Sending Path · Introduction to Serving · Lesson 3: Encouraging One Another · Encouraging One Another
This lesson in one sentence: Encouraging is everyone’s daily business: first just you and them, in a spirit of gentleness, aiming to win back a brother.
Timing (about 60 minutes)
- Opening5 min
- Read Together10 min
- Discussion30 min
- This Week10 min
- Pray for One Another5 min
Opening
Is there something someone once said to correct or encourage you that you were later grateful for?
Read Together
Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now, for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 · WEB
“If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.”
Matthew 18:15-17 · WEB
Exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called ‘today’
Hebrews 3:13 · WEB
Discussion
- “exhort one another day by day” (Hebrews 3:12-14)—why ‘day by day’? What could this look like in our relationships?
- “show him his fault between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15-17)—why first just you and him? What is the most common way we break this order?
- “you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself” (Galatians 6:1)—when you correct someone, what does ‘looking to yourself’ mean?
- “A gentle answer turns away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1)—when someone corrects you, how do you usually react?
This Week
Send a brother or sister a sentence of encouragement: name one specific good thing you have seen in them.
Each person decides whom they will encourage this week, and the one specific good thing they will name.
Closing
In pairs, pray one sentence for the person your partner will encourage.
Tips for the leader
- This lesson is not about teaching people to ‘catch others’ faults’. The focus is on encouragement, on gentleness, and on winning back a brother.
- The second half of the book’s answer to Question 71 speaks of ‘telling the church’, which churches handle differently; the group discusses only the first step: just you and him.
- Don’t discuss the faults of anyone who isn’t present.
General principles for leaders
- The leader is not a teacher but someone who walks alongside everyone.
- Give everyone a chance to speak; with someone who talks a lot, you can gently say, ‘Let’s also hear from friends who haven’t spoken yet.’
- Don’t rush to give answers. If someone is silent, wait a few more seconds.
- For a question you can’t answer, you can say, ‘I don’t know either; let’s look it up together,’ and note it down for next time.
- What is said in the group stays in the group.
- At the opening, the leader can give their own answer first, showing that it can be simple and honest.