With this post, I am launching the new and improved version
of The Electric Gospel.
For Christmas, one of my daughters set up a new site (with expanded
possibilities) for hosting this blog. I credit her with site design and with
doing much of the work of moving over archives of past devotional writings. The
Christmas gift, a labor of love, was my daughter’s way of encouraging me to
keep writing, to keep working at offering spiritual encouragement to others. If
you’re reading this on the original Electric Gospel blog page, I invite you to
visit the new site
and enter your email there to subscribe for receiving new posts.
In launching the new site, I had thought about re-posting an
updated version of something from the archives, such as a New Year’s
post (from 2015) or a Martin Luther King Jr. Day post (from 2019). But you
can get at those posts in the archives (follow those links).
A better way to begin the new version of The Electric Gospel is
to post something new. Thinking of my daughter’s much-appreciated
encouragement to me--as well as the intention of the blog--it seems
appropriate to speak about encouraging one another in faith and hope. If you
wish to post a reply at the new site, please do!
Encourage one another
by David Sellnow
When I was doing college teaching, I made a habit of
offering encouragement to students individually. Sometimes it was about a spark
of spiritual energy I saw evident in them. Some I urged onward in their writing
or other forms of creative expression, because they had talents to be explored.
In many cases, I encountered young adults who felt out of place, who had
questions or doubts, who weren’t sure the answers they were being told were
consistent and true. Perhaps they were willing to share their doubts and
wonderings with me because I was one who wondered along with them, a fellow
learner, not someone who seemed to know all already.
On one occasion, I sent an email to a freshman student who
had been offering novel insights in a history course. I encouraged her to
continue sharing her thoughts, which were elevating the level of discourse in our classroom. Not long after receiving the email, the student came to my office,
in tears. She was overcome with emotion, she said, because this was the first
time in her life that a teacher had praised her work. I thought perhaps she was
exaggerating, but her story was compelling. She had been raised in church
schools where errors were duly noted and corrections expected. Perfect
papers got praise. Her assignments mostly got marked up with red ink, pointing
out every imperfection. She felt dismissed and disregarded by teachers, labeled
as an underperformer. Her confidence and desire to do well diminished year by
year due to the lack of positive attention.
We’d like to think of church settings as places where seldom
is heard a discouraging word. Sadly, often much discouragement occurs.
This is at odds with God’s gospel imperative to provide ongoing spiritual
support. “Encourage one another and
build each other up, just as in fact you are doing,” Paul wrote to the
Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:11). It’s good that the Christians at
Thessalonica were in the habit of encouraging one another. We do well when we
follow their lead. In a similar vein, a
writer to early Jewish believers urged them, “Let us consider how we may spur
one another on toward love and good deeds … encouraging one another—and all the
more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24,25). Those Christians
were enduring difficult times. But they
held onto each other in faith and looked ahead to Christ’s return. The letter writer reminded them how they had
“endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly
exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with
those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully
accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you
yourselves had better and lasting possessions” (Hebrews 10:32-34).
Mutual encouragement is especially important when enduring
hard times, injustices, or oppression. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
(April 1963), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., decried the lack of support from
mainline churches for African Americans who were being deprived of their
rights. How could this be, in a nation founded on the principle that all
persons “are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights” (Declaration of Independence)? King wrote: “The contemporary church is so often a weak,
ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of
the status quo. Far from being disturbed
by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is
consoled by the church's often vocal sanction of things as they are.” Establishment churches were good at
supporting and encouraging themselves within the circle of privilege and
prosperity. They were ignoring the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the
despised. King pointed to the people on the front lines of the civil
rights movement who supported one another faithfully as they struggled to
achieve liberty and justice for all. One day the country will know, King said,
“that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they
were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most
sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.”
If you are someone enduring struggles or suffering, I pray The Electric Gospel
blog can become a source of encouragement to you. Fill out the “Contact Us”
form if there’s a specific concern on your heart that might be addressed here.
If you know someone in need of spiritual encouragement, by
all means, reach out, speak out, help out. Let that person know they have a
friend on their side and by their side. Don’t let anyone continue to be
starved of needed praise and support in a world full of criticism and
judgment. We are called to be there for
one another. As the proverb reminds us: “Two are better than one …. If either
of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and
has no one to help them up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).
Dear God, help us to help one another and lift each other
up, in Jesus’ name.
All Bible quotations from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by
permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
