Would you like to encourage fellow believers in their daily walk of living out new life in Christ? Sometimes we each feel we are on our own, and we’re stuck in the same old patterns of our faith life.
Perhaps, like me, you will appreciate fresh evidence of Christ’s Spirit at work bringing new insights and energy to his church people, especially those in your own congregation. The Spirit is God’s empowering presence with us now, wanting to call us into new ministries, enlighten us with new insights and help us grow closer to God. Recognizing the Spirit active among us can give hope for fresh energy.
Such encouraging conversation is what Martin Luther had in mind when he listed “the mutual conversation and encouragement of brethren” as a fifth means of grace.
Here is what he said in the Smalcald Articles of 1537. “We return to the Gospel, which offers counsel and help against sin in more than one way, for God is surpassingly rich in his grace: First, through the spoken word, by which the forgiveness of sin is preached to the whole world; second; through Baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of keys; and finally, through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren.”
For him, such conversation and encouragement were right up there with the sacraments in importance. What kind of conversations did Luther have that were so encouraging?
Luther was an Augustinian monk who lived in their monastery during his early years as a professor in Wittenberg. As the movement progressed, the monks disbanded, while Luther continued to live there with his wife and growing family. Students and visitors occupied the empty monk cells. All shared a common meal at which Luther presided. Students began taking notes of his comments, published as Luther’s Table Talks.
Imagine the danger Luther faced and the heavy load of preaching and teaching he did. Obviously, he appreciated those daily supportive conversations around the table.
Christians in America are not in physical danger yet. But those in declining congregations can easily begin feeling lonely in an increasingly hostile culture. Is the Spirit really at work today like he was in Bible times?
Encourage others by identifying your own experiences as the Spirit leads you into new faith insights and brings fresh energy for your ministries. He can do that for others also. Share times when the Spirit pulled you closer to God and you experienced the Spirit’s fruit of new levels of the love, joy, peace and trust the Spirit wants to produce in you. Naming those as special encounters with the Spirit will seem strange at first; that’s not been done in our mainline Protestant church cultures.
Then share your encounters with fellow believers, especially those in your church. They can benefit from your evidence, and you from theirs. You may think your encounter too insignificant or too personal to share. Take a step of faith and share anyhow—not for your sake but to encourage others. With time, the Spirit may help you seek more.
Name, Share, Seek More. This is a wonderful way to bring more excitement into your personal faith life and to demonstrate the Spiritual energy that makes a congregation exciting to others.
Of course, such an ongoing conversation is difficult to accomplish in the busy lifestyles of today. But one way you can do it is through a virtual online community for your church, and for congregations all across the country. That’s why I am in the process of developing a free platform through which congregations can have their own virtual communities to Name, Share and Seek More evidence of lives changed for the better by God’s Spirit. This new website should go live in the next month and you’ll be the first to know!
Then share your encounters with fellow believers, especially those in your church. They can benefit from your evidence, and you from theirs. You may think your encounter too insignificant or too personal to share. Take a step of faith and share anyhow—not for your sake but to encourage others. With time, the Spirit may help you seek more.
Name, Share, Seek More. This is a wonderful way to bring more excitement into your personal faith life and to demonstrate the Spiritual energy that makes a congregation exciting to others.
Of course, such an ongoing conversation is difficult to accomplish in the busy lifestyles of today. But one way you can do it is through a virtual online community for your church, and for congregations all across the country. That’s why I am in the process of developing a free platform through which congregations can have their own virtual communities to Name, Share and Seek More evidence of lives changed for the better by God’s Spirit. This new website should go live in the next month and you’ll be the first to know so stay tuned!
This is great, Pastor Dave! Believers can live in the adventure of the Spirit of Jesus as it is very exciting to hear accounts from others about God at work in their lives. Bless you for creating a platform to share adventures!
Thanks, Judy. Turns out the technical difficulties of program what I have in mind are challenging. Today is a session to go overpossibilities with the technical people. I am very eager to get this launched.
Exciting stuff…we do this every week in the form of ” God Sightings” and it’s awesome…thanks for the encouragement!
Yes, sharing God sightings is basic. Glad you and your people are find this exciting. Can you share some of the God sightings that have been reported? Confidentiality is always an issue. But we do need models.
Pastor Dave, just prayed for your the Lord to continue and encourage you in your efforts.
I am
Looking forward to participating!
Thanks, Mike. The technical challenge of getting the platform for the kind of online faith community I have in mind has been greater than anyone expected. Still working on it.
This is where congregants need to hear more sermons regarding this spiritual phenomena. We need the encouragement from our pastors and even stories of their own spiritual moments. Not to be insulting, but basically, it is a case of monkey see monkey do. When we hear our own pastors talk about such experiences, you will see more congregants doing it.
Yes, Jeanne, I agree that these kinds of relationships have to be modeled.
At the present time our lead pastor has taken a call. The congregation would benefit from gaining insight into what it means to mutually engage and support one another. As a current member of the Church Council it anticipate this book will assist us at a time when our spiritual life has, IMO, grown stale.
It is interesting that you refer to stale spiritual life. That is accurate for many congregations. Yet the Spirit wants to foster new life, new relationships, new insights. I hope over time I will hear about individual congregational efforts that I can highlight for others. “Snall group ministry” is the current phrase to accomplish deeper relationships. In my experience this is really hard to accomplish beyond a small percentage of the congregation. My hope is to make online community happen, but technically this has been hard to program. Still working on it.
Certainly valuable to share the Spirit’s work in your life with others to encourage them also in their walk. However, I believe Luther was referring more to the process of mutual confession and absolution, yes a means of grace, sacrament like in effect. Too little of this is done today resulting in buildup of unconfessed sins and thereby wounded spiritual lives.
Yes, as a Catholic priest Luther appreciated individual confession and absolution. Yes, there is much value in that today. This formal practice has not gained much traction in our times. I do think Luther had more in mind in terms of “mutual.” We could call it informal friendships. He certainly had lots of friends and supporters in Wittenburg. My ambition is to help such friendships grow in a congregation beyond the level of the kind of small talk you could find among any grouping of people.