For the past 10 years, small group leaders
A steady seller that serves as a guide to 'biblical counseling'!

Will what I say really impact that person's life?
How can we encourage and lift up someone?
Our church restores people
Can you live a life of influential service?

“Every Christian is called to be an encourager!”

Not many people think of themselves as encouragers.
People with special talents and gifts are considered capable of encouraging and counseling others.
But as the verse emphasizes, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good deeds, … and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25), all Christians are called to encourage their brothers and sisters in the faith, regardless of their talents and gifts.
Therefore, we can be restored and grow into complete Christians by encouraging one another.


This book, written by Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, two of our time's leading biblical counselors, covers the basics of "biblical counseling." It persuasively presents what it means to encourage one another and how we can encourage one another in our local churches.
The encouragement they speak of is joining a person on his or her life's journey, helping him or her continue on that path even when obstacles and fatigue wear him or her down, and thus helping him or her grow further as a Christian.
We must encourage one another to experience Christ more deeply and to commit ourselves to deeper relationships with Christ and with others.


Drawing on the authors' personal experiences and insights from real-life counseling cases, this book offers practical help to Christian leaders seeking to restore those in need and encourage them to live lives of impactful worship and service.

When we have dinner with people at church, gather in small groups, or bump into each other in the parking lot after Sunday service, most of what we say is social.
Very few people realize that their words have great influence.
Why do our words lack power? Do our words really matter? How do we generally use language?
--- p.33, from “Chapter 3 Surface Community_ Obstacles to Encouragement”

Christians naturally live a life of sharing.
We share in God's holy nature, share in the one Holy Spirit, serve the same Lord, follow the same cause, obey the same word, and await the same destiny.
We must experience our common heritage of faith through fellowship.
But the concept of sharing was treated too cheaply.
So today, the meaning of sharing has been reduced to showing off oneself rather than revealing Christ to one another.
--- p.55, from “Chapter 4 Complete Openness_ Wrong Solution”

Sometimes God calls us to encourage people who make us uncomfortable and frustrated.
So we too will get angry and upset sometimes.
God calls us, imperfect as we are, to live in a world filled with problems and disappointments.
There will be times when you feel tense, discouraged, worried, guilty, and inadequate.
In the process of trying to be a person-centered encourager, you should not pretend not to know or suppress the emotions that are bubbling up like a volcano.
Although emotional suppression may seem spiritually mature to others (and thus deceive both yourself and the other person), it does not truly promote full maturity.
Oppression breeds oppression and deception.
People who are good at denying negative feelings are unable to say powerful words that deeply encourage others.
--- p.89, from “Chapter 7: When Should We Express Our Feelings”

When I decide to obey God, even though it means losing all my human relationships (acceptance, recognition, love, etc.), I am free from the fear that holds me back.
And only when I am free from the fear that the relationship might break up, will my motivation also take a big step towards love.
When someone I don't know is upset during Sunday Bible study, or when a close friend is mishandling a problem, my words, if grounded in love, will have the power to encourage.
Note this paradox.
“To love someone, you must be prepared to let your relationship with them break apart.” Clinging to someone or something other than God is ultimately idolatry.
The root of idolatry is fear of false gods.

--- p.107-108, from “Chapter 8 How Encouragement Works”