Our Daily Bread: This Far By FaithExemplo

Community Encouragement

The familiar sound of chatter filled the basement. This kind of fellowship—eating food and having conversations, sitting around casually together while also learning—filled my Sunday nights with the ones I call family. Eventually, our evening conversations would shift into a time of sharing at a deeper level the joys and struggles of our lives, including in our marriages, families, and other significant relationships. We would partner wise direction with affirmations for each individual. At the end of the night, each of could leave with encouragement as well as guidance on how to grow spiritually. 

True community enables trust and vulnerability. As Paul encouraged those in the growing body of believers, Christians are uniquely called to “really love others” (Romans 12:9.) 

Benjamin Elijah Mays is a classic example of a person who cultivated the kind of community of encouragement that Paul described, one where believers have: “the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had” (Romans 15:5 NIV). This mentor and Morehouse professor’s influence spread across decades of leaders, most notably his student Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he encouraged to love and build up others in community.

We build each other in Christian community up by loving one another, fellowshipping and sharpening each other (Acts 2:42). When we follow Jesus’s example of walking with others and pouring into them, we build the kind of community that points to Him. -Chelsea Moore

The power of an encouraging community helps us and reflects Christ.