Encourage Their Hearts
Later this week I’m boarding a plane at Dulles Airport to fly to Germany for a weeklong Mission Trip visiting some of our Ministry Partners with City to City Europe. I’m going with three others from City Church: Stephen Day, Carl Meyer, and my son, Reed. We’re going on this trip to deepen our relationship with these Ministry Partners, to encourage them in the grueling (and often thankless) work of church planting, and to pray with them.
Over the last several weeks as I’ve prepared for the trip, I’ve been reflecting on some of Paul’s letters in the New Testament. You see, Paul went on lots of missions trips. In fact, he pretty much invented the whole genre. In the letters he sent before and after his mission trips, we can learn a lot about what it looks like to create and cultivate gospel relationships of care and concern. But to learn about those relationships we have to pay attention to the parts of Paul’s letters that we’re prone to read quickly and forget or skip over entirely. We have to read the parts of his letters that are filled with the unfamiliar names we hope we’ll never have to read out loud in front of others: Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Fortunatus, Achiacus.
When we skip over these parts of the Bible, we miss out. We miss out on the depth of the gospel friendships that Paul started and sustained with churches through Europe and Asia during the earliest days of Christianity. Take Ephesians 6:21-22, for example: It says, “So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.”
Paul says something similar near the end of his letter to another church. In Colossians 4:7-9, he writes, “Tychicus will tell you all about my activities… I have sent him to you for this very purpose…. That he may encourage your hearts. And… tell of everything hat has taken place here.”
As Paul explains to the church why he’s sending Tychichus to these churches he highlights two reasons:
1. “So that you may know how I am and what I am doing … that you may know how we are.”
Paul is showing that true gospel partnership requires mutuality. It’s a theme Paul constantly strikes. He’s not sending Tychicus to evaluate the Ephesian church and submit a progress report. Sure, he wants to know what’s going in the community, but that’s not all. He also wants the believers in the church there to know about his life—his struggles and his successes, his sorrow and his joy, his weakness and his strength.
I’ll be honest, this is hard for me. It’s hard for me to live vulnerably before others. I’m happy to ask about another person and listen to what’s going in their life. It’s harder for me to open up about what I’m doing, where I’m feeling stressed or anxious or free. But through my years as a pastor I’ve been learning that this as an essential part of gospel friendship.
As a pastor one of my least favorite questions to answer is, “How is City Church?”* Part of me bristles at the inherent comparison I feel within that question. It always feels like I’ve got to describe stuff at City Church in a way that stacks up well against other churches. But I’m realizing that I also struggle with the question because I’m from New England where I was bred to not talk about myself (or much of anything else for that matter). I may not have been reared to talk about myself, but gospel partnership demands it. Letting people into the details of City Church is how we let them into our lives and our hearts.
2. “That he may encourage your hearts.”
The second reason Paul gives for sending Tychicus to the Ephesians and Colossians is that their hearts need to be encouraged. Paul’s anthropology is sound. He knows that human hearts need encouragement. We need this encouragement because life drains our hearts. We’re all so easily discouraged. Especially those in ministry; even more especially those involved in church planting in the most secular cities of Germany, which is exactly the work City to City is doing.
Our little team of Christians from Richmond is flying across the ocean to let church planters and launch team members and small group leaders in Germany know that their work matters. To remind them that they are beloved children of God. To build them up with the words of the gospel: God’s favor rests on them. We’re going so we can listen and learn from them. We’re going so we can pray for them, calling down the power of heaven to bring encouragement to the places in their hearts that have iced over with doubt or cynicism.
Why am I headed to Germany this week? For the same reasons Paul went on mission trips and the same reasons he sent other people on mission trips: in order to deepen our mutual knowledge of each other and to encourage their hearts. It’s good and important work we’re doing. We’re confident that it will be a blessing for us, for our partners with City to City D-A-CH, and for City Church. I hope you’ll pray for us while we’re gone. And I hope you’ll ask us about it when we get back. It may just be the encouragement your hearts need.
*Truth be told, my absolute least favorite question is when people abbreviate the question to “How is City?”