that God has provided to us. 

I think that people who have the spiritual gift of encouragement see that part of their existence is to be a part of God's healing ministry for the sake of others. 

That's a lot to unpack there. So let's work back to the beginning of what you were saying about how it's relational. How do we know when somebody needs encouragement? People may often struggle with depression or any number of things, but they don't wear a banner that says, "I'm struggling right now." They may put on a face that says I'm being brave, but we'll never know. So how can we be attuned to those things?

Well, I think one is that we pray that God will give us an awareness of what people are dealing with. You're exactly right. People don't write on their forehead what they're struggling with. Not everyone, but most people are pretty good at hiding what they struggle with. We build these defense mechanisms, and we build walls. So it's hard for us to say this is what I'm struggling with. 

But for people who are encouragers, they usually have an intuitive gift of observation. Often, they're able to observe the rhythms and patterns of people, especially if you're in a regular relationship, where they can note if someone shuts down for a longer period. 

If people look abnormally tired, even more than they usually look, then you can notice that. You can also see tone, body language, or facial expressions. I think, too when you are an encourager, you usually hold people in your heart. Sometimes God will simply let you know that you need to reach out to this or that person.

You've told me before in brief passing conversations about being stopped in a restaurant where someone lets the floodgates open and tells you their entire story. How do you be aware of those situations and handle them?

I think people want someone to show a genuine interest in them. You could overdo that by being too personal and digging too hard by asking people questions that cross the line. Many people can have their hearts filled by someone simply asking their name. 

Sometimes at dinner, my brother and I've done this for years, but at the end of the order, we'll ask the waiter or waitress if there is anything that we can lift them in prayer about. It's been amazing, just a genuine expression. Be quiet for a second; it's incredible. The number of people telling you their life story from just from a simple question.

One of the themes that I'm picking up on in your answers is taking yourself out of the equation. So it's really putting a focus on other people. Is that accurate?

That is absolutely accurate. I think, again, going back to the definition of encouragement, at least one definition is to assist God in His ministry of reaching out to others. So the whole ministry of encouragement is for the sake of others. It represents the heart of God, and His nature is to encourage and comfort people in their need. We all have needs, whether they're spoken or unspoken.

I know the answer to this next question, and it may be a dumb question, but I want to dig into something. As Christians, where is our source of encouragement to come from?

It’s interesting that you say that because there's a verse where David mentions that he encouraged himself in the Lord. I love that passage because it reminds you that for you to be a spark in someone else's life, you have to primarily receive your encouragement from the Lord. 

God will send other people to add fuel to your fire, but there are no substitutes for our own time with God where we pour out our needs to Him. He can sometimes empty us of negative emotions, or He ministers to those emotions and fills us back up. 

So in our time with God, we exchange some things that we don't want to have control over our lives. David traded those things for healthy and holy qualities, and they remind us that we're a love child of God, no matter what we're going through. When that happens, then you begin to shift after you've had your time with God. You change into being able to look towards someone else's needs. You move from a self-centered life to an other-centered life because of God.

When I think about an encouraging person, I think of someone that fits the cliche of a very sunny disposition. In reality, that's not the case for many of people. For some people it can be difficult for them to be outgoing, or they may suffer from depression themselves, so being an encourager may be challenging. As a Christian, do you have to be an optimist to be an encourager?

I don't think so. I believe that God can equally use introverts, extroverts, and those with sunny and melancholic dispositions. I have an example of that. 

When I first entered the ministry, I was on a very small salary, and I ended up living in the attic of an older couple. The man was an extrovert, and the wife was a severe introvert who also struggled with depression, but she was a spirit-filled woman.

After living with them for more than a year, she observed how I was in my patterns and differences. She would offer to pray with me, and they would pray for God to anoint me. She was the kind of person that had a hard time speaking to somebody in the grocery store or having a conversation.

So you may not be able to encourage everybody, but God may just give you one person to zero in on if you're an introvert.

Is there any shame in not being more encouraging if you're somebody like that?

Not at all. Of course, the greatest encouragement we can give someone is to pray for them. Even if you're not able to speak regularly to someone, living the intercessory life is approaching God on their behalf and asking God to minister to their needs.

Well, Chris, I have to toot your horn for a second. You're one of the more optimistic and kind people I've ever met. When I see you, you always pat me on the back, have a big smile, and check on me. Were you always like this?

I came to invite Christ into my heart at eight years old. That was both a joyous and a sad time. There was a lot of conflict in my family life, so I think to answer your question, I did desire to be an encourager from a young age. A lot of it was a fellowship with my pain. Even as a young man, I was trying to figure out how to deal with the pain on the inside of me, which made me super sensitive to cues of discomfort in other people's lives. So God sometimes uses our own experiences of struggle to help us but also to say, "Hey, this can be a bridge of ministry to other people."

I've never heard that term fellowship of pain. Can you talk more about that? 

Yeah, I think how we see ourselves is very important when talking about being an encourager. An ex-Baptist pastor who converted to be an Episcopal priest, John Claypool wrote a book called "Tracks of a Fellow Struggler."

In that book, he talks about the pain he experienced losing a child and how he began to have real resentment towards God. His 13-year-old daughter was taken from them; out of their lives at such a young age. She was such a pure gift to them. They loved her so much.

It took about three or four years for God to work in his heart and for him to realize that he could be thankful for the time that he did have with his daughter. Then out of the depths of his pain, he began to love others who were in pain and experienced loss in their life.

Would you say that when painful and grieving moments happen in our lives, God presents us a particular opportunity to be an encouragement to someone else's life?

Happiness can be a shallow word, but I still like it. Happiness is something that resonates with us, because everybody wants to be happy. We often think that happiness has to do with specific circumstances, but it doesn't. It has to do with a particular set of attitudes. It's really about how you view your circumstances, and that takes some time. 

That's why I encourage all of us, and I have to do it as well, to live my pain, my questions, and my heart to God. If we faithfully do that, then God honors our prayers and what's in our hearts but not what we want to be there. I love the definition of prayer that God wants us to tell Him what's in us, not what should be in us. He wants us to be honest, and he turns that genuine transparency into transformation.

I imagine someone who's reading this is thinking, "Well, I don't have the spiritual gift of encouragement. How does this apply to me?" So what do you say to people that this isn't their spiritual gift?

Well, I think it's with any of the spiritual gifts, not just encouragement, but the scripture says that God distributes the gifts as He wills. That doesn't mean that we're not responsible to pray, or to be used in ways that God would want us to be used. 

I don't have every gift, but we all have the Holy Spirit. If we trust in Christ that the Holy Spirit was given as a gift, and all of these gifts live within the Holy Spirit, so even though you might not have the gift of encouragement, the Holy Spirit can use you in any gift as there's need. If someone's in front of you, and you're the only one there, God's not going to withhold that gift of encouragement from someone who needs it. He can use anyone if they're surrendered and yield to Him. 

I think we limit God by saying, "I don't have that gift." You can pray for God to use you and opportunities to share the good news, even though it might not come easy to you. You might not know exactly what to say, but God always uses our humble efforts to him.

What is the biblical rationale for being an encourager? I can think of this as a moralistic ideal where you want to be a positive person. 

We don't have time to look at every scripture, but as I thought about this topic, I thought of Isaiah 34. If you read from Isaiah 1-34, there's a tone of discouragement there. It's doom and gloom all the way. But beginning in chapter 35, there's a shift, and we move from doom and gloom to what I would call bloom. God begins to put so much hope in His people, Israel. Isaiah prophesies that Zion will be a future glory, and he says that we are to receive the father's encouragement. 

In chapter 35, he says these words, "encourage the exhausted." If you think about the word exhausted, it means the one who has nothing left in his hand or heart. Then he says, "and strengthen the feeble." The feeble are those who waver because they're bereaved, grieving, or cast down. 

You asked me earlier about observing things. If you are a prayerful person and you observe people's cues, you can see it when people are cast down. So we're called to encourage, and that means going beside to help, console, or strengthen. Encourage means to put the heart back in somebody. 

It's interesting that Jesus, during His ministry, went about ministering to those who had lost heart. So when I read that, I thought, there it is, right there, they've lost heart, they have nothing left in their hand, they have nothing left in their heart, some circumstance in their life, some chronic issue, some crises in their life has just absolutely taken their heart out of them. 

Peter says that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit, and He went about doing good and healing all who were under the devil's power because God was with Him. So Jesus went person to person, town to town, and He was in the ministry of giving people their hearts back. So that is the biblical precedent. 

There are others like 1 Thessalonians 5:11, where Paul tells the church at Thessalonica, "Keep on encouraging one another." I like that because it's kind of like eating, you need it regularly. One time of encouragement is not enough. We need regular experiences of encouragement in our lives. So he says, "Build one another up, just as you are also doing." 

Another passage that's directed to the church says, "Let us consider, and let us be thoughtful, let us reflect, let us plan how we can be encouragers to others, how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds." The idea of spur can have a negative or a positive connotation, but in this passage, it's positive. He means how can we, as members of the Body of Christ, intentionally motivate others?

He says, part of the way we do that is we meet together. When I think of the pandemic, I can't help but be thankful for the technology we have, but there is no substitute for a real connection in the body of Christ. He asks us to come together to observe one another and encourage one another. 

I'd love to share a little more at some point about the references in Acts that the scripture makes to Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement. So I'll let you lead me in that when you want me to do that.

Let's go ahead and jump in.

I love Barnabas. You have to break it down and see what the gift of encouragement means in scripture.

The first thing that it says about Barnabas is that he was Paul's, right-hand man. So there again, you have this theme of an assistant in every way to the journey of others. He probably had that spiritual gift of helping because it often goes with a gift of encouragement. So in saying that he was his right-hand man, it implies Barnabas did not have to be number one in anything, but he could be number two or number three. These kind of people can work behind the scenes with joy and be a part of God's ministry of encouragement.

The second thing is that encouragement has an aspect of self-sacrifice and generosity in it. When the scripture says that believers shared their possessions with other believers, they shared everything.

Barnabas is the perfect example that's lifted out of that passage. He sold one of his favorite pieces of real estate, brought the money, and put it at the apostles' feet, so they could have the funds to travel and spread the gospel. As a result of that spirit, the scripture says that God's grace was upon them as they shared the gospel, and there were no needy persons among them. 

Instead of self-generosity, you could say it another way, but Barnabas showed sympathy for those in need. We live in a time when conditions may not be as obvious. Sometimes people lack something on the inside, and we need to have sympathy and empathy for people. We don't need to judge them. We don't need to tell them what will fix their problem. Instead, we need to show them the love of God in a tangible way. 

When you think of encouragement, Barnabas also inspired Paul's influence. When Paul was converted, he was an outsider trying to get in. He tried to join the believers at Jerusalem, and they were so afraid of him because he was the persecutor turned preacher. So the other believers said they didn't want him in Jerusalem or have any to do with him lest they end up on the chopping block too.

The scripture says that the Church throughout Judea and Galilea enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. It grew in numbers and lived in fear of the Lord. All that came about because of one man. Barnabas observed Paul's conversion on the Road to Damascus and he instructed them to give him a chance.

A couple of other things.

Barnabas was an encourager of faithfulness to God. When he arrived at Antioch, where Christians were first called Christians, he witnessed the grace of God. In scripture, it says He began to encourage believers. You say, "how did he encourage them?" He had a specific message that went with his spirit of encouragement. He said, "Remain true to the Lord with all of your heart." That was a particular way he tried to minister encouragement to a congregation of persecuted, scattered, and hurting people. They were suffering for the cause of Christ, and he said, "Don't quit being faithful; remain true." 

The last couple of things, he was spirit-filled. Acts 11 says he was a good man for the Holy Spirit, and many people were brought to the Lord. I love that because when I think of encouragement, I think it is a ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in and through believers to build the body of Christ. 

He was adaptable and flexible. You can see how that works into encouragement. Rigid people sometimes struggle with encouragement because they try to control their circumstances. Encouragement works better if you're a free-flowing vessel for the Lord because then you don't mind being interrupted. You see your ministry for the sake of others more than you do accomplishing your agenda. So encouragement usually puts people over projects. 

He was entirely devoted to Jesus. The church leaders often sent men like Paul and Barnabas to encourage other churches. I love what it says, "men and women who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." So there was an element to be encouraged, or you can't hold on to yourself. You have to risk, and you might not do that perfectly; you may mess up. 

The last thing is he was a friend to others. The scripture calls Barnabas a dear friend. So he was concerned about others, whether it be Paul or any brother or sister in need in the church. So I think being a friend is part of that ministry. You can't encourage people unless you're their friend,

One of the things, when I think about the opposite end of what it means to be an encourager is avoiding slander. We love to gossip, and we love to share behind closed doors. And that's the opposite of encouragement, can you elaborate? 

I know we're going to talk more later about how you can encourage others, but the first thing I would say is to buy the words you speak. By that, I mean there's a truth that the words you speak can also have the opposite effect. They can be very discouraging to people. They can be a honeycomb, sweet to the soul. But, they can also be healing to the bones. 

We have to be aware of our tendency, that's in all of our natures, to talk about others poorly. So we should pray and ask for help to abstain from the temptation to speak evil about someone. Because when we do that, God is always the eternal third listener. No one else may hear us say something, but God hears it. 

So we don't want to speak poorly about one of His children, any more than we would want someone else to talk badly about us. I often wonder how many times God would like to interrupt us because of how we're talking about one of his children?

What is the line between encouragement and the need to speak truth into a situation?

That's a powerful thing. We have to make sure that our encouragement is more about the person and not about us. We don't want our encouragement to come from a needy place within us. There is an almost endorphin release when you encourage someone else. I usually walk away feeling like, "Hey, I'm a part of what God's doing in their life!" 

We have to be careful that we speak not just the words that will make people feel good but also speak the truth in love. That's just as much a ministry of encouragement to be able to value someone enough to talk to them about a message that God has laid on your heart and to do it humbly. "You know what, and this is what the Lord's laid on my heart. I could speak the same to myself, but I love you enough to speak what God's laid on my heart. I hope you'll be able to receive it, if not now in some time when God prepares you for that."

We've talked a lot about being an encouragement to others, but what about when we need encouragement? What about when we are the ones that are exhausted and empty. How do we ask others for encouragement?

We talked about friendship, and I think it's important that we understand that we sow what we need. Sometimes we simply have to be in a relationship with other people. By that, I mean we have to risk being known. And I say risk because we have to be honest about where we are with people. I think most people will respect that. 

My experience has been that people don't want you to be a cheerleader. That's not what encouragement means. Sometimes it can mean being a prophetic voice in someone's life and saying, "This is a pattern I've noticed, and I want to share it with you." People have done that with me, and it's not always easy to hear, but I've found it usually very redemptive if I'm willing to lift it to Him and say, "Is there any truth to what's being said?" He will use that. 

Well, let's end with how can we encourage others?

In Acts 20:2, Paul travels to Macedonian, speaking many words of encouragement to the people amid an uproar. When I read that, I thought, "What a picture of our world today. Lots of folks are in an uproar." So everywhere we go, God goes with us, and He can use us to speak words of light into heavy and dark situations. 

The words we speak are critical. God gave us mouths to proclaim His beautiful deeds and to proclaim His good news into the life of people. We have to take courage because it says the Lord will save you if you put your trust in Him, and that's a tremendous encouragement to people. Paul says in Ephesians 4:29, "Speak what helps build others up according to their need that it may benefit those who listen." Not ours, but their need. 

Another way is by the words that we write. As you mentioned, some people might be introverted or not have a gift of comfortably sharing verbally, but they don't have to because writing can be just as powerful. Paul wrote letters. Acts 15:32 says, "The people read it, and we're glad for its encouraging message." 

In my office, I've got the most oversized three-ring binder you can imagine. It is filled with letters that I have received that have been an encouragement over the years. So occasionally, I will, if I'm struggling, read those letters and find them just as encouraging today as they were then. 

We're not talking about an obligatory note, but one where the love of God so swells up in our hearts that when we think of somebody else, the love of Christ leaks out of our pen. So, spiritually speaking, you're visualizing their needs, who they are, and then you want to be a mouthpiece for God to lift them. But by permeating the love of God in a way that people vicariously experience it, they just feel loved.

Are we the kind of people God can send to encourage someone by our presence, even if we don't know what to say? Maya Angelou said, “When you're dead and gone, people will not remember you by what you did or even said, but how you made them feel.” Everybody remembers how you make them feel.

Lastly, my favorite is by our smiles and our hugs. When we think of life without people, it wouldn't be much life. A man's face was built for smiles, and thereby he is blessed above the critters of the field, the birds, and all the rest. He's just a little lower than the angels in the skies. The reason is that he can smile, and therein God’s glory lies. 

A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks, and we all need a little help with that, or at least I do (laughs)! Mark Twain said, "Wrinkles merely indicate where your smiles have been." But, unfortunately, we don't smile and hug enough.

Paul, in Acts 21, not only spoke words of encouragement to believers in Macedonia, but the scripture says He embraced them; He hugged them. One of my favorite stories is about twin girls that were indifferent incubators when they were born. One was very healthy, and the other was dying. They broke all hospital rules to put both of the children in the same incubator. The healthy infant threw her arm over the sick infant, and all of the vital signs returned to normal within a day. The article was entitled “Rescuing Hug.” 

Let us not forget to embrace those we love, or those in need, encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious hearts, take courage, fear not, because the Lord is with you, and He will save you. 

TL;DR

• At the heart of being an encourager is being in relation with others. This allows us to really know people and notice what they need.

• An encourager is observant and will notice when someone is changing their patterns.

• Anyone can be an encourager. The most powerful form of encouragement is prayer, even if it’s an intercessory prayer in private.

• Encouragers are flexible and avoid rigidity to make themselves more available to be present for people in their need.

• One aspect of encouragement is avoiding slander. Disparaging talk about someone is the opposite of encouragement and unpleasing to the Lord.

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About Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis is church in East Memphis, Tennessee. For more than 65 years, Christ Church has served the Memphis community. Every weekend, there are multiple worship opportunities including traditional, contemporary and blended services.