Encourage One Another

For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gifts to strengthen you - or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Rom. 1: 11 - 12

Paul's letter to the Romans touches a chord that for so many becomes one of the best parts of being a Christian. It is more than fellowship, and more than encouragement. It is a strengthening of one another with spiritual gifts so that our faith is nourished and continues to grow.

Within a period of 6 years, our family moved twice into a new community. One may not see a great deal of similarity in the communities themselves. The first was a rather affluent suburb in America and the other was our current community in Arusha, Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world. However, our objective in settling into each community was identical, "Establish our base." By our base we meant a group of people with whom we shared similar values and beliefs, and in both cases, the likely meeting place for these people was in a church. We felt the need to be energized or fulfilled by other people with whom we could relate. We knew that the stress of a new place, new job, and new people would take its toll on us, and we needed encouragement from others. We also new that we had gifts to share with our community, and that the community might in some way benefit by our sharing of these gifts.

In I Corinthians 12, Paul discusses the spiritual gifts of a community. Everyone has unique gifts. Some have gifts in healing, while others are skilled in sport. Some excel in music while others have a gift in public speaking. The differences in the gifts are numerous but their commonality is that All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit Chooses. I Cor. 12:11. Individual gifts are both tangible and intangible, and the intangible gifts provide strength and encouragement to ourselves and others. If an entire community were made of people with the same gifts, not only would it be an extremely boring place but it would certainly fail.

Be mutually encouraged by each other's faith is the theme for the upcoming Lutheran Mission Cooperation (LMC) meetings in June, and for the assembly in October. These meetings involve LMC members from Tanzania, The United States, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland and the focus is on the monitoring and evaluation of the programs implemented through decisions made jointly by the membership of LMC. As one would expect, there are certainly challenges and sometimes barriers that can be attributed to language or cultural differences. However, those barriers crumble when the community realizes the strength in diversity that exists through our members. The different talents or gifts of each member are indeed activated by the spirit allowing the community to benefit fruitfully. It is both the diversity of the membership, and the common mission that make LMC a viable forum for joint decision-making in the church.

We are looking forward to these upcoming meetings, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. Please keep all of the meeting participants in your prayers. We are also looking forward to developing our relationship with you, our supporting congregations, so that we may mutually be encouraged by each other's faith.

Your Servants in Christ,
Dan and Cathy Smith

********************************************
Dan, Cathy, Sarah, Emily and Grace Smith
PO BOX 15128
Arusha
Tanzania
http://www.goodshepherdkettering.com/pages/mission.html
smithfam91@yahoo.com
or
missionaries@goodshepherdkettering.com
********************************************