Down with the Encouragement Deficit
Is there an encouragement deficit? And—if so—how can we deal with it through our daily work?
A deficit involves shortage. There’s not enough to go around. The need goes unmet. And the need—when it comes to encouragement—never ends: “Encourage one another daily . . . so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Heb. 3:13).
My Shortsighted View
During my first decades as a Christian, I held a severely anemic view of this verse. While I endorsed encouraging fellow Christians, I did not even try to practice it that often.
Why? Because I applied the “one another” words just to the church folks I met with on Sundays. The “daily” part? Impossible. First, I saw those Christians only on weekends. Second, I had never met most of the congregation. And third, many of those I did know lived or worked many miles from where I did.
Then came the moment when I stopped seeing “daily” through the close-up, gathered-church lens. I began instead to see “daily” through the wide-angle, scattered-church lens. That spacious viewfinder brought all kinds of Christians in my neighborhood and my workplace into focus. They came from a variety of denominational or non-denominational tribes.
My blind spot had developed from a hyper-individualistic view of myself as a Christian in the scattered church. I was the valiant lone believer surrounded by agnostics, atheists, and those with weird religious ideas. I knew the by-myself songs, “Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone.” And “On the Jericho Road there's room for just two, no more and no less just Jesus and you.”
Work and One-Anothering in the Bible
It took too long, but I finally cued in on the ten words spoken about the worker in world’s first workplace: “It is not good for the man to be alone.” These words followed right after the first-ever job description—to work the Garden and take responsibility for it. Yes, God’s words set marriage in motion, but they also launched a best-practice for the workplace.
“Workplace Loneliness Is More Common Than You Think,” declares a headline in Inc. Magazine. This sense of isolation can be especially painful for Christians in the work world. A. W. Tozer describes such a condition: “The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians.”
What is God’s remedy for this spiritual loneliness on the job? The one-anothering Jesus calls for in his New Command. Flowing directly from that command, Hebrews 3:13 calls for daily, one-anothering encouragement.
Notice Jesus’ pattern in sending people on work assignments. When he needed a colt to ride into Jerusalem, he sent two to bring the animal (Mk. 11:1-2). For the work of reserving the room for the Last Supper, Jesus also sent a pair of disciples (Mk. 14:13). And he sent the seventy-two on their work errand as twosomes (Lk. 10:1).
The Holy Spirit continued Jesus’ practice. In Antioch, the Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). Not Saul solo, not Barnabas alone, but Barnabas and Saul sent to do the work together.
Christians who try to do their work alone can quickly run up an encouragement deficit. But together, they can “encourage one another daily.”
Daily Encouragement in Today’s Scattered-Church Workplaces?
“Not so fast,” someone might say. “Employers pay us for working, not for encouraging.” True. But within the workplace context, consider all the appropriate opportunities for encouragement. Before clocking in. Coffee breaks. Lunch hours. Talk-time while traveling together on work-related assignments. Hospitable invites home for meals.
“But I don’t know any other Christians in my work circles.” (That’s the contemporary version of Elijah’s “I’m the only one left,” complaint.) Solution: make it your serious mission to search out and discover fellow believers on the job. Begin with ask-seek-knock praying. Follow through with carefully crafted, open-ended questions. “What have you been reading?” “What’s gone wrong with our world?” “How do you spend your weekends?”
Listen for clues. On getting a possibly-positive signal, press in with follow-on questions. Without getting weird, let it be known where you stand.
Sue Warnke, as a new Christian working for Salesforce, put out a feeler email. Finally, after three weeks, one Christian woman responded. Then two. Then five. In time, this spread to more than ninety. Listen to her story here.
The Super Synergism
Yes, the Teacher reminds us, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Eccl. 4:12). But for Christians, the meeting of two or three in a workplace yields far more than the usual benefits of collaboration. As Jesus promises, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20). Does that remind you of three coworkers in the Babylonian furnace who became four?
Hello, encouragement surplus!
