Day 23 -- ENCOURAGE

Friends,

Today's topic mirrors the them I preached on this weekend of "How we help each other grow." I know from the feedback that I've received from many of you about the last two weeks of preaching that it has been connecting at a deep level. The things that seem obvious to us never are...and part of the bless of community is the opportunity to tease these things out so that we might see each other and how it is we flourish in relationships together better.

To briefly touch on the themes this morning, my premise was this: we all have the capacity to tend the garden of human community causing growth in each other. Like a garden that needs proper light, water, fertilizer, and attention, human communities generally and our relationships specifically need things to grow and thrive. Over the weekend I named for of these things.

They are...

• ACCEPTANCE: we not surprisingly come as we are, and a basic human need is that of being accepted as we are. This doesn't mean that we won't change and transform in relationship. Like an almond orchard, people's capacity for fruitfulness increases with maturity.

• ATTENTION: it's a general principle of life that what we give attention to (good and bad) grows and thrives, and what we take our attention away from withers. Like the plants in the Florida room, when we're giving them what they need and TLC, our relationships grow and thrive as do the people in them. Attention...quality time and investment is essential for growing relationships.

• AFFECTION: we won't touch things that disgust us. Somehow, hard wired into us as human beings is the need for affirming touch; the kind that communicates the "acceptance" and "attention" above. It says, "you're valuable" and worth connecting with. A UCLA study conducted under a decade ago discloses that adults need touch just like infants...as many as 8-10 meaningful touches a day. This could be a side ways squeeze from a friend, a kiss from a spouse, a fist bump from a freind, a pat on the shoulder or even a hand shake. All of these things affirm human connectedness and the value and worth of another. Being appropriately affectionate and attentive to each other is essential for thriving human life.

• APPRECIATION: there is nothing so powerful as a heartfelt thank you or statement of gratitude. Expressing appreciation for other human beings powerfully communicates humans worth, and inspires people that there presence in this life makes a difference and genuinely matters. At all three services this weekend as I talked about this point the congregation became strangely quiet. I think perhaps we simply don't have enough of these things in our lives at all. We are each thirsty for the expression of appreciation, and perhaps equally bad at expressing it to others. But like nothing else, appreciation is like sunshine in our lives. When it's presence, we rise to meet it and soak it up, and after we've absorbed it we stand taller, brighter, happier, healthier, and as though we have a renewed sense of purpose and reason for being.

There's quite a bit in all of this to digest. The things that I didn't tease out over the weekend that perhaps I should have is that each of these factors in human growth is grounded in our Holy Scriptures. This stuff isn't pop psychology or Dr. Phil come to church; it's the stuff of faith and life and falls squarely under the purview of the God that created us to thrive, and created us for each other to tend each other in relationships and community so that we really will grown and mature and be genuinely fruitful.

May you be green in your thumbs as you build each other up for faith and life this week.

And just so you know: I deeply, deeply appreciate you all...my new St. Stephen family. God loves you, and I do too!

Pastor Nathan