What do you do when someone sends you a kind note?  Write back?  Or maybe pay kindness forward by writing someone else?  No doubt you display the thoughtful card or note in some prominent place.  Perhaps, the refrigerator or your desk or the dining room table.   As days and weeks pass those notes continue their work of encouragement.   

But then what?  What do you do with those cards when something new needs their space? We feel guilty throwing them away.  Or putting them away in some forgotten box.  They are too precious, as are the kind souls who sent them, to simply discard.  But we can’t display them forever. 

A wise pastor-mentor offered a novel solution.  He instructed me to create a folder in my filing cabinet labeled, “Mr. Wonderful.”  And whenever a card needed a more permanent place to go, it would go into this file.  He noted that, “as a pastor you will receive plenty of criticism over this thing or that, but on those days when the criticism of ministry hangs heavy, you go to your file and remember the encouragement some kind soul offered you in response to your care for them.  Remember that there was a day when you were ‘Mr. Wonderful.’”   We all have days when we need to remember past encouragements and kindnesses.  Days when we were someone’s Mr. or Ms. Wonderful.

As believers we are called to be encouragers.  While some are gifted encouragers, the Biblical command to encourage others is not limited to just the eloquent or the sensitive.  And our encouragement is not just for those who are struggling.  Sometimes the faithful believer needs a word of encouragement to keep on keeping on.  Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica to  “encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”  Who are you encouraging?  Who are you building up?

The little letter of 3 John contains only 219 words.  By that count it is the shortest book in the New Testament.  It is also the only New Testament epistle addressed to one specific person.  Though, no doubt it was also intended to be shared with the church.  Despite its brevity it is full of encouragement for Gaius, a faithful earlier believer, of whom the New Testament tells us nothing else.  And while there are some particular concerns touched on in the letter regarding the church, the thrust of 3 John is its encouragement to Gaius.

From John’s shortest recorded letter, we glean important ways we can encourage one another.  Not to mention the exhortation for us to take seriously our duty to encourage faithful believers in their walk, their service, and their participation in the life of the church.

Join us as we examine 3 John 1:1-15 and consider John’s example of how we should encourage faithful believers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.